So I have finally built my NAS. I used an N100 CPU because I saw it has low power consumption.
Right now I have 2 NVMe SSDs and 2 HDDs. I have installed proxmox on the 2 SSDs as RAID1. I have not partitioned the HDDs yet, they are just plugged in and powered on.
Just booting into proxmox, without any VMs or containers running, I am pulling 45W from the wall. This looks super high to me, and I’m afraid that starting to use the HDDs and running some VMs may double this…
I don’t have much references, but I have an Odroid with an external self-powered HDD, it is using 5W. I have a raspberry pi 4 with an external HDD, the raspberry is pulling 3W and the HDD 3W.
With these data, I was thinking I wouldn’t go over 20W. 45W is enormous and not something I can run 24/7, kind of a fail for a NAS…
Have I done something wrong or is it just how much it’s supposed to pull?
I was testing around 5 different PSUs (500-750W silver/gold) on the same machine and I was reading 20 - 35W from the wall. So yeah I think PSU plays a big role. They are most efficient at around half of the rated load and we are using them at <10%.
Listen to this guy! Spot on. When I built my server I spent more time researching and paying for the PSU more than any other single part. Ended up with a Seasonic PRIME FANLESS PX-450. Server idles around 25W with a ryzen 5600g and 40TB of storage.