[OPi0+] How to minimize power consumption (DLNA/UPnP music streaming server)

[Joe_PS]

Hi,

 

With an Orange Pi Zero Plus I‘d like to run a DLNA (UPnP) music server for streaming flac files - means music only - to certain clients via LAN, for instance a network AV receiver. Therefore, 100 MBit/s should be sufficient.

 

How to limit the OPi0+ network speed to 100 MBit? And to switch off Wifi also? ...

... for minimizing power consumption.

 

Presupposed Armbian + OMV (+ miniDLNA plugin) installed.

 

Thanks,

Joe

[chwe]

If you don't need GbE, why you buy a SBC with it?   Or in other words, is it worth to save ~400mA (assuming it is more or less the same than on H3 boards) to limit the performance of your NAS? If you really wanna save power --> replace your 3.5'' WD HDD  

Cause you said that you're a beginner I suggest you start step by step. Bring your OPi0+ up and running, getting familiar with working on console and if you have all this working you can start to play with optimizations. H5 boards and their images are in testing phase,  which means:

 

 

 

[tkaiser]

7 hours ago, Joe_PS said:

How to limit the OPi0+ network speed to 100 MBit?

By setting the speed with ethtool: https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/master/packages/bsp/h3consumption#L56 (h3consumption is essentially doing just that: adding a line with an ethtool call to /etc/rc.local).

 

Besides that you really don't want to use any nightly build for something productive (recently Ethernet stopped to work on H5 boards with latest nightly kernel) and there's a nice OMV image available for the board you're interested in which is the best idea if you want to start with OMV anyway...

[Joe_PS]

@chwe: the hdd (2 TB, Western Digital WDBAAU0010HBK-01) consumes in idle less than 2 W as far as I could find out. That’s a good efficiency for such an ‘old’ external hard disk, in my opinion. Usually, I shut down many of my electrical devices, when they are not in use, with a classical power off plug multiple socket strip (foot switch, 0 W when off).

 

Since it is not foreseen to have S3 or S5 for such a H5 board, I ‚must‘ run it 24 x 7, even if I will use the music server only 1 or 2 hours in average per day or maybe less ... otherwise it will get very inconvenient and error-prone, or will cause other electrical consumption (e.g. by a wifi smart plug for instance).

 

Thus, I was looking for a new SBC with very little power consumption and found a thread of @tkaiser about the OPi0+ with the option to reduce the power consumption by reducing the network speed/bandwith to 100 MBit/s. If this can be set by a parameter, why should I run 1 GBit, if it isn’t necessary?

 

[My car can drive around 220 km/h, but when winter tires are in use, I limit the max speed to 190 km/h by a simple menu entry, because I don’t need to drive faster in winter and the tires have a speed limit. Additonally, it reduces consumption when driving max 160 km/h - controlled by the accelerator pedal ;-)]

 

Should I use the ‘older’ Orange Pi Zero (H2) instead, which might consume more electrical power compared to a ‘reduced’ new Zero Plus (H5)?

 

(Since the emporer was faster with his reply than I with my typo corrections, I will go for the stable OMV OPi0+ image).

 

Regards,

Joe

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Igor]

Check this topic:

 

[Joe_PS]

On 18.6.2016 at 6:02 PM, tkaiser said:

With H3 single disk access over USB 2.0 is the bottleneck (accessing data on disk that is not already cached will be limited to ~32 MB/s NAS throughput with legacy kernel, write performance to the NAS depends mostly on available DRAM and buffer settings/useage of the filesharing daemon in question)

@Igor: Thanks for your hint! In your reply to my thread "[OPi0+] How to limit network speed to 100 MBit/s? (Only streaming musik, minimizing power consumption)"

 

Considering my idea to connect an external USB 2.0 HDD to an H5 board (e.g. OPi0+ or NanoPi Neo2), the hard drive will be a bottleneck wrt both aspects: 1. File transfer from my HTPC (Intel NUC 5i5RYH, Windows 10 Pro 64) to the SBC; 2. Streaming flac files - that's the plan: only music - from the HDD via the SBC to an AV-Receiver or another client, which will play them.

 

It is my understanding that a board with more RAM than the 'mini-boards' OPi0 (H2, version 512 MB), NanoPi Neo (H3, version 512 MB), OPi0+ (H5, 512), NanoPi Neo2 (H5, 512),  will improve the performance overall ... if better performance is required.

 

Thus, I kindly ask for your recommendation, which would be highly appreciated.

Just to summarize

• Existing external USB 2.0 HDD (2 TB,  Western Digital WDBAAU0010HBK-01), which I won't use otherwise anymore ... but selling it as used isn't a good idea; in best case 25,00 EUR;
• OPi0+ [or alternatively OPi0, NanoPi Neo2, NanoPi Neo], or ...?
• OMV
• miniDLNA plugin

As already mentioned, this combination will be utilized as a music server, which should consume minimal electrical power in total. The HDD will need a bit less than 2 W in idle, and the SBC most probably around 1 W in idle. That sounds okay for me, since they will run 24 x 7, even if the music server will be only used around 5 to 15 hours per week in average (~ 5 % of 168 hours).

