Power Consumption

Let us now check on how much power the N5550 needs in sleep, idle, and heavy throughput.

We use a GW Instek GPM-8212 power analyzer for all power consumption measurements.

Sleep, Idle and Load

Power consumption is low in all possible configurations, making its 200 W PSU quite overkill. However, during start-up, HDDs demand for increased power instantaneously, which could put a lot of stress on a PSU with a low capacity. This could then be the reason behind Thecus equipping the N5550 with a 200 W PSU. You unfortunately won't find any readings for sleep mode in the above graphs since the NAS couldn't put our HHDs into this mode due to compatibility issues.

Power Consumption in Standby Mode

Vampire power, or phantom load, is the amount of power a device consumes when it is switched off but still plugged into the power grid. According to the ErP Lot 6 2013 directive, it should be below 0.5 W.



Unfortunately, with over 1 W phantom power, the N5550 fails to comply with the ErP Lot 6 2013 directive.

Power Consumption Comparison Graphs