Question energy efficient x86, 64bit, >4GB RAM (, Arduino interface) SBC

PackElend

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Hello,
I am planning to build a 7/24 home NAS with emphasis on low power consumption, low (preferably zero) noise with 2x3.5" SATA HDDs but I could accept 2.5". The OS choice is not final yet it could be any of FreeNAS, OpenMediaVault, OpenBSD, NAS4free, TrueNAS, TrueOS. I know it is many but I haven't gone into details yet about the differences of these OSs.

For sure, I will run several other services as plugins or docker containers (cloud office, file sharing -> family-wide collaboration). The SBC shall be able to do a basic Plex/KODI transcoding, as that would be very nice to have.
In addition, I would like to be able to communicate via RS232 and switching some digital outputs, thus integrated Arduino would be appreciated.

As these requirements need some ram and horsepower when doing transcoding or using ONLYOFFICE as part of my nextcloud instance. I would rather prefer a 64 bit x86 instead of an ARM CPU, although they run Docker easily too.
So far I considered
  1. UDOO X86 II
    UDOO-X86 Part 2: Roaring performance // Review
  2. NVIDIA® Jetson™
  3. LattePanda Alpha 864s, what got an update recently
    LattePanda Alpha: The big mistake? // Review, L.P. Alpha DC power experiments and observations - Page 2 - LattePanda Forum
  4. DROID-H2
Have I missed an SBC?
Is there any experience with these devices?
I'm going in the wrong direction focusing only on the listed SBCs?

Thank you

Stefan
 

kanewolf

Titan
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kanewolf

Titan
Moderator
It is useful as a relative value. Obviously efficiency of power subsystem, RAM power, disk power, all contribute. How expensive is your electricty? The difference may be less than a dolkar a month. It isn't worth obsessing too much, when each disk uses 7W.
 

PackElend

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The J4105 boards are great for a home server. The passmark is barely enough for one h264 1080p transcode+ audio it might buffer. If you go hardware transcode it requires plex pass and you will have to run on metal. J4105 only has 6PCIE 2.0 lanes for everything. Only a few boards have 4 sata3. That's the only board I've seen with 2 nic and m.2. gemini lake can use 32GB ram. gemini lake is sold out everywhere. I think hardkernel said they are getting a refresh shipment in june/july. that board has been sold out since day1.

Newer stuff idles very low. You can use the 65W LGA 1151. My 6core 9400f idles 40W and only uses 60W with a 1660 ti web browsing. I think you can get them down to 20W idle with the right mobo. You can buy a C246 board and use ECC ram.

Someone made a build that idle at 3.1W using this board. They don't advertise ultra low power consumption on the 8th gen version. If you use a 2core intel you can use a pico psu.
powertop and hdparm are two programs that lower idle power use. You want your OS/VM on sata3 SSD and storage on spinning drives. This board is easy to find in Germany fyi, a wild guess based on your rate.
https://www.fujitsu.com/fts/product...ards/extended-lifecycle-main/pmod-177972.html
 
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PackElend

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Hello,
I’m still there. I got lost in the details late last year. I continued discussion about the power consumption and hardware requirements in the respective forums to give me an idea of what I really need.
  1. Nextcloud: Best cheap hardware to run Nextcloud on?
  2. Home Assistant: Does HA prevent a HDD go idle?
  3. PicApport:Installation of PicApport on a Raspberry Pi 4 or higher Skip to end of metadata
    1. PicApport: PicApport Speicherbedarf (cache und datenbank)
My idea is to run all in containers and make the apps available through a dedicated reverse proxy to run all these.
To do so I familiarizing with:

  1. traefik
  2. portainer
  3. infrastructure creation using ansible, terraform and/or consul to easily reset an app if it is corrupted and easily extend my cloud by new apps with a different configuration. I'm still doing theoretical Ansible vs Consul and Ansible vs. Terraform although Provision & Discovery can be done with Ansible & Consul
  4. tmate.io to be able to do SSH even if SSH is blocked from my internet access point
but still searching the right tool for storing and managing configs and secrets but I'm close to a decision, currently, I'm reading up:
  1. Environment Variables (docker specific following the
  2. Twelve-Factor App methodology Best Practices.)
  3. Hashicorp Vault
  4. Square's Keywhiz
  5. Secret Management Every Engineer Can Use - SecretHub
  6. Docker Secrets Management
  7. Ansible Vault
In addition, I have started to build Hyper-V VMs earlier this year. I tested some cloud-ready OS plus installing apps of my interest, you can call my local lab. Getting all OSs (RancherOS, Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora , etc.) up and running in Hyper-V was quite a long story but I got an image of each now.
I'll properly continue with Ubuntu Core as it is at least hardware hungry and I can run snaps, docker and Kubernetes (MicroK8s) on it.

