Hi All
This question might be better in a more dedicated forum. but I know there is
a lot of expertise here...

I have a Supermicro 2U server which I use as an (overkill) home server. It sits in
a metal cabinet in the garage. Jaimie Vandenbergh of this borough kindly
helped me with some RAM a also some CPU testing couple of years ago.

In these days of high electricity pricing I am looking to ways of reducing its
power consumption. It is always going to be on the high side, and I have taken
some step already, but I'm curious about a couple of further options.

The main steps I have taken from stock are:
- using only one of the redundant PSUs (see blow)
- although it's a 12-bay unit I am only using six of the bays. One of the reasons
I bought the server was to consolidate my collection of hard drives; I hope to
reduce it to five or even four soon
- I run 'ipmitool' to run the fans at a lower speed. This is as much to keep the
noise down as the power consumption.
- I've just recently added disk spindown time via hdparm.

With these steps, the server is currently taking something like 110W to 120W.
I'd like to reduce it a bit more if possible.

One option that occurs to me is to fit a less powerful PSU.
I presume that (in general) models of Supermicro PSUs can be swapped
between chassis. I have two "920W silent" PSUs; ignoring the redundancy,
either one of which is clearly overkill for my needs.

I don't know how much of my 120W is wasted by the PSU. If I were to be
able to find a (say) 500W PSU which would fit etc, any idea of the likely
reduction in power consumption this might give me?

Thanks for any thoughts
Jon N

On 22 May 2022 at 21:46:13 BST, "jkn" <jkn_gg@nicorp.f9.co.uk> wrote:

>
> the server is currently taking something like 110W to 120W.
> I'd like to reduce it a bit more if possible.
>
> One option that occurs to me is to fit a less powerful PSU.
> I presume that (in general) models of Supermicro PSUs can be swapped
> between chassis. I have two "920W silent" PSUs; ignoring the redundancy,
> either one of which is clearly overkill for my needs.
>
> I don't know how much of my 120W is wasted by the PSU.

I think this is the bit you'd need to find out - the efficiency of the PSU. If
it's near 100% (unlikely!) then there'd be little point in looking for
alternatives, and you'd have to be looking for savings elsewhere.

> If I were to be
> able to find a (say) 500W PSU which would fit etc, any idea of the likely
> reduction in power consumption this might give me?
>
> Thanks for any thoughts
> Jon N

--
Cheers, Rob

On Sunday, May 22, 2022 at 10:00:18 PM UTC+1, RJH wrote:
> On 22 May 2022 at 21:46:13 BST, "jkn" <jkn...@nicorp.f9.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >
> > the server is currently taking something like 110W to 120W.
> > I'd like to reduce it a bit more if possible.
> >
> > One option that occurs to me is to fit a less powerful PSU.
> > I presume that (in general) models of Supermicro PSUs can be swapped
> > between chassis. I have two "920W silent" PSUs; ignoring the redundancy,
> > either one of which is clearly overkill for my needs.
> >
> > I don't know how much of my 120W is wasted by the PSU.
> I think this is the bit you'd need to find out - the efficiency of the PSU. If
> it's near 100% (unlikely!) then there'd be little point in looking for
> alternatives, and you'd have to be looking for savings elsewhere.
> > If I were to be
> > able to find a (say) 500W PSU which would fit etc, any idea of the likely
> > reduction in power consumption this might give me?
> >
> > Thanks for any thoughts
> > Jon N
> --
> Cheers, Rob

Hi Rob
yes indeed, it's looking like I need to check model numbers etc. a bit.
I will currently be running in the ~10--15% usage range, which (from a bit
further reading) is not the best sort of loading for these PSUs.

OTOH, this sort of chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/80_Plus

seems to show that some grades of PSUs are pretty good even at that
sort of %age.

so (making up figures), if my current PSU is 85% efficient at
current load, I am losing maybe 20W. If I changed to a 450W one
with 95% efficiency ... I might get back half of that.

