Which NAS is the Cheapest to Run 24×7?

What NAS is the Cheapest to Run 24×7?

Have you SEEN how much electricity costs these days? Because of any one of about a hundred different global factors (local conflict, slow renewable energy uptake, monopolizing energy companies with powerful lobbying – take your pick!) most of us in2022/2023 have seen increases in energy costs. In this energy-aware climate, it can be appreciated that a NAS drive (a 24×7 appliance) seemingly has its cost to the end user in terms of electricity as something of a vague number. With so many kinds of NAS available in the market, featuring a mix of CPUs, PSUs, Bays and utilities, PLUS the wide range of HDD/SSD drives in the market to choose from – there are just so many variables when trying to work out how much power your NAS drive is using and how much that is translating to in your monthly energy bill! So, to resolve this concern, we have created this chart below that details the power consumption of several popular Synology and QNAP NAS systems in the market right now, defined by their reported power consumption (supplied on their official pages) and worked out how that translates into $, £ and Euros! But before we start, what is the difference between ACTIVE power use and IDLE power use? It’s pretty important when it comes to a device that will be on days, weeks, months and even YEARS at a time.

Can NAS Manufacturers be trusted to provide accurate power consumption numbers?

Popular NAS brands such as Synology, QNAP, Asustor and Terramaster are all obligated to provide a certain degree of information/specifications to end users when selling their wares globally. The extent of this information can vary, with some brands only giving you the CPU, Memory and PSU/Power brick wattage, whereas more reputable brands give you details breakdowns of the reported/average power usage of the device when in active, standby and/or idle use. Now, the question is, how much can you trust/rely on these figures? Surely it is in the interest of the brand to keep this number as LOW as possible to entice the end user? Well. I will say you can definitely, 100% TRUST the figures that the NAS brands report on their devices in use, HOWEVER, you need to always scroll down to the bottom of the page and check the DRIVES and RAID that were used in the testing. It is not uncommon for a NAS brand to use specific low-powered SSDs, or a RAID 0 as opposed to RAID 5 (which requires less system operation to maintain). These are not terrible guidelines, as there ARE users that use these setups, but it would be better if there was a form of universal standard in place (e.g separate 4TB / 8TB / 16TB / 22TB tests).

Note – Alongside these results based on officially provided energy consumption, I have been making videos and articles on SPECIFIC power usage tests, covering Active/Idle usage. These tests are going to take place throughout the next 12+ months and will cover around 30 NAS’ and 18 drive variations (capacity, performance, brands, SSD vs HDD, etc). You can read the MASSIVE article that is being regularly updated with fresh test results HERE. You watch the playlist so far HERE on YouTube.

What is the Difference Between a NAS Drive ‘Active’ and in ‘IDLE / Standby’?

Although a NAS is designed to be in operation 24×7 and is consuming electricity when running, the actual reality of this and the extent to which it is consuming it is actually alot more nuanced. Most home users who have a NAS system will use the NAS directly for a significant;y smaller portion of time per day than it is actually powered on for. Perhaps to stream a movie or a couple of TV episodes, run a daily backup, have a couple of cameras in/outside their home that are sending recordings (or more likely just alerts and associated captures) to the NAS and that is about it. They will periodically do more than these, maybe a VM, more sophisticated backup or use some of the other services ad hoc, but the result is that in most domestic/bog standard home scenarios, a NAS will be switched internally to Idle/Standby after no pro-active use quite quickly and spend 80-90% of the time in low power modes. Business users might well be using the system 24×7 for sync’d tasks and on-going camera recording, but even then, this will be a lower %  of system resources in use. So, in order to find a comparable and relative means to study the electricity use of a NAS and it’s cost, I have conducted two tests per NAS+HDD configuration. The first, a 24 Hour Active test, with the system using a decent % of it’s CPU+Memory, a swell as the HDDs not being given the chance to switch to Idle/Standy (by constantly writing AND performing S.M.A.R.T tests hourly). The idle tests involve all of those apps, services and scheduled operations being cancelled and the network cable being disconnected from the NAS (for another 24hrs). From here we can work out the cost of an hour of power usage by either setup in high activity and near-zero activity. But how can we work out the COST of the electricity used by the NAS in that time period?

All Synology and QNAP NAS Drives, Listed in Power Use and Cost (Best to Worst)

Below are the NAS we have added so far to our energy calculator. You can add your own electricity price/tariff/rate in the box at the top if you want to narrow things down a little and/get a better understanding how the reported power usage by each NAS device will work out for you in costs per day, month and year. We will be adding more NAS brands and devices as time goes on.

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UK: Energy Price (October 2022) electricity rate of 34.00 pence per kWh.

USA: Average (Feb 2022) electricity rate of 14.80 cents per kWh.

Germany: Average (June 2021) electricity rate of 31.93 Eurocents per kWh.

Australia: Average (March 2022) electricity rate of 23.59 cents per kWh.

Canada: Average (2020) electricity rate of 8.50 cents per kWh.

Source – https://www.sust-it.net

There are the rates that we will be using to calculate the running costs of the Synology and QNAP NAS systems (and more importantly their respective WD Drive setups and CPU usage).