I have been using an old PC as NAS and running docker containers (Immich, Nextcloud, paperless-ngx etc.). I got 5 3.5" HDD disks and a Nvme. Even on idle, I am consuming 50-60w. A friend of mine is selling a Qnap NAS which is a dedicated machine and probably consumes less power, although I don’t know if it’s worth it.
A big portion of that is caused by the drives, so you’d have to compare the empty QNAP vs your empty machine. Also, depending on which NAS appliance, check that the CPU is actually powerful enough to run all your services.
Drives only consume power on reads and writes, if your NAS spins them down as it should (and apparently QNAP *doesn’t, which I didn’t know).
As per my other comment - 8 drives or 1 drive, same idle power for desktop hardware. My actual NAS uses about 1/8 the power at idle for 5 drives.
Drives only consume power on reads and writes, if your NAS spins them down as it should (and apparently QNAP *doesn’t, which I didn’t know).
not really. not all drives spin down by themselves, by default. and even if they do, it’ll happen relatively long after reads and writes, a the while it’ll consume power.
How do you monitor power consumption? I’m new to self hosting and I want to do that.
I use a KillaWatt device. It is a simple device you plug into the outlet and then plug the device you want to measure into it. I’ve had mine for a long time so I have no idea what a new one would cost, but I’m guessing sub $30.
Some local libraries (e.g. in Heidelberg) or ecological initiatives lend devices to measure electricity consumption at the power plug. In particular, this is useful to measure other appliances as well.
Specifically for computers, they probably have some means to tell you their own consumption, but they may not be accurate or complete and will most certainly omit any peripherals, e.g. external hard drives.
Thank you! I will see if I can get my hands on one of those.