Lowering Power Usage

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haxxorboi

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 21, 2007
Messages
159
I've currently got a Drobo for media (TV/Movies/Music) and a WHS for backup and I'm trying to lower my power use on the WHS and justify selling the Drobo. The Drobo uses 35, 45, and 80 watts for idle, streaming, and spinup (respectively). The WHS box uses 56, 62, and 108 watts respectively.

The WHS build has:
5050e underclocked to 1.8GHz @ 1v w/C&Q enabled
1-2GB DDR2-800
4 sata drives-
2-1.5TB Seagate 7200.11
1-1.5TB WD15EADS
1-WD5000AADS
No video card (headless)
Integrated video/audio/1394/usb disabled

Ultimately the 2 Seagates will be replaced with WD Green drives from the Drobo which will reduce a few watts as well.

Any other ways you guys can see to reduce the wattage without breaking the bank? Dropping 5-10 watts would be nice but spending $100+ on an SSD isn't worth it in terms of payoff.

Thanks in advance
 
I'm pretty sure the WDs do, I think the Greens park pretty aggressively, but I'm not sure about the Seagates.

You have a nifty program to spin your drives down or is there a BIOS option I may be missing? It's definitely worth looking at when I get home either way.
 
going to 1 RAM stick that is 2gb will be less power use...

what is the PSU? a 80+ Gold or so will be able to be more effecient
 
haxxorboi said:
I've currently got a Drobo for media (TV/Movies/Music) and a WHS for backup and I'm trying to lower my power use on the WHS and justify selling the Drobo. The Drobo uses 35, 45, and 80 watts for idle, streaming, and spinup (respectively). The WHS box uses 56, 62, and 108 watts respectively.

The WHS build has:
5050e underclocked to 1.8GHz @ 1v w/C&Q enabled
1-2GB DDR2-800
4 sata drives-
2-1.5TB Seagate 7200.11
1-1.5TB WD15EADS
1-WD5000AADS
No video card (headless)
Integrated video/audio/1394/usb disabled

Ultimately the 2 Seagates will be replaced with WD Green drives from the Drobo which will reduce a few watts as well.

Any other ways you guys can see to reduce the wattage without breaking the bank? Dropping 5-10 watts would be nice but spending $100+ on an SSD isn't worth it in terms of payoff.

Thanks in advance
Click to expand...


replace the psu with a 80 plus gold certified psu.. thats the easiest way to save money.. will cost a fair bit of money but will pay for its self within a year..
 
Thanks for the comments so far guys, I appreciate them very much.

I set the drives to park after 3 minutes and the idle dropped to 40 watts!! On streaming they are about 48 and spin up is only 80, a definite improvement. I really wish I could fix the issue of the primary OS drive turning on to do drive balancing every couple minutes, at the very least for longevity sake, but I can't find any real ways to effectively schedule it without removing other Extender features.

The PSU is a 300w Seasonic ECO which is about 83% efficient at a 60 watt load. I can't find any PSUs that are Gold but don't drop off a bunch around the 50-60 watt range. For instance the Seasonic x650 is great at normal loads (around 91% efficiency), but at 50-60 is only around 80% efficient. I'm also thinking the payoff (.01kwh*10hr*365days*.09c=$3.29 per YEAR savings) over the life of the machine won't repay the $100+ I'd end up putting into a new supply.

I should also clarify that the RAM is just one 2GB stick, not two 1GB sticks, so unfortunately I already knocked that one off the list.

I'm starting to think the only real way to drop much more is using something like the board StaticLag posted, which I was also looking at a week ago. The problem is that I have an Antec 300 which doesn't support ITX, don't have a PSU for the ITX board anyway, and have no alternative location to house the drives. I could just strap it into the Antec haphazardly but I'm not sure how well that will work. On top of that the AMD setup I have now works really well and unfortunately I don't have need to pass off the system as old to a family member or friend. Maybe for a Xmas present or something...

Any other tweaks/tips/alternative hardware you guys can recommend? I'm enjoying the response so far.
 
You could try taking the voltage a little lower on your processor or underclocking/undervolting your RAM. You could also buy lower voltage RAM but that would be a little harder to recoup the cost of. Are there any fans you could unlpug? You could reduce the voltage to your fans by buying something like the L.V. and U.L.V. adapters for Noctua fans. You could cut out any fan grills to reduce the load on the fans and increase airflow and make sure that there is room on all six sides of the case for adequate airflow around it so that you can slowdown/remove fans. If your computer and power supply already run cool, you could remove/mod the power supply's fan (could be dangerous though). You can also disable the onboard IDE controllers if you haven't already.
 
After you spend money to lower your power consumption how much will you be saving on your electric bill?
 
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