10W over a year is what, these days: 25 quid? Hmm...

J^n

RJH wrote:

> jkn wrote:
>
>> I don't know how much of my 120W is wasted by the PSU.
>
> I think this is the bit you'd need to find out - the efficiency of the PSU.

Really rough rule of thumb, if the PSU is providing at least 20% of its maximum
power, then it'll be operating at at least 80% efficiency

So your 2x 920W PSUs are probably quite inefficient supplying 60W each.

On Sunday, May 22, 2022 at 10:41:18 PM UTC+1, Andy Burns wrote:
> RJH wrote:
> > jkn wrote:
> >
> >> I don't know how much of my 120W is wasted by the PSU.
> >
> > I think this is the bit you'd need to find out - the efficiency of the PSU.
> Really rough rule of thumb, if the PSU is providing at least 20% of its maximum
> power, then it'll be operating at at least 80% efficiency
>
> So your 2x 920W PSUs are probably quite inefficient supplying 60W each.
Hi Andy
I'm only using one of the PSUs. I only mentioned I had two for completeness...

J^n

On 23 May 2022 at 00:00:30 BST, "jkn" <jkn_gg@nicorp.f9.co.uk> wrote:

> On Sunday, May 22, 2022 at 10:41:18 PM UTC+1, Andy Burns wrote:
>> RJH wrote:
>>> jkn wrote:
>>>
>>>> I don't know how much of my 120W is wasted by the PSU.
>>>
>>> I think this is the bit you'd need to find out - the efficiency of the PSU.
>> Really rough rule of thumb, if the PSU is providing at least 20% of its maximum
>> power, then it'll be operating at at least 80% efficiency
>>
>> So your 2x 920W PSUs are probably quite inefficient supplying 60W each.
> Hi Andy
> I'm only using one of the PSUs. I only mentioned I had two for completeness...
>
> J^n

I don't know about the Supermicro, but the Dell and HP servers I've
always worked with have one PSU hot and one on standby rather than
splitting it, so there's probably not a lot you can do there -
diminishing returns, you might save 20W as you say but spend £££ on
replacement PSUs.

With my Dell R520 NAS, I took one CPU out - 30W better. Then disabled
all but 4 of the CPU cores on the remaining one, disabled
hyperthreading, took out the onboard RAID card, disabled the spare NICs,
and that saved another 20w or so. In the firmware I told it to
prioritise low power usage, got some more there. With four HDDs in, it
currently measures 70W at the wall.

Which is okay but still wastefully expensive (each watt over a year =
£2.50 currently so almost £200), so I mostly turn it off and power it up
remotely when I want it then shut it off (or it hits 1am and shuts
itself off).

Annoying, isn't it?

Cheers - Jaimie
--
Being english is like visiting a zoo where all the
animals are other english people, in the rain.
-- Cyriak Harris

On 23 May 2022 at 00:15:20 BST, "Jaimie Vandenbergh"
<jaimie@usually.sessile.org> wrote:

> mostly turn it off and power it up
> remotely when I want it then shut it off (or it hits 1am and shuts
> itself off).
>

Yup. I've got my NAS to do exactly that. It was using a big proportion of the
household electricity - c.10%.

> Annoying, isn't it?

Yes. On those occasions when I want to access some music say. Annoying I can't
get an iPhone app to do the wake-on-LAN thing - the desktop one works fine, in
a crude/effective way (Wakeoncommand). Any phone app recommendations?

--
Cheers, Rob

On 23 May 2022 at 00:43:30 BST, "RJH" <patchmoney@gmx.com> wrote:

> On 23 May 2022 at 00:15:20 BST, "Jaimie Vandenbergh"
> <jaimie@usually.sessile.org> wrote:
>
>> mostly turn it off and power it up
>> remotely when I want it then shut it off (or it hits 1am and shuts
>> itself off).
>>
>
> Yup. I've got my NAS to do exactly that. It was using a big proportion of the
> household electricity - c.10%.
>
>> Annoying, isn't it?
>
> Yes. On those occasions when I want to access some music say. Annoying I can't
> get an iPhone app to do the wake-on-LAN thing - the desktop one works fine, in
> a crude/effective way (Wakeoncommand). Any phone app recommendations?