 

Sorry, it's more about my mindset. I don't like to run devices that consume 24 x 7 electrical power, but are used rarely.

 

Thanks again in advance. Best regards,

Joe

[Igor]

4 hours ago, Joe_PS said:

Thanks for your hint!

The hint was to read the topic.

[Joe_PS]

@Igor As you might have noticed, I tried to read the topic. And I tried to understand it. Please consider that I'm neither a native English speaker nor an expert. Some paragraphs I could only understand (partially) with the help of Google translator.  Many pieces of the provided detailed information I couldn't link to my use case, sorry.

 

That's the reason, why I finally asked for a recommendation that suites to my use case, which is summarized above. Sorry, I just like to get to a conclusion. Currently, I feel like moving in a circle. More details, which seem - that's my perception - not to be related to my idea aren't helpful for me. Nevertheless, I appreciate your help as well as the quality of information provided in this forum (by you and tkaiser, just for example).

 

Regards,

Joe

[chrisf]

A sure way to stop a GbE connection from running at gigabit speeds is to cut 4 of the wires in the cat5 cable.

Pins 4, 5, 7 and 8 are only used for 1000Base-T. If they're not connected it is forced to use 10 or 100Base-T on pins 1, 2, 3 and 6.

[Joe_PS]

On 22.1.2017 at 4:02 PM, tkaiser said:

So by removing stuff from /etc/modules you ensure that Wi-Fi is disabled.

 

Yesterday I ordered an Orange PI Zero Plus. I am planning to install the appropriate OMV Image. The SBC will be placed very close to the router/switch (FRITZ!Box). Thus, I am going to connect it via LAN and won't use Wi-Fi.

 

With regards to the OPI0+ (H5) can I use the same command "(sleep 60 && echo 000 >/proc/driver/wifi-pm/power) &" to disable Wi-Fi, as for the predecessor OPI0? Enter this via console (e.g. PuTTY)? Sorry, the syntax appears a bit strange to me.

 

If yes: how to embed this command into startup/reboot to keep Wi-Fi disabled in general?

 

What staff must be removed from /etc/modules exactly (e.g. containing the string 'xradio' or 'wlan')? And how to remove (e.g. simply delete the relevant folders/subfolders)?

 

As usual  thanks in advance, and best regards,

Joe

Edited December 19, 2017 by chwe
merged, cause not related to XR819/H2+

[tkaiser]

16 minutes ago, Joe_PS said:

With regards to the OPI0+ (H5) can I use the same command "(sleep 60 && echo 000 >/proc/driver/wifi-pm/power) &" to disable Wi-Fi

 

No, the above command is for legacy kernel. With mainline kerrnel you delete the line reading '8189fs' in /etc/modules (the Zero Plus has another Wi-Fi chip) and maybe you have to blacklist the module additionally. Just give it a try when the board arrives, delete the line as described above, reboot and check 'lsmod' output for 8189fs.

 

If it's there collect the output from 'armbianmonitor -u' and start a new thread (especially since this thread here is about another Wi-Fi module)

[Joe_PS]

Thx, I will do, after learning how to determine and blacklist the Wi-Fi (Wlan) module properly ... already started reading some how-to-guides.

Independent from that: what about ‚rfkill‘ as a potential alternative? And if this might or should work: how to include it in (re)boot?


Gesendet von iPad mit Tapatalk

[tkaiser]

12 minutes ago, Joe_PS said:

Independent from that: what about ‚rfkill‘ as a potential alternative?

 

Just wait for your board arriving, then use a Powermeter and check what's going on (most probably fiddling around with this is not worth the efforts). Powering of the Wi-Fi chip is usually controlled via a GPIO pin and there exist a couple of ways to toggle those GPIOs, eg. https://forum.armbian.com/topic/5719-opione-usb-power-off/?do=findComment&comment=44261

 

[Joe_PS]

Indeed,  I got rid of the external WD HDD that was directly connected to the OrangePi Zero Plus. Instead, I am using the external HDD that is connected to the Fritz!Box 7490 via 'Remotemount' (OMV 4.X Extra). This plugin together with 'MiniDLNA' provides convenient UPnP / DLNA access to all flac-files, which are stored on the other external Toshiba HDD - that is attached to the Fritz!Box. The WLAN (WiFi) module 8189fs is blacklisted. Thus, it shouldn't consume power.

 

Since the OrangePi Zero Plus + OMV 4.X + Remotemount + MiniDLNA runs properly (24 x 7), I'd like to raise the old question again: can I easily (by settings/parameters) reduce the power consumption of the OPI0+ even more? As far as I guess, 1 GB LAN isn't necessary for streaming music (flac-files). 10 Percent should be more than enough. Sorry, I tried to identify the relevant piece of information within the thread you mentioned, but couldn't find it.

 

Thanks - again - in advance for the right hint.

Regards, Joe