You see a lot of topics which keep me busy or allowing me going off-topic easily.
Second is properly the better expression of my current situation.

Eventually, I swang back to the hardware a couple of weeks ago.

Thanks for mentioning Fujitsu but I hardly find information about them, - mainboards : Fujitsu Global is bad joke. It is not too easy to read summary post on c't. I have just figured out that was taken over by Kontron, what explains that I find Kontron motherboards "Designed by Fujitsu" but no clue what they cost.
You are sure that you mean 3.1 W?

I still have huge difficulties do find a good overview of all the different CPUs and Microarchitectures, so that is causing me nightmares.
If found a few pages which shed light on the dark:
  1. List of Intel CPU microarchitectures - Wikipedia and reading through #Raodmap helped me best. In addition, you find an overview at the very end of the page (below #External links)
  2. Intel Microarchitecture Overview - Thomas-Krenn-Wiki
  3. Intel - WikiChip & Microarchitectures - Intel - WikiChip
  4. Intel® Product Quick Reference Matrix
  5. plus CPU databases but I would say none of them is complete
    1. CPU Database | TechPowerUp, misses Gemini Lake
    2. PassMark - CPU Benchmarks - CPU Mega Page - Detailed List of Benchmarked CPUs, very helpful if complete
    3. CPU DB - Looking At 40 Years of Processor Improvements | A complete database of processors for researchers and hobbyists alike., can hardly be filtered, you need to do a CSV export
    4. divinity76/intel-cpu-database: database of all Intel CPUs but has not been updated for the last couple of months
    5. CPU comparison — Serverbuilds.net another CPU table
so you still have to cross-check them against Intel® Product Specifications


Being able to maintain at least a minimum clue of what is what the only reasonable CPUs to check are the client CPUs and small Core CPUs, going back to the 6th Generation (Skylake).
So there are three maybe, four (incl Atom) main CPU lines by Intel worth to consider:
  1. Atom: WikiChip - Atom, WikiChip - Atom X3, WikiChip - Atom X5, WikiChip - Atom X7, Wikipedia
  2. Celeron: WikiChip, Wikipedia
  3. Pentium: WikiChip, Wikipedia and
  4. Core: WikiChip - i3, WikiChip - i5, WikiChip - i7, Wikipedia
That was not that complicated but taken into account all the different microarchitectures/generation is the headache-causing part!
All these CPUs are built on microarchitecture available either for

  1. small Core / ultra-low power based on the following System-on-a-Chip architectures.
    These are quite simple to read as there is only
    1. 14 nm Goldmont: WikiChip, Wikipedia
    2. 14 nm Goldmont Plus: WikiChip, Wikipedia
    3. 10 nm Tremont: WikiChip, Wikipedia this is Intel's next-generation SoC microarchitecture
  2. The other lines are client, server and big cores chips.
    There are architectures, which were designed for certain application only but there are architectures, which offer CPUs for any kind of application. So it bit of nightmare to get a clue of what is made for what purposes and introduced when as there are architectures again, what are based on different CPUs generation.
    The Skylake (with its maximum of four cores in consumer systems) evolvement is fairly well to comprehend when you keep in mind that it was followed with Kaby Lake (with higher clock speeds and much greater hardware acceleration of modern video codecs), Coffee Lake (as many as eight cores), and Whiskey Lake (improved integrated chipset). The core Skylake architecture was unchanged across these variations, meaning that while their clock speeds differ, the number of instructions per cycle (IPC) is essentially identical.
    On top of this Sunny Cove was originally unveiled by Intel at their 2018 architecture day. Intel originally intended for Sunny Cove to succeed Palm Cove in late 2017 which was intended to be the first 10 nm-based core and the proper successor to Skylake. Unfortunately, Intel prolonged delays and problems with their 10 nm process resulted in a number of improvised derivatives of Skylake including Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake, and Comet Lake. For all practical purposes, Palm Cove has been skipped and Intel has gone directly to Sunny Cove. Sunny Cove debuted in mid-2019.
    What helps here a bit is Intel CPU roadmap: all the 'Lakes' from 14nm to 7nm | PC Gamer