Fraid not - I use ipmitool for waking mine, either wrappered in an app
using Script Editor or on the command line.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
Tetris has taught me that accomplishments disappear and mistakes pile up.

Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:

> I don't know about the Supermicro, but the Dell and HP servers I've
> always worked with have one PSU hot and one on standby rather than
> splitting it

Are you sure? Pretty sure HP servers run both power supplies in load-balanced
mode, unless you configure them for high-efficiency mode, when they do place one
in standby.

On 22/05/2022 21:46, jkn wrote:
> Hi All
> This question might be better in a more dedicated forum. but I know there is
> a lot of expertise here...
>
> I have a Supermicro 2U server which I use as an (overkill) home server. It sits in
> a metal cabinet in the garage. Jaimie Vandenbergh of this borough kindly
> helped me with some RAM a also some CPU testing couple of years ago.
>

It depends on what you are serving, but for a lot of stuff the Raspberry
Pi 4b is a good enough server and only 2 or 3 watts.

Some Intel chips are more powerful than the Raspberry Pi, and only 10 or
so watts when in a NUC system. SSD disks only really consume energy when
in use.

I guess 1 watt costs about £2.5 a year. So 120 watts always on is about
£270 pounds per year. So you have a fair bit of scope to change your
hardware.

On Monday, May 23, 2022 at 12:15:23 AM UTC+1, Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:
> On 23 May 2022 at 00:00:30 BST, "jkn" <jkn...@nicorp.f9.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > On Sunday, May 22, 2022 at 10:41:18 PM UTC+1, Andy Burns wrote:
> >> RJH wrote:
> >>> jkn wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> I don't know how much of my 120W is wasted by the PSU.
> >>>
> >>> I think this is the bit you'd need to find out - the efficiency of the PSU.
> >> Really rough rule of thumb, if the PSU is providing at least 20% of its maximum
> >> power, then it'll be operating at at least 80% efficiency
> >>
> >> So your 2x 920W PSUs are probably quite inefficient supplying 60W each..
> > Hi Andy
> > I'm only using one of the PSUs. I only mentioned I had two for completeness...
> >
> > J^n
> I don't know about the Supermicro, but the Dell and HP servers I've
> always worked with have one PSU hot and one on standby rather than
> splitting it, so there's probably not a lot you can do there -
> diminishing returns, you might save 20W as you say but spend £££ on
> replacement PSUs.
>
> With my Dell R520 NAS, I took one CPU out - 30W better. Then disabled
> all but 4 of the CPU cores on the remaining one, disabled
> hyperthreading, took out the onboard RAID card, disabled the spare NICs,
> and that saved another 20w or so. In the firmware I told it to
> prioritise low power usage, got some more there. With four HDDs in, it
> currently measures 70W at the wall.
>
> Which is okay but still wastefully expensive (each watt over a year =
> £2.50 currently so almost £200), so I mostly turn it off and power it up
> remotely when I want it then shut it off (or it hits 1am and shuts
> itself off).
>
> Annoying, isn't it?
>
> Cheers - Jaimie

Hi Jamie
yeah, I think I've done most of those things (though I must double-check
sometime...). I am thinking of going the same route as you,
powering it down overnight etc.

I wouldn't mind, but it runs the radio I listen to in the morning (via
Logitech Media Server), so I need to have something to switch it
on in the morning. I have other lower-powered devices running 24/7
so I can do it via that.

And then there are the occasions when I want it to run overnight because
I am downloading something, or something else server-ry...

