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?

Edit: I have come across powertop. Using the auto tune, I was able to drop to 33-35W. I have unplugged the HDDs and dropped to 22W. I guess I cannot go lower, this may be because of the PSU or the 2 NVMe

  • @hperrin
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    59 months ago

    See if you can set the max power of the CPU in the BIOS.

    It’s really strange for an N100 system to be drawing that much power, so maybe you have some really hungry SSDs or HDDs.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      19 months ago

      I have checked but I haven’t seen anything about power. By any chances, do you know in what category it may be?

      • @hperrin
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        29 months ago

        I don’t know. I think that would depend on the BIOS.