Comment by mrb
1 day ago
"the NAS in idle consumes more power than my UNAS Pro with 4x8TB HDD and 2X8TB SSD, as well as a Mac mini M1 with a 2TB Samsung T7 SSD, and my 4 access points and 4 protect cameras combined."
I know that's not true. I say this as someone who measures the power consumption of individual components, and even individual rails with a clamp meter. The OP measures an idle power of 67W. He has 6 x 8TB HDDs. These typically consume 5W idling (not spun down). So the OP's NAS without drives is probably around 37W.
A UNAS Pro without drives reportedly consumes 20W with no drives. Adding 4 x 8TB at 5W per drive, means your UNAS Pro config with drives probably idles at 40W (again, drives not spun down). That means you are 17W under his NAS idle power. So you claim your remaining hardware (Mac mini, 4 APs, 4 cameras) run in under 17W... Yeah that's not possible. 17W is peanuts; it's half the power of a phone's fast charger (~30W).
PS: for the OP, an easy way to further reduce power consumption is to replace your 500W PSU with a smaller one, like 250-300W which is still amply over-specced for your build. Because the typical efficiency curve of a PSU drops sharply at very low loads. For example at idle when your NAS pulls 67W from the wall it's very probable it supplies only ~50W to the internal components, so it's running at 10% load and it's only 50/67 = 75% efficient. The smallest load for which the 80 Plus Gold standard requires a minimum efficiency is 20%. If you downgrade to a 250W PSU you are enforcing a minimum 20% load for which the 80 Plus Gold standard requires minimum 87% efficiency. The load at the wall would thus drop to 50/.87 = 57W thereby saving you 10W.
96W is what's reported at the wall including everything. The switch reports 36W PoE consumption The Mac Mini is 5-6W, and the UNAS Pro around 35W with drives (4xHDD, 2xSSD).
So ~75W in total for everything PoE, Mac Mini and UNAS Pro. I was 8.5W over, so remove the Mac Mini from the equation.
The rest of the consumption (21W) is made up of a UDM Pro with a 4TB WD Red, USW Pro Max 16 POE, Hue Bridge, Tado Bridge, Homey Pro, and a Unifi UPS Tower.
and yes, that's at idle (drives spinning). It does rise to 120-130W when everything is doing "something".
"I was 8.5W over"
As I suspected :-) Also note that by measuring "36W POE consumption" you are excluding the AC-DC conversion losses from the switch's PSU which further makes the comparison a bit unfair. IOW your POE equipment draws more than 36W at the wall.
The only fair comparison is looking as only your NAS idling with drives (35W you claim, and I still believe it's closer to 40W) vs the OP's NAS with 4 drives (which should be 57W, or 67W minus 10W for his two extra drives). Then if the OP used a better sized PSU he might cut out another 10W or so (see my "PS" above) then you are comparing your 35W (or 40W) with his 47W which of course is still in your favor and a testament that Ubiquiti did a great job optimizing the UNAS Pro. But this 12W (or 7W) difference hardly matters for someone running a single NAS at their house. This extra power is around $1 or $2 monthly at average US domestic electricity rates.
"by measuring "36W POE consumption" you are excluding the AC-DC conversion losses from the switch's PSU which further makes the comparison a bit unfair. IOW your POE equipment draws more than 36W at the wall."
I'm aware of that, but the wall measurement is still 96W before the UPS, so it's basically just pushing numbers around the same budget. The switch is the only place i have to measure "poe power consumption", so i quoted that number.
"35W you claim, and I still believe it's closer to 40W"
I have 4 x 8TB WD Red Plus drives in there, quoted by WD to be consuming 3.4W idle, so 4x3.4 = 13.6W, and a couple of Samsung QVO 8TB drives, which idles at ~45mW. Assuming the UNAS pulls 20W by itself, adding the drives lands us at 33.7W, right in the ballpark of my measured 35W.
Part of my "astonishment" was also that i run my entire "infrastructure" for 30W more than OPs NAS idles at (66.7W vs 96W).
And yes, 7W is probably peanuts, but when you're paying €0.35/kWh, it all adds up. I came from a full self hosted setup, proxmox, multiple NAS boxes, etc, and was using ~350W idle, when power spiked in 2022 to €$1.12/kWh (peak pricing, 17-21, with an average price some days of €1/kWh). I initially turned everything off, and with just the Mac mini, router, switch, APs, cameras, various hubs, i was at 67W.
The UNAS has been added since (after power prices stabilized), which took the idle power consumption to 96W. And no, the UNAS is not pulling 29W. I've removed a couple of cameras, replaced a couple of APs, even removed an AP, so it's not direct comparison, other than in terms of total power consumption for price comparison.