RJH mentions phone apps ... I guess I could use this as an excuse to
get into the modern age and set up some scripting thing on my 'phone,
but I am a bit of a Luddite and life seems too short...

J^n

On 23 May 2022 at 07:38:08 BST, "Andy Burns" <usenet@andyburns.uk>
wrote:

> Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:
>
>> I don't know about the Supermicro, but the Dell and HP servers I've
>> always worked with have one PSU hot and one on standby rather than
>> splitting it
>
> Are you sure? Pretty sure HP servers run both power supplies in load-balanced
> mode, unless you configure them for high-efficiency mode, when they do place one
> in standby.

HE is what I default to setting all mine to :)

Cheers - Jaimie
--
There's no limit to the amount of work someone can do,
provided it's not the work they're supposed to be doing.

On 23 May 2022 at 07:55:47 BST, "Pancho" <Pancho.Jones@proton.me> wrote:

> On 22/05/2022 21:46, jkn wrote:
>> Hi All
>> This question might be better in a more dedicated forum. but I know there is
>> a lot of expertise here...
>>
>> I have a Supermicro 2U server which I use as an (overkill) home server. It sits in
>> a metal cabinet in the garage. Jaimie Vandenbergh of this borough kindly
>> helped me with some RAM a also some CPU testing couple of years ago.
>>
>
> It depends on what you are serving, but for a lot of stuff the Raspberry
> Pi 4b is a good enough server and only 2 or 3 watts.

Yeah, I've considered that too - feels like a silly solution though. I'd
have to pick what to put on the Pi, and I'd have to script up some
automatic "power up nightly and copy changes to real NAS" mechanism.

Plus Pi's are deeply hard to find just now!

Cheers - Jaimie

--
There's no limit to the amount of work someone can do,
provided it's not the work they're supposed to be doing.

jkn <jkn_gg@nicorp.f9.co.uk> wrote:
> One option that occurs to me is to fit a less powerful PSU.
> I presume that (in general) models of Supermicro PSUs can be swapped
> between chassis. I have two "920W silent" PSUs; ignoring the redundancy,
> either one of which is clearly overkill for my needs.

Hard to know, but I have a Lenovo TS440 server (E5-1225v3) which has dual
450W PSUs. If I plug in only one it'll idle at 40W with a SAS RAID card in
it, so probably a bit less without. So it's possible to have a hotswap PSU
that isn't thirsty.

I think a lot of idle power comes from things which are powered and not
doing anything - RAM, PCI cards, drives, motherboard components. I'd go
through and try to cut down everything you can.

I recently revived my old Gen7 microserver which is about 20W, or 40W with
4 HDD spinning. I think any kind of server big iron is not ideal for low
power use, just by dint of all the extra stuff on the board.
Laptop/desktop stuff is better.

(currently pondering a Ryzen APU as its longer term replacement)

> I don't know how much of my 120W is wasted by the PSU. If I were to be
> able to find a (say) 500W PSU which would fit etc, any idea of the likely
> reduction in power consumption this might give me?

Most server PSUs are 12V output only. So you might be able to power it from
an external source of 12V with some wiring hackery. Does your server have a
hotswap PCB at the back of the PSU where the PSU edge connector is turned
into a bundle of ATX-style wires? If the mobo has a standard ATX power
connector you could try a smallish desktop PSU and see if that improves
things.

(or even a picoPSU, although I'd watch for peak startup currents)

Theo

On 22/05/2022 21:46, jkn wrote:
> I have a Supermicro 2U server which I use as an (overkill) home server. It sits in
> a metal cabinet in the garage.

Something really different - move it into the house.

Yes, the noise may be a problem, but if it's in a habitable space at
least the power helps keep the house warm!

