New WHS user here (just bought an HP MS EX490) and my biggest concern is power usage. Right now it uses more power than my desktop PC most of the time.

What is the best add-in to allow me to schedule different sleep times for different days of the week?

Is there a power saving mode that will spin the drives and everything down completely unless a computer (LAN or remote) is trying to access?

Ideally I'd like to only have the system doing back-up jobs, discs checks etc. between certain hours of the day when I'm making use of it (e.g. 6pm-11pm weekdays) and running idle the rest of the day but I don't think I can get that much control.

What are you using to measure power usage? The server does have the capability to be set to sleep at a set time and to awaken at a set time. If you have it do backups during the night and you want to be able to access without delay when you're home, have it awake during those times, but have it sound asleep at all others.

I have an add-in called GridJunction, but that's more designed for use with a UPS. It'll tell you if problems with the UPS were detected, number of power failures, battery level, etc.

I know exactly when I got my EX490--Christmas day 2009; it was a present from my wife. If I look at the electric bills from that day forward (I immediately loaded it with drives so it's always had 4 x 1 TB drives), the impact it had on the electric bill was maybe $1 (USD) a month at most. That time of year here in Michigan is pretty cold so we can count on the furnace running. Compared to the previous year (factoring in rate increases), the amount of power consumed by the server was insignificant as to have such a negligible effect on the bill.

My EX490 runs 24/7/365.

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Matt Sawyer
Owner, Dojo North Software, LLC

HP EX490, 4GB, E5300, 15TB - Server 2012 - Sharing and Streaming
HP EX487, 4GB, E5300, 13TB - Server 2012 Essentials - Backups

Lights Out is a great addin you should check out.

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EX490 with 7TB storage

I'm using an AC power monitor that just goes between the wall socket and plug and gives a readout. My EX490 uses 65-75W and never really seems to wind activity down. My desktop - i5 2500K, 8GB RAM, 60GB SSD, HD4670 - in comparison uses less than this under light usage, which accounts for 95% of my time on it. When I'm away from it for 5 mins it winds down using negligible power and wakes up in moments. Obviously this isn't including monitors.

One of the main reasons wanted a NAS-type solution was to avoid having my PC on 24/7. Admittedly I have gotten a little obsessive about this stuff because I'm a PC silencing enthusiast The more efficient my desktop is the less heat it puts out so the less cooling it needs. Apart from when I play games there isn't an active fan in the system and with this NAS I was going to remove my mechanical HDD completely and only have the OS and apps on the SSD meaning no moving parts at all.

The settings on the server only allow you to set a universal off time for all days, but my usage will vary drastically over the weekend to through the week. It will also power down if I'm in the middle of accessing data rather than postpone it. I was really hoping this thing would go into a deep power saving idle state using 10-20W until it is woken up like PCs and laptops have been doing effectively for years

I'll try out Lights Out