Built a new FreeNas server, now I am worrying about the electric bill

[ttran55]

My Promise box PS failed and I couldn't talk to it after trying hard to find a replacement PS and boot it up again. It's really suck that they advised me to get a new one in order to retrieved my data (another $300? no thanks). I managed to borrow another unit NS4600 but it couldn't import the old disks and I swear that I am done with Promise.
Lucky that I backed up most of the personal files but lost all the movies.

So I built my freeNas with this configuration
- Intel S12000BTL server board
- Intel E3-1275 Xeon processor
- 16GB ECC memory
- 450W PS ( lowest I can find to support intel MB)
- 2GB x 2 Seagate Constellation : mirror to keep important files, music, pictures, family video...
- 1.5GB x 3 Segeate barracuda: ZFS volume (strip mode) to store: ripped movies, music videos

Well, the server runs great but now I worry about the electricity bill. I reduced the CPU speed and disabled 2 cores but didn't see any drop in power consumption. Do you have any suggestion? I found the I3-2100 is compatible with my MB but I am not sure if I want to replace the Xeon with it.
Tran.

 

[thiggins]

Seems you way overbuilt. To lower power you need to switch CPU and probably drives.

You should not be keeping backup files on the same physical device.

 

[00Roush]

So what is your current power usage? It shouldn't be too bad. I have a server here at home with a Xeon E3-1230, 8 GB RAM, Supermicro MB, Intel PRO 1000 PT Dual port NIC, and a 500W power supply that usually runs around 45 watts at idle with the drives spun down. With 3 x 1TB 7200 RPM Hitachi drives spun up idle is about 60 watts. I would expect that your setup wouldn't be too much higher than that with the drives spun down. With the drives spun up but everything idle I would have guessed your setup would be at around 65-75 watts.

My thought would be that the I3-2100 might save some power but at idle I wouldn't expect much power savings. Just my opinion though.

00Roush

Notes: OS is VMWare ESXi 5.1 with a VM for NAS4Free and VM for Windows Server 2008 R2.