Andy

jkn <jkn_gg@nicorp.f9.co.uk> wrote:
> Hi All
> This question might be better in a more dedicated forum. but I know there is
> a lot of expertise here...
>
> I have a Supermicro 2U server which I use as an (overkill) home server. It sits in
> a metal cabinet in the garage. Jaimie Vandenbergh of this borough kindly
> helped me with some RAM a also some CPU testing couple of years ago.
>
> In these days of high electricity pricing I am looking to ways of reducing its
> power consumption. It is always going to be on the high side, and I have taken
> some step already, but I'm curious about a couple of further options.
>
> The main steps I have taken from stock are:
> - using only one of the redundant PSUs (see blow)
> - although it's a 12-bay unit I am only using six of the bays. One of the reasons
> I bought the server was to consolidate my collection of hard drives; I hope to
> reduce it to five or even four soon
> - I run 'ipmitool' to run the fans at a lower speed. This is as much to keep the
> noise down as the power consumption.
> - I've just recently added disk spindown time via hdparm.
>
> With these steps, the server is currently taking something like 110W to 120W.
> I'd like to reduce it a bit more if possible.
>
> One option that occurs to me is to fit a less powerful PSU.
> I presume that (in general) models of Supermicro PSUs can be swapped
> between chassis. I have two "920W silent" PSUs; ignoring the redundancy,
> either one of which is clearly overkill for my needs.
>
> I don't know how much of my 120W is wasted by the PSU. If I were to be
> able to find a (say) 500W PSU which would fit etc, any idea of the likely
> reduction in power consumption this might give me?
>
> Thanks for any thoughts

What's the cpu? Some older server cpus run full tilt all the time and are a
big power drain. It might be your biggest issue. Are there any options to
underclock it in the BIOS?

It might also be more cost effective to replace it with something newer and
more efficient.

On 23 May 2022 at 16:02:03 BST, "Theo"
<theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

> I recently revived my old Gen7 microserver which is about 20W, or 40W with
> 4 HDD spinning. I think any kind of server big iron is not ideal for low
> power use, just by dint of all the extra stuff on the board.
> Laptop/desktop stuff is better.

I did the same - got a N40L back from a years-ago lend, got it all
hooked up and with my normal 4x14TB WD's in it came in at 60W. My R520
is a lot more capable (tuned down to 4 cores, 64gig, 10gigE, remote BMC)
and does that in 70W so I went back to the Dell.

The Poweredges seem pretty light when tuned.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
"But people have always eaten people!
What else is there to eat?
If the Juju had meant us not to eat people
He wouldn't have made us of meat!"
-- Flanders & Swann

On Monday, May 23, 2022 at 4:02:06 PM UTC+1, Theo wrote:
> jkn <jkn...@nicorp.f9.co.uk> wrote:
> > One option that occurs to me is to fit a less powerful PSU.
> > I presume that (in general) models of Supermicro PSUs can be swapped
> > between chassis. I have two "920W silent" PSUs; ignoring the redundancy,
> > either one of which is clearly overkill for my needs.
> Hard to know, but I have a Lenovo TS440 server (E5-1225v3) which has dual
> 450W PSUs. If I plug in only one it'll idle at 40W with a SAS RAID card in
> it, so probably a bit less without. So it's possible to have a hotswap PSU
> that isn't thirsty.
>
> I think a lot of idle power comes from things which are powered and not
> doing anything - RAM, PCI cards, drives, motherboard components. I'd go
> through and try to cut down everything you can.
>
> I recently revived my old Gen7 microserver which is about 20W, or 40W with
> 4 HDD spinning. I think any kind of server big iron is not ideal for low
> power use, just by dint of all the extra stuff on the board.
> Laptop/desktop stuff is better.
>
> (currently pondering a Ryzen APU as its longer term replacement)
> > I don't know how much of my 120W is wasted by the PSU. If I were to be
> > able to find a (say) 500W PSU which would fit etc, any idea of the likely
> > reduction in power consumption this might give me?
> Most server PSUs are 12V output only. So you might be able to power it from
> an external source of 12V with some wiring hackery. Does your server have a
> hotswap PCB at the back of the PSU where the PSU edge connector is turned
> into a bundle of ATX-style wires? If the mobo has a standard ATX power
> connector you could try a smallish desktop PSU and see if that improves
> things.
>
Hi Theo

I hadn't realised that most server PSUs are 12V ... I'll have to take a look
at the arrangement.

