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The original was posted on /r/homelab by /u/Krek_Tavis on 2024-01-24 10:41:24+00:00.

Hello,

back in 2020, in dire need of activities and challenge due to Covid restrictions and slowdown of business, I decided to make my own NAS server using TrueNAS Core.

In retrospect, that was a bit of a mistake, because it is clearly power hungry for something running 24/7 and idle most of the time, underused for the specs, and bad pick for hardware (non upgradable/downgradable easily, non-fully compatible hardware).

My main issue now is that it is consuming 30W idle doing nothing at all. It sometimes goes up to 40W when a backup/sync is triggered (once every 2 hours for 4 systems). I may be over-reacting but I would like to go below 10W idle. If I had solar panels and batteries I would not even bother, but that is not the case.

My NAS hardware is as such:

  • Supermicro CSE-721TQ-250B chassis. Quite happy with the format, and is silent despite not being passive. Less happy about the proprietary (yet ATX compatible) plugs, which made the wiring hell with my motherboard.
  • ASRock Rack E3C232D2I Mini-ITX motherboard. Was horrible to wire with the proprietary plugs. I had to use adapters from Supermicro + prototyping jumper wires. It is a wiring mess. Also, it is only compatible with 2 processors: Xeon E3-1220v5 and Xeon E3-1220v6. Bravo…
  • KingstonServer 2*8 GB of ECC memory 2400 Hz Unbuffered DIMM 288-PIN so I am stuck with the v6 only anyway.
  • Of course, Xeon E3-1220v6, only compatible CPU with that setup. TDP 72W
  • 1 Samsung 860 Pro for the base system
  • 4*3TB WD Red disks in ZFSRaid2 (possibly over the top)

I installed TrueNAS Core on it, with only a few plugins: NextCloud, a barely used JellyFin, Heimdall portal, OpenSpeedTest and a barely used QBitTorrent. Not so happy with it because major upgrades in Jails are very hazardous. Major upgrades of TrueNAS as well (for the Jails).

In the end, it is just a resilient backup server + NAS + Nextcloud and all the rest could be running on a passive, low-power fanless kubernetes cluster.

So now I am contemplating either keeping the chassis and disks and replace the rest by some Atom/i3/Epyc 3XXX setup, either ditching the whole stuff for a QNAP/Synology that can handle 1Gbps. I also consider switching to TrueNAS Scale for better plugin stability and ease of integration of kubernetes application I would like closer from disks like LongHorn or Databases.

Or am I overreacting and I cannot go much below 30W with mechanical drives anyway?