NAS Server

[Southern Man]

Hello Guys,

 

I have a server machine running Win 8.1 with sleep disabled and it works fine so far (3 months+) 

 

However i was wondering (i don't want to experiment if not necessary) if it will work fine with Wake on LAN turned on?

 

Meaning i would like it gets sleep over night and most of the time when i am out but i am not sure if it can wake up when i e.g. try to open the mapped drive?

 

I would like to know about your experience with sleep enabled on the server machine. 

 

Thank you

[+BudMan]

What OS are you running on this server?  Is it a NAS os like freenas or something or windows/linux? What do you plan on using to send the WOL?  My pfsense has built in ability to send wol to anything I want..  Its not that it doesn't work 95% of the time, its just the 1 time that it doesn't when you need it too that is the problem!!

 

You want wake it up on traffic sent to it.. You do understand there is lots of noise in many networks, and having it wake up on traffic can be sporadic - its it traffic sent to its mac?  Any box that has the share mapped could do that.  Is it going to answer arps, that could wake it up.  Or is just going to listen for WOL packet "magic packet" ?

 

In your op you stated "try to open the mapped drive" - you do understand your machine is prob going to send requests to that even if your not actively using it, etc.

 

Its not like it doesn't work - its just not worth it for the cost savings when it comes to when it doesn't work which is going to be now and then.  Especially if windows based machine, what nic?  It is wired right, is the box sending the wakeup wired or wireless?

 

so for example I can click on any dhcp lease on my pfsense box and create a wol entry for that device, then under wol just click and it sends magic packet to wake up the machine.. So I can do it remote or from where ever after I vpn into pfsense from on the road, etc.

 

 

Without knowing the details of your OS, hardware nic and bios and you want to wake it up on specific traffic - what specific traffic? Its hard to say if you can even do what you want anyway.  Be it works 100% or 90% of the time, etc.  Trying to put my esxi host to sleep and wake up is pointless, since that is what runs my router in a vm, etc.  My desktop would be the other thing I might want to wake up, but it makes no noise and uses pennies a day for power.  So its pointless, and this way when I want to use it and move the mouse the monitor wakes up and Im working in like 2 seconds vs say 30 to come out of standby.

 

It makes no sense in a home setup.  Now in work setup where you have hundreds of machines all sucking power after working hours, but might want to wake them up at 3 am to update or do a virus scan, etc. then it makes sense.  And that can be setup to work sure - the machine that fails now and then is no big deal, since you would see in your reports it didn't update or check for update and normally user would report it won't come on when they come back in.  Or you could take go and restart it in the morning and see why maybe it didn't wol when you asked it too..

 

But in a home setup your talking pennies in cost savings.. But even pennies multiplied by HUNDREDS = dollars

 

Your issues seems to be noise not power - so why are we not talking about the noise??  Clearly you have something wrong.. Can you measure what sounds its making..  There are plenty of tools on the net for smart phones and tablets to measure decibel level.

 

http://www.healthyhearing.com/report/47805-The-best-phone-apps-to-measure-noise-levels

[+BudMan]

My experience with wol is that is not worth the trouble..  What are you talking about spending a month to run that machine 24/7 vs say putting it to bed over night?
 
What does it draw?  No monitor, not really doing anything but serving files..  I just turned off the monitors on my box, so my modem and switch also on this ups and was drawing a whole 48 watts.  So lets say you draw 50w and you pay 12Cents per kwh which is pretty expensive to be honest.. Where do you live?
 
Southern Man.. So lets look at Georgia Power rates
There most expensive rate, "Over 1000 kWh: 9.2638

[+John Teacake]

Maybe he is just thinking of the planet :-p 

[Southern Man]

Good point indeed but i am not even concerned about the kwh rather i am more interested in cutting the noise down for a while as it's not too quiet lol 

 

However let's wait for someone who already has some experience with WOL and see if their experience is good or bad lol

[+BudMan]

I have lots of exp with it.. LOTS!!  And all of it has been bad.. Like I said its not worth the 2$ a month you might save..  Why would it make noise??  You have something wrong with fan if its making any noise.  Or you are using something way to powerful for a nas, sucking way to much power and generating way too much heat, so fan has to run and cool it off.