This is all my own fault really, I used to have an HP microserver
and a Proliant ML110 Gen ... something. I bought the Supermicro
because I wanted to consolidate things ... and to have a bit of a
'big boys toy', with more slots than I needed etc. This server
came up locally at a good price, and I bit the bullet.

I probably should have stuck to something like the
Proliant, or a Poweredge like Jamie...

(Vir), I actually deliberately have it in the garage as I let it
keep the cabinet is is in warm - I have my
sharp woodworking tools in there to keep them rust-free.

J^n

Vir Campestris <vir.campestris@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> Something really different - move it into the house.
>
> Yes, the noise may be a problem, but if it's in a habitable space at
> least the power helps keep the house warm!

That's an anti-feature in the summer :-)

Theo
(it's noticeably cooler with 100W of server load turned off)

On 23/05/2022 14:47, Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:
> On 23 May 2022 at 07:55:47 BST, "Pancho" <Pancho.Jones@proton.me> wrote:
>
>> On 22/05/2022 21:46, jkn wrote:
>>> Hi All
>>> This question might be better in a more dedicated forum. but I know there is
>>> a lot of expertise here...
>>>
>>> I have a Supermicro 2U server which I use as an (overkill) home server. It sits in
>>> a metal cabinet in the garage. Jaimie Vandenbergh of this borough kindly
>>> helped me with some RAM a also some CPU testing couple of years ago.
>>>
>>
>> It depends on what you are serving, but for a lot of stuff the Raspberry
>> Pi 4b is a good enough server and only 2 or 3 watts.
>
> Yeah, I've considered that too - feels like a silly solution though. I'd
> have to pick what to put on the Pi, and I'd have to script up some
> automatic "power up nightly and copy changes to real NAS" mechanism.
>

Dunno, what you mean, have to pick what to put on it? Logitech Media
Server (the software jkn mentions) runs on Debian Arm (i.e. Pi OS or Pi
Ubuntu the likely OS choices for a rPi)

You seem to have some unmentioned assumed usecase.

> Plus Pi's are deeply hard to find just now!
>

Yep, they are a little too cheap. An alternative, like a modern (arm
based) NAS seems to start at about 4 times the price, with a slower cpu.

I suspect some people in this group like playing with impressive old
hardware, in much the same way old men used to like steam engines when
we were young.

I feel a story coming on... "Thomas the compute engine". With friends
Gordon the IBM System/360, James the VAX 750, and Henry the ICL... :o)

On Tuesday, May 24, 2022 at 10:45:18 AM UTC+1, Pancho wrote:
> On 23/05/2022 14:47, Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:
> > On 23 May 2022 at 07:55:47 BST, "Pancho" <Pancho...@proton.me> wrote:
> >
> >> On 22/05/2022 21:46, jkn wrote:
> >>> Hi All
> >>> This question might be better in a more dedicated forum. but I know there is
> >>> a lot of expertise here...
> >>>
> >>> I have a Supermicro 2U server which I use as an (overkill) home server. It sits in
> >>> a metal cabinet in the garage. Jaimie Vandenbergh of this borough kindly
> >>> helped me with some RAM a also some CPU testing couple of years ago.
> >>>
> >>
> >> It depends on what you are serving, but for a lot of stuff the Raspberry
> >> Pi 4b is a good enough server and only 2 or 3 watts.
> >
> > Yeah, I've considered that too - feels like a silly solution though. I'd
> > have to pick what to put on the Pi, and I'd have to script up some
> > automatic "power up nightly and copy changes to real NAS" mechanism.
> >
> Dunno, what you mean, have to pick what to put on it? Logitech Media
> Server (the software jkn mentions) runs on Debian Arm (i.e. Pi OS or Pi
> Ubuntu the likely OS choices for a rPi)
>
> You seem to have some unmentioned assumed usecase.
> > Plus Pi's are deeply hard to find just now!
> >
> Yep, they are a little too cheap. An alternative, like a modern (arm
> based) NAS seems to start at about 4 times the price, with a slower cpu.
>
> I suspect some people in this group like playing with impressive old
> hardware, in much the same way old men used to like steam engines when
> we were young.
>
I'm sure that partly applies to me...

