My Energy Efficient unRAID Build

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  • Опубліковано 3 жов 2024
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КОМЕНТАРІ • 48

  • @kevinintheusa8984
    @kevinintheusa8984 Рік тому +7

    Great video. I just built my first server and I put in an ITX MB with an i5 and 32 Gb of memory. I did add a SAS card and I currently have it running 12 3.5-inch hard drives, all 10 Tb with 2 parity drives. I am now moving my stuff from a 2-bay TerraMaster and a 4-bay TerraMaster to it. Once done those will go to my son for his gaming storage. I do golf videos for clients and I also do photography and video at events as a hobby I just needed the storage capacity. The only difference is that I used a full tower PC case which can probably fit 24 hard drives if needed. It is so quiet that my wife thought it was off the other day when she went into my office. It wasn't. BTW, I run unraid and I can't be happier with it.

    • @ExplainYouaThing
      @ExplainYouaThing  Рік тому

      Yeah honestly, for personal use, I couldn't be happier with unRAID

    • @comp20B
      @comp20B 4 місяці тому

      I've changed my unraid pool to use ZFS now that it has been integrated into the UI.
      I use both Truenas and Unraid. All ZFS now!

  • @caennanu
    @caennanu Рік тому +11

    Honestly, if power efficiency is what you want, you simply have to adjust your usecase. My server runs an EPYC 24 core cpu with 256gb mem im consuming 100watts on average idle with just my CCTV stuff running, (so thats 2 WD purples, the other 14 HDD's are standby, and i'm prefering an NVME cache pool to move data away from every 12 hours). Normal operation is about 160watts when all disk are spun and utilization is around 25%. So i geuss, im paying a bit for the headroom.

  • @AustinMichael
    @AustinMichael 7 місяців тому +1

    I'm at 112 watts. with a Supermicro X13SAE-F, 12600k, 8x 18tb seagate 7200rpm drives, a mellanox connect x3 and a lsi 9207 sas card, 2x ssds and 1x nvme drive

  • @aaverygrant5939
    @aaverygrant5939 Рік тому +1

    How did you power the drive modules? You mentioned in the previous video about this case the two 4 pin molex connections to power each of the 3 drive modules, but in this video you don't have any of them wired up.

    • @ExplainYouaThing
      @ExplainYouaThing  Рік тому

      Just several leads from the power supply. My particular PSU had three sets of molex wires and that is what I used. You really do need three separate cables though as the power inputs on the modules are grouped together but far from one another.

  • @GirlOnAQuest
    @GirlOnAQuest Рік тому +1

    The loudness is what gives it character!

  • @DarkSwordsman
    @DarkSwordsman Рік тому +3

    From what I hear, those SATA cards are often really cheap and can die easily. I.E: Anything more than 2 SATA on a card, and I guess it just dies at some point. You can get legitimate used 8i SAS HBAs for like $60 or less these days.

    • @JasonRasmussen
      @JasonRasmussen 7 місяців тому

      I run a cheap PCIe 4 port SATA card on a 15 year old AMD system for my unraid and zero issues.

  • @ROB4ikOMG
    @ROB4ikOMG Рік тому

    good job!

  • @Storx-USMC-
    @Storx-USMC- Рік тому +1

    I'm not sure what you use your unRaid server for outside of NAS, but figured id share my tips I used on my build. I'm always looking for suggestions to improve my setup... Anyways I bought the 10600k CPU for my build, not for overclocking, but to allow underclocking.... I was able to underclock/undervolt mine stable down to 33 watts idle power and still reliably power all my docker containers and run plex on the iGPU...

    • @ExplainYouaThing
      @ExplainYouaThing  Рік тому

      Oh nice. I may look into that. It's strictly a NAS for Plex streaming so it's largely just lots of reads.

    • @Storx-USMC-
      @Storx-USMC- Рік тому

      Ya I got the idea from messing around with overclocking. I initially went intel 10100 for the unRaid server, but I had the 10600k as a budget gaming pc during covid and i noticed the wattage of the system would drop a lot lower when the CPU would drop to 700ish Mhz going through the various states. So i replaced the 10100 with the 10600k and I tried to mess around with it in unRaid, but the docker containers would never let it drop in power states really while active, so I figured I would force it and messed around with it. I could get the frequency/voltage lower, but the iGPU would malfunction during plex streams, so opened the max number of streams I would ever have running and messed around with it until I found the lowest I could go without it crashing or locking up on me. Overall the K variant ran at far less wattage due to the lack of ability to unclock/undervolt it. Something else that i found during my testing, someone mentioned that NVME SSDs consume more power than regular SATA SSDs, so I tested it out and found that my 2x 500GB NVME cache drives used 7.8 watts each while active, but an old non-NVME SSD used 2.3 watts, so when i decided to upgrade my cache pool and switch to ZFS for self healing, I went with non-NVME SSDs and just used a M.2 to 6 SATA adapter for my cache drives since I ran out of SATA ports. i ended up switching to 3 x 1TB Teamgroup CX2 SSDs i picked up on sale for $24.99/ea@@ExplainYouaThing