 

If your looking to help the planet - then use something that uses less juice!!

 

And again - is this something you want to wake up while your away.. Or while your at the location.. Why don't you just turn it off when you go to bed and turn it on when you wake up and need it if that is the case?

 

I use to put my boxes in standby while alway.. But that one time it doesn't wake up when your away and need something.. Just not worth the pennies your talking about saving.  My monitors shut down in 3 minutes if not doing anything on the machine.. That is the biggest power user anyway.. My printer uses less than 1 watt while power saving.. And I can print to it in seconds when need too, etc..

 

If your after power savings there are lots of places to find them and get them, WOL and sleep for something you want to use not really a good place save money or frustration when you actually need/want it to work.  To your fan - fix that.. Whats a new fan going to cost 10 maybe 20$ tops??

[Southern Man]

Well it's a kind of regular server machine that i use as NAS ... 

 

PSU: Cooler Master Silent Pro M2

CPU cooler: COOLER MASTER Hyper TX3 EVO

 

It may look like quiet but in reality it is not the case. 

 

Btw as mentioned i really don't care about the power saving lol 

[+BudMan]

Then track down what is making the noise.. What is the level it makes?  Grab app for your phone or ipad/tablet and measure it..

 

What kind of server are you running that needs a 620W psu???  My "server" has 150W psu.. it has 2 extra nic cards in it, and 4 HDD and a SSD..  What are you running in a "server" that needs 620W??

 

Is it the psu or the cpu cooler?  Do you have any other fans in the thing?

 

I looked up the sound level of the 720W model of that psu

33.4 dB(A) at 100W

 

which is pretty low and shouldn't really be hearing..  Unless something is wrong - or your superman or trying to sleep with the thing next to your head?

 

And the cpu fan is rated at

17 - 35 dBA

 

So even spinning at max rpm its only 35..  Which is pretty freaking quiet for inside a metal box   Do you have some sort of vibration with resonance happening that is making the noise louder?  A "quiet" room is 28-33, your refrigerator is like 40..  Do you want to turn that off?  If its making noise that is too loud then you have something wrong..

[Southern Man]

I have lots of exp with it.. LOTS!!  And all of it has been bad.. 

 

Could you please tell me something more about your experience? Does it fail when you need it to wake up or what?

 

I could even test it but would be greatly appreciated if you can share your experience first so i can know what i am up against.

 

Thank you so much

[Southern Man]

Wow man ... you were more than helpful in explaining the stuff. It's much appreciated. 

 

By the way my OS is windows 8.1 Pro though i believe i mentioned it already in the first post. 

 

Thank you again so much 

[+BudMan]

I might of missed that and to me 8.1 is not a "server"

 

Do you have any issues with it coming out of standby, have you tested that?  Look in the driver - do you see stuff about wol?

 

 

What about in the bios of the machine?  Also you do understand if you want a box to send a magic packet it has to have the mac of the devices, or you can use direct broadcast which doesn't always work depending on your network gear, if your multisegmented?  So if you say for example you want the "server" to wake up when you access a try and access share on the machine (take into account that this might wake the machine up when you don't want it to from other machines with maps to shares on the "server)  You might have to setup a static arp entry so that machine knows what mac to send the wol packet..

 

Here to help dude.. I just feel wol in the home is not every useful.  In the enterprise it can amount to large amounts of savings putting 500 machines to sleep when users go home at 5pm vs leaving them on all night and all weekend, or say over holiday.  Or even shutting down large vm hosts when load is reduced and consolidate all the vms to 1 or 2 hosts vs say 5 or 6 when running at full load when your 10k users are using them in full production mode, etc.

 

While it might be fun to play with, its just not something I would play with if when you need that file and your away that wol doesn't work.. And as always its going to pick that 1 time out of 100 to not work when you most need to get something off of it

 

Also what switch(es) do you have, or just a router.  Some of these power saving, low end switches that put the port in power saving mode can sometimes cause problem with waking the device connected that port up, etc.

[binaryzero]

I'd just sleep the disks and not the PC...

[+BudMan]

So you think his disks are making all the noise?  Or generating the heat to cause the fans to make noise?  I would really figure out exactly what is making the noise and fix it - because it shouldn't be making noise that is bothersome that is for sure.