Personally I would not want to go for an RPi solution as I want 'proper' power
and IO. However I am thinking of switching to a variant of my previous setup:

- a USFF Lenovo Thinkcentre (I bought an M910q recently), running 24/7.
I will use that for piHole and Logitech Media Server, storing the audio on there.
- keep the Supermicro as just a file server, and power it up when I need it.
wakeonlan doesn't seem to be working as the moment but I expect I can
fix that.

I was also running Plex to server videos etc, but (a) had to remove the
client from our Roku, I think there wasn't enough room for all the channels,
(b) I have no time to watch anything like that, and (c) everyone else in the
house thinks I'm mad storing stuff from our old Topfield PVR like this...

Sigh...

J^n

Pancho <Pancho.Jones@proton.me> wrote:
> On 23/05/2022 14:47, Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:
> > Yeah, I've considered that too - feels like a silly solution though. I'd
> > have to pick what to put on the Pi, and I'd have to script up some
> > automatic "power up nightly and copy changes to real NAS" mechanism.
>
> Dunno, what you mean, have to pick what to put on it? Logitech Media
> Server (the software jkn mentions) runs on Debian Arm (i.e. Pi OS or Pi
> Ubuntu the likely OS choices for a rPi)
>
> You seem to have some unmentioned assumed usecase.

The problem is the Pi is not much good when you go multi-drive. Multi-drive
is useful because it protects you against single disc failures.

First of all there's no SATA, so you have to use USB drives. And once
you've hung multiple drives off the Pi USB 3, they're still all sharing a
single PCIe Gen2 x1 lane so they're limited by bandwidth. And then the Pi
CPU isn't much cop when you want to run filesystems like ZFS (which is a
very good idea on a NAS), and you can't expand the RAM (ZFS likes its RAM).
Plus USB mass storage controllers sometimes aren't the best.

You can work around that to some degree by using a compute module and a
proper PCIe HBA card, but at the end of the day that x1 lane and 8GB non-ECC
RAM are still a bottleneck. And you probably have to do some DIY kernel
building, since the default kernels don't compile drivers for many PCIe
cards, which means you start departing from stock OS setups (no out of the
box installs). Plus only some HBA cards work, due to limitations in the Pi
PCIe controller.

Which is not to say the Pi is bad as a one-disc personal NAS with a USB HDD
or SSD, it just isn't in the same league in terms of dependability as even a
consumer x86 motherboard is.

Theo

On 24/05/2022 13:25, Theo wrote:
> Pancho <Pancho.Jones@proton.me> wrote:
>> On 23/05/2022 14:47, Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:
>>> Yeah, I've considered that too - feels like a silly solution though. I'd
>>> have to pick what to put on the Pi, and I'd have to script up some
>>> automatic "power up nightly and copy changes to real NAS" mechanism.
>>
>> Dunno, what you mean, have to pick what to put on it? Logitech Media
>> Server (the software jkn mentions) runs on Debian Arm (i.e. Pi OS or Pi
>> Ubuntu the likely OS choices for a rPi)
>>
>> You seem to have some unmentioned assumed usecase.
>
> The problem is the Pi is not much good when you go multi-drive. Multi-drive
> is useful because it protects you against single disc failures.
>
> First of all there's no SATA, so you have to use USB drives. And once
> you've hung multiple drives off the Pi USB 3, they're still all sharing a
> single PCIe Gen2 x1 lane so they're limited by bandwidth.

