Comparing Temperatures And Power Consumption
To compare power consumption, we looked at the entire system, equipping our Synology DS409+ with four Samsung HD321KJ (320GB T166) or four Samsung HD103SI (1TB F2 EcoGreen) drives. Then, we measured power consumption at the wall socket while the NAS was initializing a RAID 5, when the unit was idle and once more with the hard drives powered down.
| Power Consumption DS409+ | Samsung Spinpoint T166 (HD321KJ) | Samsung Spinpoint F2 EG (HD103SI) |
|---|---|---|
| RAID 5 Rebuild (4 HDD) | 53W | 46W |
| Idle (4 HDD) | 50W | 40W |
| HDD Power Down ( 4 HDD) | 26W | 26W |
Depending on the test, the power consumption of the four 7,200 RPM drives and the four eco drives differs by between 7 and 10 watts for the entire system. Depending on how long you stick with one configuration, that can amount to somewhere between 60 and 86 KWh over the years.
Of course, that alone hardly justifies a hard drive upgrade. However, it is a factor to bear in mind when building a new NAS. The same goes for a drive upgrade to increase a NAS’ capacity. It’s actually a no-brainer, since the newer green drives aren’t only more energy efficient than the older ones, but faster as well.
Finally, the eco drives also produce less heat. Compared to their faster-spinning siblings, we found them to run between four and six degrees Celsius cooler.