    • @ExplainYouaThing
      @ExplainYouaThing  Рік тому +1

      Excellent, I can probably get away with a lot because my Plex server isn't in a container on the NAS so I won't have to worry about that part at least. I'll definitely be swapping out the NVMes that I have with SATA again. Not only are they more efficient, like you found, but it'll get some heat away from my motherboard

  • @jonjohnson2844
    @jonjohnson2844 3 місяці тому

    81w at idle is still far too high if you don’t have a GPU in there. I run a 4690T with parts cobbled together and it idles at 26w, newer CPUs could potentially go even lower than this.

  • @CodyShell
    @CodyShell Рік тому

    Hey there! I just stumbled across this video and enjoyed it! (And subscribed). I'm sitting on a pile of hardware from my old unraid server and I'm itching to do something with it. Wanna give me some ideas? If not just disregard this gigantic comment lol. The systems has an X370 Taichi AM4 motherboard (with 10 sata ports), 64GB of non-ecc ram and right now I have eight 4TB HDDs. The system HAD a ryzen 5 3600 but the CPU is failing and has an issue. I didn't know this at the time (the server would just reboot after a random amount of time, finally figured it out with a L3 cache error I found in a kernel log while running ubuntu... If the system is running windows it's 100% stable, so I dont know what's up with it lol. But the server ran fine for around 3 years running unraid). Anyway, when this all went sour I picked up a used HP Z4 G4 workstation with a Xeon-W 2133 and some refurbished 16TB toshiba drives from newegg. So the my entire NAS setup is on new hardware.
    So right now I could pretty much buy any Zen 2 or Zen 3 CPU and have this system back up and running. I just don't know what I should do. A current idea is to get something a little more high-end like a ryzen 7 5700X (or better). Install manjaro or whatever desktop linux I want, then setup a ZFS RAID Z2 with the 8 HDDs and mount it into my /home. Then all my data on my primary unraid server will have a second home and I'll have a cool workstation in the process. I have a GTX1660 Super I can throw into and have a cool little workstation with some fat storage, but idk if ZFS has a lot of CPU + RAM resource overhead where gaming on a setup like this would be a bad idea.
    Is it even worth it to invest in AM4 anymore? Should I just install windows on this computer, put the 1660 super in it and sell it? :P then save for something that will use DDR5 memory? Or save up and buy a board with more enterprise-class features?
    I was thinking if I wanted to go more of the NAS / Storage route of picking up a lower TDP APU so I don't need to also have a GPU plugged in... Maybe do truenas scale?
    Right now in terms of my desktop workstation I run VMs on UNRAID and pass through my GPU and a PCI-E USB card and it works pretty well. But a Zen 3 AMD cpu would outperform that Xeon-W... however my RAM isn't ECC. :P "
    Anyway, just brainstorming and want to do something cool with this junk lol

    • @ExplainYouaThing
      @ExplainYouaThing  Рік тому +1

      Hard to say there. I'm kind of more in the camp these days that, after a certain point, old hardware just ends up costing you more in power/heat in the long run. To add to this, I used to resurrect old stuff on the regular to use for various projects but at some point I just found myself chasing down broken stuff or trying to replace hardware that's scarce or just old.
      I won't deny the fact that it's fun to get old stuff working through! I have a pretty ancient collection of hardware running my backup NAS but it's off 98% of the time so the noise/heat doesn't become unbearable in my small office.

  • @dogbog99
    @dogbog99 7 місяців тому

    Guzzling electrons

  • @DanielTubul
    @DanielTubul Рік тому +1

    Did you use powertop? I think you can squeeze more efficieny from this build

    • @ExplainYouaThing
      @ExplainYouaThing  Рік тому

      Nothing too fancy, no. Definitely room for improvement but for just out of the box with very little effort, I'm impressed.

  • @BadarSyed-w3s
    @BadarSyed-w3s Рік тому

    very nice build does this Sata card give same high speed for 4 HDD?

  • @roymorrison1075
    @roymorrison1075 Рік тому +1

    Great video, but I have some questions ? to take advantage of the ECC Ram, it also needs to be supported by the CPU, and as far as I am aware, Intel removed the EEC use from there CPU's after gen 5. So now only Xeon CPU support the EEC function of the ram. Or have I got that wrong ?