    µarchSkylakeSunny CovePalm CoveSunny CoveWillow CaveSunny Cove
    ApplicationClientServerClientServer
    - 6th generation -- 7th generation -- 8th generation -- 9th generation -- 10th generation -- 1st generation Scalable Processors -- 2nd generation Scalable Processors -
    - 10th generation -
    - 3rd generation Scalable Processors -- 8th generation -- 10th generation -- ??th generation -- ??th generation -
    Skylake (SKL), 2015, 14 nm,
    WikiChip,
    Wikipedia
    Kaby Lake (KBL), 2016, 14 nm,
    WikiChip,
    Wikipedia
    Kaby Lake (KBL) Refresh, 201, 14 nm,
    WikiChip,
    Wikipedia
    Coffee Lake (CFL), 2017, 14 nm,
    WikiChip,
    Wikipedia
    Whiskey Lake (WHL), 2018, 14 nm,
    WikiChip,
    Wikipedia
    Amber Lake (AML), 2018, 14 nm,
    WikiChip,
    Wikipedia
    Coffee Lake (CFL) Refresh, 2018/19, 14 nm,
    WikiChip,
    Wikipedia
    Comet Lake, 2019, 14 nm,
    WikiChip,
    Wikipedia
    Skylake (SKL), 2017
    WikiChip,
    Wikipedia
    Cascade Lake (CSL/CLX),
    2019
    WikiChip,
    Wikipedia
    Cooper Lake (CPL),
    2020,
    WikiChip,
    Wikipedia
    Cannon Lake (CNL), 2018, 10 nm,
    WikiChip,
    Wikipedia
    Ice Lake (ICL),
    2019, 10 nm,
    WikiChip,
    Wikipedia
    Tiger Lake, 2020,
    WikiChip,
    Wikipedia
    Ice Lake (ICL, ICX), 10 nm,
    WikiChip,
    Wikipedia
    Desktop High PerformanceG, X, DTEERHX, WX, WX, W(X, W)
    Desktop MainstreamSSSR (Refresh)S
    Mobile PerformanceHHHHRH
    Mobile mainstreamUURUUUUU
    Mobile Low PowerUURUUUUU
    Ultra Low PowerYYYY
    Server Entry LevelDTDTERX, WX, WX, W(X, W)
    ServerSP, DESP, APSP, APSP
  3. But it is not only the CPU. The chipset and [French Wikipedia chipset page instead for the English one most helpful for seeing at a glance.
    There is:
    1. 100 Series chipset: Skylake [Wikipedia
    2. 200 Series chipset: Kaby Lake [Wikipedia
    3. 300 Series chipset: Coffee Lake [Wikipedia
    4. 400 Series chipset: Ice Lake but there is little information on Wikipedua about the 400 series but there is:
      1. Intel® 400 Series Chipsets Product Specifications
      2. Intel Releases 400- and 495-Series Chipset Drivers For Comet Lake and Ice Lake CPUs | Tom's Hardware
      3. https://wccftech.com/intel-z490-h470-b460-h410-chipset-motherboards-10th-gen-comet-lake-s-cpu-leak/
      4. Intel's 10th Gen desktop CPUs to arrive with new 400-series chipset and new socket | KitGuru

I properly lost in the woods but with the range above and filtering anything below <= 16 W TDP on Intel CPU - Central Processing Units | Mouser Europe
I could get
  1. Celerons 140 $
  2. Pentiums 211 $
  3. i3 etc > 350 $
so the I thought the J4105 is quite a deal but filtering anything below <=16 TPD and with a minimum CPU Mark a bit less the J4015 (>=3000) on PassMark - CPU Benchmarks - CPU Mega Page - Detailed List of Benchmarked CPUs tells me the Ryzen could be considerable alternative.

There is the follwoing microarchitecture
  1. Zen: [WikiChip, [Wikipedia
  2. Zen+: [WikiChip, [Wikipedia
  3. Zen 2: [WikiChip, [Wikipedia
  4. Zen 3: [WikiChip, [Wikipedia, only announced yet
with a clear line configuratin of CPUs:
  1. Ryzen 3: Entry level Performance, [WikiChip
  2. Ryzen 5: Mid-range Performance, [WikiChip
  3. Ryzen 7: Mid-range Performance, [WikiChip
  4. Ryzen 9: High-end Performance, [WikiChip
  5. Ryzen Threadripper: Enthusiasts, [WikiChip
  6. EPYC: High-performance Server Processor, [WikiChip
  7. EPYC Embedded: Embedded / Edge Server Processor, [WikiChip
  8. Ryzen Embedded: Embedded APUs, [WikiChip
Wikipedia has only a page per family
  1. all AMD CPUs
  2. Ryzen
  3. EPYC
That it is, plus of fair amount of chipsets:
  1. AM4: Zen, Zen+, and Zen2 depending in the generation, [Wikipedia, [AMD
  2. TR4: 1st and 2nd Gen AMD Ryzen Threadripper, [Wikipedia, [AMD
  3. sTRX4: 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen Threadripper, [Wikipedia, [AMD
and same called sockets;
  1. AM4: Zen, Zen+, and Zen2 depending in the generation, [Wikipedia
  2. TR4: 1st and 2nd Gen AMD Ryzen Threadripper, [Wikipedia
  3. sTRX4: 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen Threadripper, [Wikipedia
  4. SP3: system on a chip socket withouth chipset for Zen- and Zen 2-based Epyc server processors, [Wikipedia

