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Using less power, saving $$

G

Guldan

Weaksauce
Joined
Jan 16, 2013
Messages
113
Hey Guys,

I bought a place and will be moving in probably 3 months from now. Also I just bought a network closet and a couple servers to rack in there.

Recently I thought.. damn I have to pay my own electricity bill now, how can I mitigate the costs? computers are expensive to run 24/7

Now I have no problem hibernating my gaming/htpc rigs but is it a good idea to hibernate servers as well? (daily).. I'll be running a dell 1950 plus an MD1000 storage array to start, also have a small rack mountable server w/ PFsense on it. I'm concerned about shutting the MD1000 down, spinning disks up and down seemingly is never a good thing.

Also any thoughts on saving power would be great! thanks
 
Definitely leave your servers running. It seems like you know that repeatedly warming up and cooling down drives is bad, and should be the determining factor.

You'd be surprised how much power you don't use when leaving your PC on... You should be worried about how much power your electric range (if so equipped), furnace/AC, washer/dryer, fridge/freezer, etc. uses, but least of all your servers.

It's not worth it to save a few bucks a year on electricity just to blow more on new drives every few years, not to mention the possibility of losing data. :)
 
Well the 1950 will draw about 200-300 watts and my MD1000 w/' drives will be around 200 watts, According to my power company that equates to about $25/month.

I have a fat mortgage so i'm trying to be as efficient as possible :), In the end it's always been my dream to have a rack in my own garage full of badass servers so I'm going to do it regardless.

But yeah I know if you have say, a 500w PSU an average computer will probably draw 100-150w just doing regular tasks.
 
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Sorry to hear that, I'm blessed by low power costs being in the rural Pacific Northwest so I'm not paying much per kW/hr.

I guess it comes down to a cost/benefit ratio...
 
Hey me too, i'm in Vancouver BC Canada.

I actually have about 10 servers, Dell 1950's and 2950's that i am selling (also a MD3000/TL2000).. So I can choose which one I want for my NAS. I'll be using a SAS HBA to hook up to the MD1000.

Will probably take my least powerful server (single processor quad core 1950) and run freenas off a USB stick and sell everything else off. Maybe I'll keep another server as an ESXI box but only boot it up when needed.
 
Your best bet to save power is to actually make sure that you have low power lights, fridge, TV, and other appliances. Those will make more of a power difference than lowering your PC's power.
 
Danny Bui said:
Your best bet to save power is to actually make sure that you have low power lights, fridge, TV, and other appliances. Those will make more of a power difference than lowering your PC's power.
Click to expand...

It's brand new, all the appliances are low-power/energysmart + LED lights.

I'll stop worrying :) thanks
 
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