cjed
Prominent Member
I have a number of NAS units, one of which is a N40L. All have 4 x 3.5" Hard disks set up as a RAID 5 array. I was interested in their relative power consumptions, so I spent an afternoon last weekend trying them out on a Mains Power Measuring extension socket ("Power Safer 2024C" - details in PDF manual).
The N40L is given with 2 configurations, both have 2 x 2TB Seagate 5400rpm + 2 x 2TB Hitachi 7200rpm data drives.
The "stock" configuration has the original Seagate 250GB 7200rpm 3.5" disk in the optical bay as boot/OS (WHS 2011).
The "2.5 OS" configuration has replaced that with a Samsung 250GB 2.5" 5400rpm disk.
The Netgear readyNAS NV+ has 4 x 1.5GB Samsung F3 Eco drives, the LG N4B1 has 4 x 1TB Hitachi 7200rpm drives.
--boot-- --"Off"-- Max.Write --Idle-- Idle(disks.off)
HP N40L (stock) 110 0.0 62 51.5 32.2
HP N40L (2.5 OS) 108 0.0 60 45 29
ReadyNAS NV+ V1 56 2.0 48 44 30
LG N4B1 102 1.5 48 43 35
Units in the table are Watts, the values are approximate, but probably within a 5% tolerance. Things are much closer in terms of power consumption than I expected. The HP uses a bit more juice when running full speed writing to the array. The NV+ reduces it's peak boot requirements by spinning up the hard disks sequentially. Moving from the stock 250GB drive to a much lower powered drive saves a good 10% when the box is idle or under low usage (most of the time).
Oh, Max.Write for the N40L is around 60 MBytes/s, for the LG N4B1 it's around 80 MBytes/s and for the ReadyNAS NV+ it's around 10MBytes/sec.
The "Off" state is connected to the live mains, but turned off. It looks like the biggest savings will come when I upgrade the N40L to 3TB drives and the LG N4B1 can have it's 2TB drives. Then I can retire the ReadyNAS NV+.
You can get an idea of the relative sizes of the units from these photos . Left to right it's a Via Technologies Artigo (not in this comparison), Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ V1, LG N4B1 and last the HP N40L. There's a CD on the desk to give an idea of scale.
The N40L is given with 2 configurations, both have 2 x 2TB Seagate 5400rpm + 2 x 2TB Hitachi 7200rpm data drives.
The "stock" configuration has the original Seagate 250GB 7200rpm 3.5" disk in the optical bay as boot/OS (WHS 2011).
The "2.5 OS" configuration has replaced that with a Samsung 250GB 2.5" 5400rpm disk.
The Netgear readyNAS NV+ has 4 x 1.5GB Samsung F3 Eco drives, the LG N4B1 has 4 x 1TB Hitachi 7200rpm drives.
HP N40L (stock) 110 0.0 62 51.5 32.2
HP N40L (2.5 OS) 108 0.0 60 45 29
ReadyNAS NV+ V1 56 2.0 48 44 30
LG N4B1 102 1.5 48 43 35
Units in the table are Watts, the values are approximate, but probably within a 5% tolerance. Things are much closer in terms of power consumption than I expected. The HP uses a bit more juice when running full speed writing to the array. The NV+ reduces it's peak boot requirements by spinning up the hard disks sequentially. Moving from the stock 250GB drive to a much lower powered drive saves a good 10% when the box is idle or under low usage (most of the time).
Oh, Max.Write for the N40L is around 60 MBytes/s, for the LG N4B1 it's around 80 MBytes/s and for the ReadyNAS NV+ it's around 10MBytes/sec.
The "Off" state is connected to the live mains, but turned off. It looks like the biggest savings will come when I upgrade the N40L to 3TB drives and the LG N4B1 can have it's 2TB drives. Then I can retire the ReadyNAS NV+.
You can get an idea of the relative sizes of the units from these photos . Left to right it's a Via Technologies Artigo (not in this comparison), Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ V1, LG N4B1 and last the HP N40L. There's a CD on the desk to give an idea of scale.
