power
Power consumption
Running a RAID array this robust 24/7 means that roughly 80 watts shows up clearly on the electricity bill β more on the hardware itself on the Hardware page.
Measured consumption
Former web server (J3455N D3H, idle)~12 W
NAS (ASRock J5040-ITX, 5Γ HDD) β idle~80 W
NAS β full load / RAID rebuild~100 W
How I try to cut power draw
- Passively cooled CPU wherever performance allows β it cuts noise as well as a few extra watts spent on a fan.
- Scheduled shutdown β my NAS automatically shuts down in software overnight. It powers back on automatically only once a week for a sync run, or I can start it on demand from my phone or from a computer at home via Wake-on-LAN, see Remote Start.
- 80PLUS-rated PSU β higher supply efficiency means less energy lost as heat, especially at low load, where cheap generic PSUs tend to be least efficient.
Note: a five-drive RAID10 array draws a lot more at idle than the older single-drive web
server did β every spinning 3.5" drive adds a meaningful number of extra watts.