    • @ExplainYouaThing
      @ExplainYouaThing  Рік тому +1

      This was very recently re-enabled on most of the Core series CPUs. I want to say Gen 12 and newer? That being said, this CPU allegedly supported ECC fully when I purchased it. It hasn't had any issues running with ECC but perhaps I have made a mistake on my setup here. I'll have to do more research. Thanks for the heads up though.
      EDIT: did a quick look around as my memory isn't amazing. Yes, the combination of chipset (c246) and this processor take advantage of ECC. Admittedly it's been a minute since setting this up so my memory wasn't exactly fresh on the subject.

    • @roymorrison1075
      @roymorrison1075 Рік тому +1

      Yes I got it wrong, I3-9100 supports EEC, what I was told when looking for a system was wrong. Thanks again for the video.

    • @ExplainYouaThing
      @ExplainYouaThing  Рік тому +3

      There's a lot of information out there these days it seems.... Alas some of it isn't very good. Cheers!

  • @Nick-l4t
    @Nick-l4t Рік тому

    Hey, what did you end up using to plug those 4 pin fans in at the back? I'm about to migrate a build into this case and I'm not sure if I should just buy two new fans to stick in there or buy some 4-pin-to-sata cables to meet my power supply, or buy some dedicated peripheral cables from corsair. Btw, how are your temperatures in this case? I'm thinking about drilling a bunch of holes into the side of it and flipping the PSU around so that it can suck from the side of the case as opposed to sucking air from within--but my box will be in a basement anyway so not sure it will be that big of a deal.

    • @ExplainYouaThing
      @ExplainYouaThing  Рік тому

      Just an extra 4 pin off of my PSU.

    • @Nick-l4t
      @Nick-l4t Рік тому

      @@ExplainYouaThing Your PSU came with enough cables to support both the hotswap cages + the fans? I had to get an extra cable to support 2/3 of the cages, and now looking at another one for these fans.

    • @ExplainYouaThing
      @ExplainYouaThing  Рік тому

      Yeah I had plenty. Though I honestly can't remember if I just highjacked the extra modular cable from another PSU. I've been using this same one in various systems for a while now.
      Also, sorry I didn't see your question about the temps. I haven't had a single issue with temps in this case. However, as my build really focused on energy efficiency and low heat it likely wouldn't be an issue in even a very very tight case.

  • @jiggier
    @jiggier Рік тому

    Could you check if case linked in the description has the same item? Looks different.

    • @ExplainYouaThing
      @ExplainYouaThing  Рік тому +1

      You're right, they changed the link on me. It's the Rosewill RSV-L4412U 4U
      I don't have a new link but that's the model number. I'll try to find one when I get a chance.

  • @SimpMcSimpy
    @SimpMcSimpy 2 місяці тому

    That is still too high power consumption.

  • @ld5023
    @ld5023 6 місяців тому +1

    Meanwhile I'm stressing how to optimize my 15w idle build further cause electricity here is 0.40€/kWh 😅

    • @ExplainYouaThing
      @ExplainYouaThing  6 місяців тому +1

      Muricah does have cheap power that's for sure. My electric rate here is actually expensive for the US to be honest

  • @AustinMichael
    @AustinMichael 7 місяців тому

    Why did you waste 1U in between the servers? That space does nothing.

    • @ExplainYouaThing
      @ExplainYouaThing  7 місяців тому +1

      Easier for me to get the top of the case off without having to pull the lower one all the way out to the end of its sliders. Also, I don't have a full rack of stuff so it doesn't need to be crammed in there.

  • @charlie7975
    @charlie7975 Рік тому

    How is that SATA card working out? do the drives ever become disconnected?

    • @ExplainYouaThing
      @ExplainYouaThing  Рік тому

      So far so good. I haven't encountered any issues yet. I'm sort of surprised given how cheap it was, in all reality.

  • @mkunikow
    @mkunikow Рік тому

    Why unraid not freenas?

    • @ExplainYouaThing
      @ExplainYouaThing  Рік тому +2

      I used freenas for a number of years but I like the flexibility of UnRaid, personally.

  • @yuan.pingchen3056
    @yuan.pingchen3056 Рік тому

    This motherboard is very expensive, and no way to buy a whole new one, or used one.

  • @user-kg6uj6ji5p
    @user-kg6uj6ji5p 11 місяців тому

    any issue with that sata card ?

    • @ExplainYouaThing
      @ExplainYouaThing  11 місяців тому

      It's been solid. I've been pretty surprised about that, but it continues to just work.

    • @user-kg6uj6ji5p
      @user-kg6uj6ji5p 11 місяців тому

      ​@@ExplainYouaThinggreat, how much power draw your machine, i'm still looking exact motherboard like your have