In addition, I thought about the power consumption again I did some proper maths.
Based on the current fares I roughly get the following cost per year, assuming that it idles mainly at night:

  1. Powertime
    Full Load
    50.0 W​
    6.0 h/day​
    110 kWh​
    high fare
    Idle
    20.0 W​
    20.0 h/day​
    146 kWh​
    -
    88 kWh​
    high fare
    59 kWh​
    low fare
    high fare
    198 kWh​
    low fare
    59 kWh​
    256 kWh​
    61 $​
    23.77 ¢/kWh​
  2. Powertime
    Full Load
    35.0 W​
    6.0 h/day​
    77 kWh​
    high fare
    Idle
    20.0 W​
    20.0 h/day​
    146 kWh​
    -
    88 kWh​
    high fare
    59 kWh​
    low fare
    high fare
    165 kWh​
    low fare
    59 kWh​
    223 kWh​
    52 $​
    23.41 ¢/kWh​
  3. Powertime
    Full Load
    25.0 W​
    6.0 h/day​
    55 kWh​
    high fare
    Idle
    20.0 W​
    20.0 h/day​
    146 kWh​
    -
    88 kWh​
    high fare
    59 kWh​
    low fare
    high fare
    143 kWh​
    low fare
    59 kWh​
    201 kWh​
    47 $​
    23.10 ¢/kWh​
  4. Powertime
    Full Load
    25.0 W​
    6.0 h/day​
    55 kWh​
    high fare
    Idle
    15.0 W​
    20.0 h/day​
    110 kWh​
    -
    66 kWh​
    high fare
    44 kWh​
    low fare
    high fare
    121 kWh​
    low fare
    44 kWh​
    165 kWh​
    38 $​
    23.36 ¢/kWh​
  5. Powertime
    Full Load
    25.0 W​
    6.0 h/day​
    55 kWh​
    high fare
    Idle
    10.0 W​
    20.0 h/day​
    73 kWh​
    -
    44 kWh​
    high fare
    29 kWh​
    low fare
    high fare
    99 kWh​
    low fare
    29 kWh​
    128 kWh​
    30 $​
    23.77 ¢/kWh​
  6. Powertime
    Full Load
    15.0 W​
    6.0 h/day​
    33 kWh​
    high fare
    Idle
    10.0 W​
    20.0 h/day​
    73 kWh​
    -
    44 kWh​
    high fare
    29 kWh​
    low fare
    high fare
    77 kWh​
    low fare
    29 kWh​
    106 kWh​
    25 $​
    23.26 ¢/kWh​
So long story short I'm still running in circles what might be a good NAS.
Purely focusing on the power consumption is not the smartest decision. Getting a CPU with good low load and idle properties helps best to safe electricity cost and you safe don't much of money if consumpe a lot of power at full load compared to low-profile CPU. Where you lose money is the hours when it idles.
Helpful sources could be CPU With Low Idle Power Consumption Recommendation | AnandTech Forums: Technology, Hardware, Software, and Deals and Alltagstaugliche Desktop-Systeme mit 10W Idle-Verbrauch (inkl. Llano FM1 Beispiel) | Seite 112 | Forum de Luxx.

