Building a more power efficient server

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Fryguy8

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Sep 26, 2001
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So I've got a server in my house that runs 24/7. It is a:

s939 Athlon XP 3800+
1gig ram
random fanless nvidia video card
Areca 1220
2 Intel PCI-E gigE nics
5 Samsung 750gb HDs (storage)
1 Old seagate 160gb IDE drive (system drive)
2x Supermicro 5in3s in a Coolermaster Stacker
Fortron 550w power supply.

Running FreeBSD. It's the router for my house, using PF, and then in jails are instances of:

httpd
rtorrent
squeezebox server software
samba
personal jail with irc/etc
local dns

Total power consumption of the machine, under standard usage (on, filtering network traffic, rtorrent running doing standard uploading) is about 170 watts, measured using a P3 KillAWatt over the course of about 30 minutes after the machine has settled down from a fresh boot.

What steps can I do to make the server consume less power? Ideally I'd like to be able to get under 100 watts, but realistically with 5+ hard drives running hardware raid I'm not sure if this is possible. Would upgrading to a like Q6600+ on a 775 platform have lower power usage under normal operating conditions? What else can I do to save wattage?
 
Just get a more efficient PSU like Antec's Earthwatts EA430 430W PSU which be had for $55. A Q6600 will not lower power usage. In fact that Athlon XP 3800+ CPU uses less power than the Q6600 and other quad-core and dual-core Intel and AMD CPus.
 
5 Samsung 750gb HDs for a home server?? :confused:
you must have a big database ;), right?

do you really need them to be on the server running 24 7 ?
why don't you put them on another PC
 
My workstation, which is running a p35 board and Q6600+ with 4gb ram and an nvidia 6800 GTOC consumes about 90 watts under normal use. The PSU on that machine is a seasonic M12

I can't imagine a raid card + 5 hard drives doubling the power usage of a system.
 
leSLIe said:
5 Samsung 750gb HDs for a home server?? :confused:
you must have a big database ;), right?

do you really need them to be on the server running 24 7 ?
why don't you put them on another PC
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It's the media server for everything in my house, my home directories of other machines are mounted off this server, and it streams video content to my home theater. It also houses VMs etc for testing purposes.

And yes the machine needs to be running 24/7, it's the network router for the house, and I do a lot of torrenting on the machine.

I'm not looking to change the usage profile of the machine; I'm looking to make the current usage profile more power efficient.
 
Fryguy8 said:
My workstation, which is running a p35 board and Q6600+ with 4gb ram and an nvidia 6800 GTOC consumes about 90 watts under normal use. The PSU on that machine is a seasonic M12
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Now I know that sounds wrong. Since you're using a Kill-A-Watt and the Seasonic M12 PSU is an APFC design, gotta post this straight from our PSU editor here:

Paul_Johnson said:
Yes and a quick search would turn up this topic a million times over. Here is the recap:

1) APFC can fool Kill-A-Watts into giving you abnormally low readings (some times giving better than 100% efficiency)

2) Power supplies derate with temperature anywhere from 2w/c above a nominal rated at value to 10w/c.

3) Kill-A-Watt's and most power meters sample too slowly to catch transient loads (the Transient load from our tests is 117w and is COMPLETELY missed by Kill-A-Watts).

4) Power supplies last longer if you stay in the 40% to 60% range of their output.

5) power supplies are quieter if you stay in the 40% to 60% range of their output.

6) Power supplies are cooler if you stay in the 40% to 60% range of their output.

The power meters in UPS software are just as bad. You have to spend some change before you get anywhere near an accurate power meter when your PSU has APFC.
Click to expand...
 
You can try figuring out how nice that PSU is... if its only getting like 70% and you get a nicer 80+% one you'll save 10watts or whatever... some of the Antec Earthwatt PSUs are real cheap at like $39 but pretty good.

If you don't need video try to get rid of that card. Even crappy addin cards usually draw alot of power, eg 20watts.

Check out silentpcreview.com and the forum... some of the best low power systems are AMD... plus they're hella cheap. Just get onboard video in that case and it'll be win win for cutting power. Plus if you get right mobo you'd be able to underclock/undervolt CPU, one more win.

If you're stuck with that areca controller + drives then thats that. Only way to cut power is drop the addin card and get less, larger, more power efficient drives (WD Green Power).

Really only warning with trying to go low power, if saving money is your goal often its better to use what you have. It can take take years to make the investment back. If you just need excuse to buy new comptuer stuff then go for it ;).
 
About the APFC stuff, thanks for the heads up for that.

About the video card, it's there because the machine doesn't boot without one (no idea why, just might be a fluke of the motherboard or something).

I think what I might do is swap out the PSU for something more power efficient (I have a feeling my fortron is only 70% efficiency), and maybe remove a fan or 2 to save a couple of watts there too. At this point, after some reconsideration, it seems like a reasonable goal would be to get under 150 watts.

Is Antec earthwatts the clear choice for a power efficient power supply?
 
Fryguy8 said:
Is Antec earthwatts the clear choice for a power efficient power supply?
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Yes in terms of Cost effectiveness. However only the EA430 is worth buying as it only costs $55. The other Earthwatts PSUs aren't too good price wise.
 
Yah I'd most likely get the 430 as the 500 is overkill for my needs (given the 170 watt current reading), and the lower model is probably cutting it a bit too close for transient loads etc.

Is it the obvious choice though in that price range? Or is there anything else worth considering?
 
The 380 is $15 less, http://www.provantage.com/antec-ea380~7ANTS02R.htm, I swear they used to be $39 somewhere tho.

Tax/Shipping starts to play a role but still.

Also Earthwatts isn't the obvious choice.. there are certainly more efficient power supplies available but for the cost they're really good. If you wanna spend $80 on a PSU you can definitely do better, for example. Again check silentpcreview forums they are all about efficient systems.
 
bexamous said:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817174037, http://www.censuspc.com/product-pr-9566.html or with free shipping :p

Wow $50 noname 80plus bronze psu... :/ at ~200watt draw it was like 85% eff.. i just closed the window tho and don't remember exact.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't recommend that PSU. Just because 80Plus gives it a good efficiency award does not mean it's a good PSU. 80Plus do not monitor the voltages when it's doing those tests. So while that PSU may be efficient, it can still deliver out of spec power that can harm your system.

Also, the Hipro PSU you recommended only has 29A on the +12V rail whereas the Corsair 400CX 400W and Antec Earthwatts EA430 430W PSUs have 30A on the +12V rail.
 
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