How much power does freeNAS use?

[DKentoy]

Hi.
I'm not sure how to give this thread a good subject, but my thought is how much power does freeNAS use?
I know it depends on the hw used for freeNAS, but can freeNAS use the same power as other NAS out there?

 

[Basil Hendroff]

The PSU will determine the maximum power draw on any NAS.

 

[Chris Moore]

I know it depends on the hw used for freeNAS, but can freeNAS use the same power as other NAS out there?

I think I understand what you are getting at and the answer is no, FreeNAS needs a more powerful CPU and more RAM than most other NAS solutions for the correct operation of the ZFS file system that is a native feature of FreeNAS. Other NAS systems have lower power processor and less memory, so they can consume less power at the low level. If you are looking for the least possible power consumption, FreeNAS is not for you.

The purpose of FreeNAS is dependable storage of data, not low power consumption.

The other consideration with regard to power is that the number of drives is a big factor in how much power the NAS will consume. The 'rule of thumb' is that each hard drive will consume around 10 watts and the minimum suggested drive configuration for FreeNAS is two, in a mirrored pair. The more storage drives you have, the more power will be consumed.

If I recall correctly, the lowest power FreeNAS system build is going to take between 30 to 40 watts using an Atom processor, 8GB of memory and a pair of drives.

 

[DKentoy]

Yes, that is what I was searching for, but if I have 8 hdd in a standard NAS and use them for freeNAS, will that not be the same?

 

[Chris Moore]

if I have 8 hdd in a standard NAS and use them for freeNAS, will that not be the same?

If you have the same drives in both circumstances, it should be pretty close to equal. The difference with some other NAS software is that they may try to spin the drives down during periods of inactivity to save electricity, but FreeNAS does not do that because it uses a portion of the storage pool for keeping the log files and system dataset and swap space, so it is very difficult to get the hard drives to ever be fully idle. Just speaking in general terms, FreeNAS is likely to use more power, but it is not intended to be a low-power solution. FreeNAS uses ZFS as the file system to provide secure storage for data with a high degree of data integrity. It is an enterprise class solution, like having a sports car and worrying about how much gas it uses.
ZFS is an integral component of FreeNAS and ZFS is not intended for low-power solutions. It uses more power because it is better.

 

[Evertb1]

The PSU will determine the maximum power draw on any NAS.

No it won't. The PSU determines the possible maximum power draw on a NAS. The total of components (including the PSU as it draws some power itself) determines the maximum power draw of a NAS.

 

[Ramiel]

I can't complain that it's too expensive honestly.I had normal bills for the last months that I've been using it!

 

[G8One2]

My system @ idle, doing nothing draws a constant 200 watts with 18 drives. Averages around 250w with normal use. Peaks around 350w if Im doing any heavy transcoding. Obviously, if I had fewer drives, it would consume less. I would say the hard drives themselves, consume the most power. This is just the server only. The network switches, router and modem consume an additional 120w, so yeah.... not energy efficient.