<30w NAS build recommends

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JediFonger

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so i got meself a kill a watt and started to realize my primary NAS (Dell PowerEdge t610) is costing me roughly $300+/year! and yes it's on 24/7. it's currently got roughly 6+TB storage on there out of 12.6TB of usable space.

the only thing i do with it is:
-file-share storage
-make local backups
-stream video/music off of it
-torrent

been out of DIY builds for quite a long time... maybe almost more than 10yrs+.

i have been investigating all sorts of options out there, but need some recommends. i do like syncology/qnap/etc. any or all of those variations are great... but it is still >30w idle i think 30-60+. while that is great.... i'm looking for some ultimate savings and take some of that $300/year cost in electricity into a system that'll pay for itself in the LONG haul.

in the long ago past, VIA mini/nano itx used to dominate and used to be king. but nowadays there are obviously raspberry pi and stuff like that.

i've been vacillating between pi and a intel atom or super lower powered platform variant.

what i'm looking for:
-less than 30w total draw (complete system including HDDs)
-@least 4HDD (8+TB) if not more
-needs to handle boatloads of torrent seeds
-dont care about the rest of the spex


i guess my biggest question is:
Q1: Should I build all of this into a single box: low powered board+all the HDD
or
build a lower powered system that'll seed off of a separate NAS box?

Q2: I've been searching for custom NAS boxes... but they appear to not really exist too much... or am i looking in the wrong places?

Q3: Is it possible to just power all the HDDs using AC adapter->4pin molex straight up? (Yes i am willing to go at this length to save $). This way, I can just get have the power from the RAID card run itself.

any thoughts would be much appreciated!
 
Less than 30W total including HDDs isn't going to happen unless you only have like 2 HDD's in there with an atom chip.

Far as "custom NAS" it's because folks usually just buy bits or a whole pre-done unit.

As to Q3, that would be very likely be worse, power usage wise, those power bricks aren't that efficient.
 
How serious do you want to get with your power savings? My idea will get you down to 5W and keep your core functionality.

The most extreme method I can think of is to use a broadband router which has a USB port for NAS duties, and which also can download torrents. Some routers have the functionality built-in, otherwise buy one that is known to support 3rd party firmware and with the requisite USB port. Then get a single external 8TB USB HDD. Your power draw would be your router (which you probably already run one) plus a USB HDD (probably 5W most of times).

Caveats:
I don't know if routers can "handle boatloads of torrent seeds."
RAID is not a backup. You will want a second drive, and periodically (possibly manually) synchronize data.
 
FnordMan is each HDD going to cost me 15W? that seems a bit much... i thought it was more like this: How much power does a hard drive use?

Zap i guess i forgot to toss in the fact that i'd like RAID function as well... lol no single drives.

i've tested some borrowed sycnology and other NAS... they dont handle thousands of seeds.
 
4 drives and a low power CPU puts you right around 30W. You're really not going to be able to go lower (x86 at least). Some of the QNAP units like the TS-453A are rated for ~32W (19W idle) and should have no issues with your load. Otherwise build something using a CPU like the Atom C2338, Celeron N3150, or Pentium N3700.
 
Supermicro 721TQ-250B, Lian Li PC-Q25, Fractal Design Node 304, etc. Plenty of options out there.
 
JediFonger said:
FnordMan is each HDD going to cost me 15W? that seems a bit much... i thought it was more like this: How much power does a hard drive use?

Zap i guess i forgot to toss in the fact that i'd like RAID function as well... lol no single drives.
Click to expand...

What is your purpose for RAID? Do you actually need the fault tolerance? You know that RAID is not a backup, right?

HDDs have multiple levels of power draw. Highest is spinup, when they are first powering up. They can use 8-15W depending on the drive. Active seeks use the next amount, which is probably 4-6W. Most of the time they will sit idle but spinning, which may be 3-5W. This is for desktop consumer drives.
 
yes i am aware of what RAID does.

i'm kinda opened to low powered device accessing a NAS box... (2 separate devices as opposed to a single design).

but i was just thinking from purely technical perspective... why not tie up 2 separate devices when we can accomplish it all under 1 design.
 
Blue Fox said:
Going to use just as much power that way and good luck doing RAID with USB devices.
Click to expand...
Blue Fox said:
Going to use just as much power that way and good luck doing RAID with USB devices.
Click to expand...
The things he uses this for, are not demanding high performance. Honestly, some 3TB USB 3.0 external drives, would be totally fine. Slap a similar sized drive, into the laptop, itself. When its not being accessed, the drives will stop spinning and that low power CPU will merely sip a few watts.
 
ok, so maybe i'm anal about this... but if a drive dies, i dont wanna copy it over to somn or just lose it. so would love put it all under 1 array.

also i dont want to remember which media is going to which disks or drives.
 
chameleoneel said:
The things he uses this for, are not demanding high performance. Honestly, some 3TB USB 3.0 external drives, would be totally fine. Slap a similar sized drive, into the laptop, itself. When its not being accessed, the drives will stop spinning and that low power CPU will merely sip a few watts.
Click to expand...
Any NAS will spin down the drives when idle too and the ones I mentioned have CPUs that use just as little power.
 
the spin down is pretty normal nowadays for all SATA-based chipset, is it not? everyone is go big on green i figured any and all boards you buy in the last 5yrs should have this as default behavior?
 
JediFonger said:
ok, so maybe i'm anal about this... but if a drive dies, i dont wanna copy it over to somn or just lose it. so would love put it all under 1 array.
Click to expand...

As long as you understand that RAID is not a backup.
 
Well if you are handling a "boatload of torrent seeds" will the HDs ever really get a chance to spin down?

I can understand about the power bill, but I think you are not really setting the appropriate target here. I don't think you can get under 30W total with 4 drives at all. I looked up a random data center 8TB drive (Seagate something or another), and it's specced at 7.5W ~average~ running power, so it peaks a good deal higher than that. Four of those is your 30W right there, and that isn't any room for the CPU, NIC, and other components.

If those torrent seeds are staying active, that's what is costing you the money right there. Otherwise, even your existing system should clock down to idle and only really spin up when you are streaming or archiving something yourself.

Your paying $300/yr to seed torrents, not to run your NAS. You shut those down, and I bet the kWh from your current NAS plummets. That isn't to say you can't get more efficient hardware - of course you can, but don't expect it to save a significant amount of money when your still trying to do the same thing with it.
 
JediFonger said:
FnordMan is each HDD going to cost me 15W? that seems a bit much... i thought it was more like this: How much power does a hard drive use?
Click to expand...

If you read the article, the hard drive they talk about (WD Green, which is a high efficiency model), actually uses a bit more than 21W under use. Now, that probably is a peak, since that is derived from the 12V current spec, but the average is still going to be a lot higher than the 5-6W you were probably thinking. The 6W figure is the heat dissipation requirement, not the running power.
 
Low power ARM based file server using up to 5 desktop harddisks. if you can go lower in power than this then you are cheating. However, even this crazy setup "2 2TB Samsung SpinPoint F3s and 1 3TB Western Digital Green drive, with everything idle, is a mere 8.5 watt. With just the WD drive spinning it's 11.4W, a single Samsung 12.5W, all of them spinning 19.6W and maximum draw during booting is 34W."
 
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