So I have finally built my NAS. I used an N100 CPU because I saw it has low power consumption.
Right now I have 2 NVMe SSDs and 2 HDDs. I have installed proxmox on the 2 SSDs as RAID1. I have not partitioned the HDDs yet, they are just plugged in and powered on.
Just booting into proxmox, without any VMs or containers running, I am pulling 45W from the wall. This looks super high to me, and I’m afraid that starting to use the HDDs and running some VMs may double this…
I don’t have much references, but I have an Odroid with an external self-powered HDD, it is using 5W. I have a raspberry pi 4 with an external HDD, the raspberry is pulling 3W and the HDD 3W.
With these data, I was thinking I wouldn’t go over 20W. 45W is enormous and not something I can run 24/7, kind of a fail for a NAS…
Have I done something wrong or is it just how much it’s supposed to pull?
Edit: I have come across powertop. Using the auto tune, I was able to drop to 33-35W. I have unplugged the HDDs and dropped to 22W. I guess I cannot go lower, this may be because of the PSU or the 2 NVMe
Have a look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPSuCbS-4P0
TL:DR; The ‘rating’ of a PSU (ie; Gold, Platinum), has very little to do with efficiency at lower power like 20-40W, and this person has compiled a list of tests for a bunch of models to show which ones are good at low power.
This is amazing, thank you!
And now this confirms that my current PSU is terrible…
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=TPSuCbS-4P0
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