So, I stumbled over a classified ad on ebay-kleineinzigen selling ASUS H310M-D Rev. 2.0 -µATX, RAM 8GB, CPU Pentium G5400 for 125 € could be this just the right deal, as I find feedbacks that that could idle between 10W and 20 W.
  1. Intel Pentium Gold G5400 3.7 GHz 2 Kerne 4 Threads BX80684G5400
  2. CPU With Low Idle Power Consumption Recommendation | AnandTech Forums: Technology, Hardware, Software, and Deals
but PCI 3.0 support is a bit confusing:
  1. Which Intel motherboard should I buy? Z390, Z370, H370, B360 and H310 | PCWorld H310 motherboards really strip things back. Far fewer USB and SATA ports are supported. It doesn’t support PCI-E 3.0, only the slower PCI-E 2.0, and you can’t use Intel’s Optane Memory technology like you can with the other options. The memory setup only supports a single DIMM per channel, reducing overall bandwidth. RAID options are nonexistent.
  2. Intel 300-Series Chipset Feature Comparison Chart | eTeknix
    PCIe lines only Gen2
  3. PRIME H310M-A | Motherboards | ASUS Global
    *1 When a device in SATA mode is installed on the M.2 socket, SATA_2 port cannot be used.
    Due to the Chipset limitation, when a M.2 device is installed in PCIe mode, the socket is set
    to PCIe 2.0.
During my endless reserach I found some pages what could be helpful but still I'm clueless. If someone could push me into the right direction I will be super happy.
Based on NAS Advanced 3.0B - 6x SATA mit AMD Athlon 3000G I started looking into AMD alternative but it is told that idle efficiency is not best but I found only a super long thread on reddit, Progress at what cost? Intel vs. AMD system power consumption, chronologically : Amd and AMD Ryzen 2 vs. Intel 9th Gen Core: Which CPU Deserves Your Money? | Tom's Hardware.
Power consumption test of the newer B450 chipsets boards are done with heavy CPUs, so I cannot take them as reference for a NAS compare:
  1. MSI B450i Gaming PLUS AC review - Introduction
  2. System Performance - The MSI B450 Tomahawk Motherboard Review: More Missile Than Axe
So currently there is much what you find for AMD based NAS as said in Want to build a NAS - no AMD mobo reviews :( - Hardware / Build a PC - Level1Techs Forums but surprisingly PC Mag list a lot of AMDs as 2020 CPU.
I'm currently reading up and down the site listed below but that rises only desperation on what it the right choice
  1. List of CPU power dissipation figures - Wikipedia -> for all TDP at a glance
  2. Competition - The PC Gamer Best PC Builds - $500 Min Spec Console Killer | PC Gamer Forums
  3. Best PC Builds - Tom's Hardware Best PC Builds - $750 4K Capable Gaming Build | Tom's Hardware Forum
  4. Building a Low-Power, High-Performance Ryzen Homelab Server to Host Virtual Machines - Patshead.com Blog
  5. Best PC Builds - VOTE NOW $500 Low Power NAS Build | Tom's Hardware Forum
  6. [Guide] NAS Killer 4.0 - fast, quiet, power efficient, and flexible - starting at $125 - Builds / [LGA1155] NAS Killer v4.0 - serverbuilds.net Forums
  7. Low power 10Gbit SSD NAS + VM Host - Ryzen 3000 or Intel? | ServeTheHome Forums
  8. 9w idle: creating a low power home NAS / file server with 4 storage drives | mattgadient.com
  9. CPU With Low Idle Power Consumption Recommendation | AnandTech Forums: Technology, Hardware, Software, and Deals
  10. Alltagstaugliche Desktop-Systeme mit 10W Idle-Verbrauch (inkl. Llano FM1 Beispiel) | Seite 112 | Forum de Luxx
    -> links to threads about <6W idle and <30W idle altogether more than 200 pages to read :eek: but they created quite a nice spreadsheet, listing almost 200 systems with verified power consumption at idle and at load but CPUs are quite old.
  11. Ideas for an ODROID-H2 replacement (ODROID-H3 ;?) - ODROID
  12. Which energy efficient ARM platform to choose? - Page 14 - My NAS Build - openmediavault
  13. Low power server motherboard - ECC support? | The FreeBSD Forums
  14. DIY NAS: 2019 Edition - briancmoses.com
  15. $171 NAS Killer v3.0 — Serverbuilds.net
Unfortunately, it is not that simple as in these motherboard guides
  1. How to Choose a Motherboard - Intel
  2. Buying a Motherboard: 20 Terms You Need to Know CPUs & Components

What shall not be forgotten that it is prefered that it run fanless when it idles and Andruino will join the party too.
It would be nice if the NAS mobo would provide an Andruino compatible pin-out but that it pretty much hopeless but a serial interface would be great to control my stereo system via RS-232D Serial RJ-45 .

Waiting for Ice Lake, LAgefield of Tiger Lake from Intel for Zen 3 AMDs?
I think considering the money they cost I can spend easily extra money on the power bill.
The next CPUs to be expected are shown for example here:
  1. Upcoming Hardware Launches 2020 (Updated Apr 2020) | TechPowerUp
  2. CPU-Roadmap 2020: Künftige AMD- und Intel-Prozessoren [Update]

In addition, I would like to get a second device as a firewall, there some interesting devices:
  1. a HP T620+ as described on SBC for pfSense? : PFSENSE
  2. ODROID-C4 – ODROID
  3. RockpiE - Radxa Wiki
 
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