Energy efficient nas for 4k

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    Almost any tiny NAS can stream 4K. As long as the media is encoded in a form that can be streamed directly. And as long as the NAS has SATA/USB3 and GbE. For instance my tiny ARM Odroid HC2s or RPi4 have no problems at all streaming most 4K media over my wifi as long as the bit rate is not too high.


    The bottleneck then isn't how powerful the NAS is but how good your network is and how powerful the client is.


    The problem comes if the NAS has to re-encode the 4K stream "on-the-fly". This might be necessary because the network or the client can't handle a very high bit rate. You might use wifi or a 1080p client that can't scale the stream efficiently.


    Then you might need something like a powerful 64bit x86 NAS with a NVidia card for efficient re-encoding in real time.


    It is also possible to re-encode media in advance. For instance create a lower bit rate 4K version or a 1080p version. Even a small NAS can handle that conversion fine, but it might take several times the normal playback time.


    So you need to figure out if you need to re-encode your media in realtime before you can decide on what type of NAS you can buy. I suspect that your clients can scale in real time and that you don't need to re-encode in real time.


    Unless you know better, I suggest you try with a small and cheap NAS first. If it isn't enough you can always use it for backups of a bigger NAS. I recommend using something with SATA or NVMe, not just USB3.


    From many threads here you can see that for instance RPi4 with USB3 can be very problematic and disappointing. But my personal experience tells me that with carefully selected additions and config even a small RPi4 might be more than powerful enough.


  • I have 10gbit optical fiber network. I think network is ok.


    The goal is that the nas only do the storage part.
    Then i have nvidia shield that can read video that come from the nas

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    Then any tiny NAS could do. As long as you don't stream at very high bitrates or intend to use the NAS for a lot of other stuff. Nextcloud, home automation, download, VPN, encryption, RAID. Then a bigger x86 NAS might be better. But also more power consuming.


    One big HDD is more power efficient than several small. There are no problems with using a 16TB HDD with my Odroid HC2s for instance.


    But you might want to have a two HDD setup so you can use one HDD for backups of the other. Or if you have a PC in the network you could put an extra HDD in that and use that for backups over the network.



    Check this thread as well:
    Which energy efficient ARM platform to choose?

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    That would make a great NAS. But perhaps not a power efficient NAS?


    With NVMe and more RAM it could be a great application server for virtualization.


    How many HDDs do you intend to put into the case? Do you need a GPU? Do you need/want 10GbE? What PSU do you intend to use with the case?


    How many Watts?


    How important is high power efficency? From the title of this thread I assumed it was very important? And that the load would be very light, just streaming already encoded 4K media locally? That could be wrong?


    If low power consumption really is important then why not simply a small power-sipping ARM device with a single drive and uncompromising death metal all the way?


  • Yeah the title may be confusing


    By power efficient i mean less that a classic desktop.


    here is what i had in mind
    ASRock J5005-ITX
    G.Skill RipJaws Series SO-DIMM 4 Go DDR4 2400 MHz => is 4go enough if some day i want to install a plex server ?
    Kingston SSD A400 120 Go for the OS
    Cooler Master Elite 110
    be quiet! Pure Power 11 400W 80PLUS Gold
    Seagate IronWolf 1 To to begin. I will take more if necessary in a second time

  • Most PSU have peak efficiency at 50% of their rating, efficiency can be poor at < 30% load.
    So if you add a 400W PSU, then your target power consumption should be 200W.


    Your 400W PSU will be expensive in the long run ...

  • The ASRock boards are very picky in regards to RAM. You should either pick the RAM that is recommended on the website that I provided or look up recommended RAM for the board on the ASRock website.


    The Pico PSU solution is way more efficient compared to an oldschool ATX PSU. If it is availaible in your country then you should definately go with the Pico PSU.

  • 80 watts is ok but 90 would be better if you can get one. Especially if you intend to add addtional harddrives at some point. In addition to the PicoPSU you will need an actual PSU like this one which gets plugged into the PicoPSU:


    https://www.amazon.de/gp/produ…kCode=as2&tag=elefacts-21


    To close the ATX PSU hole on any ATX case I got myself this in addition:


    https://www.amazon.de/Nanum-AT…048329&s=computers&sr=1-2


    The benefit of PicoPSU solution is zero noise because there are no active PSU vents and excellent power efficiency.


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnHlqWUHLAI

  • You can add more by using such an adapter. I did the same.


    https://www.amazon.de/DELOCK-A…143210&s=computers&sr=1-8


    I never calculated the required watts and simply followed the recommendation on the website I posted. They mention that you can easily power 4 harddrives with the 90 watt Pico(PSU) and the 72 watt externel PSU that they recommend. The 80 watt Pico should be sufficient to power up to 3-4 harddrives for sure.

  • The benefit of PicoPSU solution is zero noise because there are no active PSU vents and excellent power efficiency.

    You forget that the picoPSU need an external PSU with ~60-80% efficieny, so overall system efficiency will still be poor.
    If pico has 90% efficiency, and external PSU has 80% efficiency... then the total is 72% - not excellent at all.

  • Of course I mentioned the external PSU that is required and provided the respective link in addition. From the link I provided:


    "We do not use a conventional ATX power supply in the NAS Basic, but use a PicoPSU-90 (DC-DC converter) in combination with an economical Salcar 72W external power supply. This allows the idle consumption to be reduced to approx. 10 watts. The power supply is sufficiently large with 72 watts and can easily supply up to 4 data hard drives."

  • go as low as possible with your psu as smaller psu´s have better efficiency.


    your harddrives are the biggest consumer in your setup.
    be careful to calculate the power when spinning up the drives as this is most crucial.


    So when I take the ironwolf drives you mentioned above a single hdd will need max 22W (12V*1,8A) when I I check the specsheets.
    https://www.seagate.com/www-co…S1904-14-1907DE-de_DE.pdf


    The Asus board will reach up to 33W max referred to the following review https://androidpctv.com/review-asrock-j5005-itx-j4105-itx/


    So the base for the PSU should be at least providing 55W but will stay in normal use around 20-25W and in idle even lower. try to find a high efficient PSU but for that you have to dig into spec sheets. I can tell you that most of the power supplies not vary that much even from cheap to expensive. I refer usually to the pareto principly aka 80/20 rule when it comes to efficiency.


    I would try if one similar like this will work for you... https://shop.yakkaroo.de/100w-…n-fsp100-50lg-fuer-1he-1u

  • Of course I mentioned the external PSU that is required and provided the respective link in addition. From the link I provided:


    "We do not use a conventional ATX power supply in the NAS Basic, but use a PicoPSU-90 (DC-DC converter) in combination with an economical Salcar 72W external power supply. This allows the idle consumption to be reduced to approx. 10 watts. The power supply is sufficiently large with 72 watts and can easily supply up to 4 data hard drives."

    https://www.technikaffe.de/anl…i_externen_12v_netzteilen


    With reference to above link: My German is not so good, but if the MeanWell psu has 90% efficiency at "idle use" then the Salcar has ~66% efficiency. The difference is of course less at higher load.


    I could not understand the benefit of having a "micropsu" + external adapter, and went for a proper certified PSU for 24/7 server use:
    https://store.supermicro.com/m…ECOS_3006_200W_Report.pdf
    In the long run (3-4 years), Supermicro psu is actually cheaper.

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