Come on :o) You should know the rPi fanboi answer: 2 rPis! Or one per SSD.

(Adopting the Grandfather voice from Peter and the Wolf) You aren't the
type of person who risks all his drives in one enclosure, in one
location, are you? What happens if there is a burglary, lightning, fire!
What happens then! All disks lost at the same time!

> And then the Pi
> CPU isn't much cop when you want to run filesystems like ZFS (which is a
> very good idea on a NAS), and you can't expand the RAM (ZFS likes its RAM).
> Plus USB mass storage controllers sometimes aren't the best.
>

Yep, the rPi isn't good at near realtime encryption. I do actually run a
permanent OpenVPN tunnel, for which I use a lower power Intel chip (6w
cpu, 10w system), not an rPi.

> You can work around that to some degree by using a compute module and a
> proper PCIe HBA card, but at the end of the day that x1 lane and 8GB non-ECC
> RAM are still a bottleneck. And you probably have to do some DIY kernel
> building, since the default kernels don't compile drivers for many PCIe
> cards, which means you start departing from stock OS setups (no out of the
> box installs). Plus only some HBA cards work, due to limitations in the Pi
> PCIe controller.
>
> Which is not to say the Pi is bad as a one-disc personal NAS with a USB HDD
> or SSD, it just isn't in the same league in terms of dependability as even a
> consumer x86 motherboard is.
>

I have a rPi NAS for my own meagre needs, 2 disks (one SSD, one 2.5 HDD
backup device). In a real-life home, I only care about the speed of the
SSD, which is gigabit network constrained. rSnapshot is OK for primary
backups.

As for the dependability, a (formerly) expensive server with ECC-RAM
might well be more dependable. My main rPi server has frozen once in the
last year, which is about the same as my PC workstations.

I'll admit, the rPi isn't much fun, it sits in a cupboard which I rarely
open, it's almost like it is a Google Cloud Compute engine for all the
physical attention it gets.

On 24 May 2022 at 10:45:15 BST, "Pancho" <Pancho.Jones@proton.me> wrote:

> On 23/05/2022 14:47, Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:
>> On 23 May 2022 at 07:55:47 BST, "Pancho" <Pancho.Jones@proton.me> wrote:
>>
>>> On 22/05/2022 21:46, jkn wrote:
>>>> Hi All
>>>> This question might be better in a more dedicated forum. but I know there is
>>>> a lot of expertise here...
>>>>
>>>> I have a Supermicro 2U server which I use as an (overkill) home server. It sits in
>>>> a metal cabinet in the garage. Jaimie Vandenbergh of this borough kindly
>>>> helped me with some RAM a also some CPU testing couple of years ago.
>>>>
>>>
>>> It depends on what you are serving, but for a lot of stuff the Raspberry
>>> Pi 4b is a good enough server and only 2 or 3 watts.
>>
>> Yeah, I've considered that too - feels like a silly solution though. I'd
>> have to pick what to put on the Pi, and I'd have to script up some
>> automatic "power up nightly and copy changes to real NAS" mechanism.
>>
>
> Dunno, what you mean, have to pick what to put on it? Logitech Media
> Server (the software jkn mentions) runs on Debian Arm (i.e. Pi OS or Pi
> Ubuntu the likely OS choices for a rPi)

I already have about 30TB on the 70W NAS; I'd have to pick what to
'cache' on the miniNAS if I did a miniNAS.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
....there should be a feature added to the RAID 0 standard
stating that if anyone selects RAID 0 as an option, they
must type in, "I know what I am doing and that it is wrong" before they can proceed.
- Archangel Mychael, ArsTechnica comments

On 2022-05-24, jkn <jkn_gg@nicorp.f9.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Personally I would not want to go for an RPi solution as I want
> 'proper' power and IO.

Go on, I'll bite - what is 'proper' power and IO for you?