NAS power usage

[perdomot]

I'm thinking of getting a NAS for my storage needs and wondered how much having one turned on all the time would raise the electric bill. I'm also curious if most NAS power down the drives when idle. Thanks.

 

[drebo]

More expensive NASes would probably spin down the drives when not in use. Cheaper ones probably do not. That said, running a NAS 24/7 is much, much cheaper than running a computer 24/7. So, if the option is between the two, yes, your electric bill will go down.

 

[JackMDS]

You can use a computer with Intel ATOM Mobo/CPU.

When it in full force it takes about 60Watts, idle at about 30Watt, and if used with OS that can be put it to sleep when Not in use, and Wakes On LAN traffic, it takes less than 10 Watts.

 

[mxnerd]

Jack is right.

Last night I found this motherboard very intriguing.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813121342

or this one

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813121359

 

[Modelworks]

Or if you are really picky about power usage pick up a via c7 board. About 5 watts idle, 12 watts full power.

 

[perdomot]

I'm not interested so much in reducing the electrical usage of my main PC as I am in trying to figure out how much more it would be on a monthly electrical bill to add a NAS to my system. I did some research on the 60 watt PC from Via a while back but opted for the X3 Phenom Spider rig I'm currently using.

 

[mxnerd]

We were talking about the motherboard with CPU for your NAS computer. Not your main PC.

The network performance of the cheaper NAS devices on the market are slow and you might not like that. And most NAS devices won't power down.

 

[perdomot]

OIC what you meant. That's a good idea and I have a SFF backup pc so all I would have to do is change out the cpu/mobo unless you think an E4400 with a 945G mobo has a low amount of voltage being used. If I set up the backup to wake on lan traffic, would it come on when my main pc powers up in the morning? I turn off the main pc at night.

 

[mxnerd]

I did try WOL (Wake-On-LAN) utility before and it works. But the network card itself must support it. So it depends. You have to turn it on in each NIC's configuration in Windows Networking.

JackMDS has WOL info. http://www.ezlan.net/WOL.html

I don't know if WOL works via only accessing a network share, or you have to use one of the free WOL utilities that will send a magic packet to wake up a PC.

*update* Just tried. Need WOL utility (I used DD-WRT WOL function) to wake up a PC. Just accessing a network share won't wake it up.

 

[JackMDS]

Yeah it is Not your fault, it is confusing. WOL means Waking computer from Off.

This is Not what you want to do (unless you want to wait for the computer to boot from scracth).

That is why I called it Wake On Traffic from Standby mode.

Set the NAS computer to go to sleep after 15min of none use.

Look at the Network Card Drivers and set it to Wake up at LAN traffic.

When your main computer is ON and looking for the NAS it would wake up the NAS.

http://www.ezlan.net/example/nic_wake.jpg

Note: Different NIC might present the option in different way but the principle is the same.

Why a Computer NAS is better?

The Hard Drive can be formatted with NTFS, and with optimize TCP/IP stack NAS computer Network Speed is much faster than stand alone NAS.

 

[mxnerd]

Jack, just saw your post.

I try to access the network share and the power management configuration is exactly like your posted picture, but it won't wake up that PC. I have to use DD-WRT WOL. What gives?

*UPDATE* I guess network share access won't wake up a PC since it will not send out the magic packet automatically.

 

[perdomot]

I checked the Advanced tab on my NIC and it doesn't have anything about Wake Up On Traffic. It only says "Pattern Match" and "Magic Packet". There is a property called "Shutdown Wake On Lan" that is either Enabled or Disabled, is that it?

 

[mxnerd]

Sounds right.

http://www.motherboardpoint.co...c6120-wake-on-lan.html
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=438617

 

[JackMDS]

WOL is something very specific. It entails starting computer from OFF, and needs a specific Magic Packet.

For NAS, to be available 24/7, WOL is not a good solution.

Most modern computers can get out of Sleep mode (Sleep is Not Off) when there is any traffic knocking on its doors.

The problem is that the Wake from sleep does not have an official name and many providers call it Wake On LAN creating unneeded confusion.

In order to wake from sleep the OS and the NIC drivers needs to support the function.

Unfortunately some NIC drivers do not support it. Most of the old 939 (nVidia) computers with the Onboard NIC do support it.

In some computers, if it is Not supported through the drives, sometimes the trick is to do the opposite of NIC Power Saving.

I.e. Get the NIC out of the Sleep Power saving Loop.

By doing so the computer goes to sleep but the NIC stays up (the extra power consumption is probably no more than 1 Watt).

Usually, if the NIC is up it would react to Network request.

I know that it is confusing, but this is the misfortune of End-Users. The Vendors feels that they can do whatever they want to do to us as long as they manage to sell. (Draft_N is an example to it).