replacement for HP microsver gen8

[Enquiries]

Hi.

I was checking the review about the QNAP TS-873A and memory upgraded and inbox and noticed option in on the site.

So in the netherlands the energy prices are raising. last year it was around 17cents for 1kWH, it is now 53cent for 1kWh.

currently I having a HP microsver gen8, running openmediavault with ZFS.
it got a E3 1260L Xeon cpu with 16 GB Ram.
I got 2 times 8TB ZFS mirror for photo's and content so this pool can spin down.
and I got 2times 4TB ZFS mirror pool for docker and tempdata etc. I also hosting my site so this pool is always running.

when idle the server usage is around 80W and with some load example plex it is around 130W. that cost 440 euro each year to keep it running.


I was checking for a replacement for this. HP dont have home labs/stoarag prebuilds anymore and I also think a prebuild is more power efficient then building my own server.

I was thinking for an 8bay solution. adding 1 8Tb to the first pool with raidz1 and another 4TB disk for the 4TB pool.
with current those disk in mirror I loose 1/2 of it. when adding 1 more disk and migrate to raid1 from the 3 8TB disk, I have 16 available.

the QNAP TS-873A-8G
replace the memory with 2 times Kingston KSM26SED8/16GB ECC memories

is this a good prebuild for me ? it is also cheaper than example the TS-h973AX
the power usage is from idle 30W and under load 55W. so that is power saving of 50% of the current HP microserver gen8

the nas cost here around eur 1100 and the 32GB memories eur 160.

and the energy savings are with a 45W qnap this drops to euro 220. this is already euro 1000 in 4 years.

what you advise,

thanks,
Peter

[TribalHound]

Hi Peter - that certainly sounds like quite a sensible setup & going from your existing 4 drives to an 8 bay NAS gives you the option to expand as well.

Don't forget the NAS needs storage for it's OS / Apps as well, so you have three choices -
1. Add a couple of 500GB SSDs in bays 1&2
2. Utilise those M2 slots, or
3. Use a PCIe port with dual NVMe SSDs (and extra cooling)
Each option allows a Raid1 configuration in a Storage Pool just for the OS and apps
Adding some SSD's for caching might also save those discs spinning quite so vigorously.

You could even extend your current two Raid1s to 2 Raid5s - making each drive have to work a little less and giving you a bit more capacity. If you went for choices 2 or 3 above - all 8 bays would be empty so you could have 2 Raid5 with a Hot Spare each.

Unlike some NAS with 4 RAM slots, the TS-x73a range only has 2, so you might consider a 'one time' upgrade to 2x16GB Kingston or Crucial. It'' save you having to consider upgrading again in a couple of years.

With energy prices rising globally at the rate they are - those Grid-Tied Solar systems are getting more and more affordable compared to paying utility unit prices

Hope this was helpful, but Robbie's done quite a review of this one if you need a little more info:
https://nascompares.com/2021/03/09/qnap-...as-review/