How much energy do your servers and PVR's use and therefore cost?

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lchiu7

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#20950 10-Apr-2008 21:57

Just got my latest electricity bill - $375(!) with GST. And I also have gas! Then thought - how much does all this computer stuff cost me.

Doing some basic maths - one server and one PVR on 7x24. Average power 300W each. Electricity costs about 17c/unit (Kw/hr). That means the two servers are costing 0.6kW * 17c * 24 hrs * 31 days = $75.88 + GST = $85.37. Then cable modem and router - say 200w in total. That is .2kW * 17c * 24 hrs * 31 days = $25.30 + GST = $28.45. So to run the servers and networking I am spending at least $104/month!

Some thoughts on saving money

1. Stop the hobby!
2. Find a way to get the PVR (running gbpvr) to sleep and wakup on recording and then go back (haven't worked out how to do that yet)
3. Install a windmill(!) - I live in Wellington!

Other people's thoughts?

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

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Hawkes Bay
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#122696 10-Apr-2008 21:58

Everytime i get a power bill, I do a burnout in the V8 to make the power bill a non issue in comparison...

sbiddle

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#122706 10-Apr-2008 22:09

GB-PVR works great going into suspend mode. I just set Windows to go into S3 suspend after 15 minutes of inactivity. GB-PVR wakes up for scheduled recordings and goes back to sleep afterwards.

lchiu7

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#122712 10-Apr-2008 22:21

sbiddle: GB-PVR works great going into suspend mode. I just set Windows to go into S3 suspend after 15 minutes of inactivity. GB-PVR wakes up for scheduled recordings and goes back to sleep afterwards.

Must check to see if my MB supports S3 suspend. That would save one server cost then!

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

Mattnzl

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#122734 11-Apr-2008 06:42

My current PVR is a laptop for this reason, low power, reliable suspend/resume, cool & quiet and it has a built in UPS! (battery hehe).
Downside is smaller hdd's (ok for recording tv though - movies etc. on XBMC) and my lappie doesn't have hardware h.264 decoding.

Once a PVR STB comes out I think I'll get one - they are usually about 20W max and almost nothing on standby.

TinyTim

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#122742 11-Apr-2008 07:48

lchiu7:
Doing some basic maths - one server and one PVR on 7x24. Average power 300W each. Electricity costs about 17c/unit (Kw/hr). That means the two servers are costing 0.6kW * 17c * 24 hrs * 31 days = $75.88 + GST = $85.37. Then cable modem and router - say 200w in total. That is .2kW * 17c * 24 hrs * 31 days = $25.30 + GST = $28.45. So to run the servers and networking I am spending at least $104/month!

How accurate are your estimates? Would a PVR use 300W? Also cable modem + router = 200W sounds a bit high to me.

sbiddle

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#122744 11-Apr-2008 07:56

Our power bill at home is around $160 - $180 per month. This is for two people with power for cooking and hot water.

Remember that a PC power supply only draws what is required, a 300W system won't draw 300W all the time.

As for PC's I have my server (300W PS), Asterisk box (Compaq iPaq which is around 150W from memory) and standalone PC (300W) running 24/7 and my PVR is on while watching TV and while recording so maybe factor in ~4 hours per day.

davidcole

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#122759 11-Apr-2008 08:48

Mine similar to sbiddle, 140 - 180 a month (including gas). The electricity portion is about $80 - $100

This is is 24x7 pvr and another machine on 7am to 11pm, two routers, cable modem - and then two laptops in the evenings.

Again coupled with gas hotwater, gas cooking etc.

So unless you're doing something really nuts that a big bill!!

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TinyTim

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#122770 11-Apr-2008 09:14

Our powerbill was $125 per month for the last couple of months but it was a lot higher over Christmas when everyone was at home and we had visitors staying - people around during the day using hot water is the biggy for us. And we have electric central heating so the bill will be >$300 over winter. We have a family of four with two preschoolers but noone at home normally during the day. We only have laptops at home (no desktops), and I don't think the wireless router, cable modem and other bits and pieces use a lot of power.

knoydart

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#122797 11-Apr-2008 11:00

Whist in the red shed last week looking for a ground sheet, I came across the Elto plug in power meter for a costly $20 I think. Maybe something you could use to see the power & cost of running your rack / servers?

lchiu7

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#122814 11-Apr-2008 12:11

davidcole: Mine similar to sbiddle, 140 - 180 a month (including gas). The electricity portion is about $80 - $100

This is is 24x7 pvr and another machine on 7am to 11pm, two routers, cable modem - and then two laptops in the evenings.

Again coupled with gas hotwater, gas cooking etc.

So unless you're doing something really nuts that a big bill!!

OK - a small error on my part. The bill for $380 was two months so the numbers others have quoted seem in line. But electricity only - not including another $280 for gas (hot water and cooking).

Re power consumption of servers - while they might have 300W PS they might only consume 100W idle, less if the disks spin down during idle modes. But it does make you wonder about those costs that many might not have considered before

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

pjv3

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#122951 11-Apr-2008 21:24

I would also recommend one of those elto power meters as well - takes all the guess work out of how much something uses. You simply plug it in between the wall and your device and check the display. One of the advantages is you can see what you use over time, so leave it for a day or so, and then look at the recorded total consumption.

Since getting one of these, I have manged to go around the house a test a few suspect devices. Some turned out not so bad, but some were really bad. Our older freezer was the biggest culprit, replaced that with a new model which will pay itself off in a year or so in just power savings! Touch lamps were also bad - used about $2 per month in power each. Quickly replaced with cheap halogen lamps with an off switch!

As for servers, well, I have:

a laptop running 24/7 acting as a downloading device. Runs at 14W with screen off but hd spinning.
a old celeron 1200 file server, 24/7 downclocked to 800Mhz running FreeNAS with 2 large hds. Uses 50W when both disks are spinning.

Other machines include another laptop, and my main desktop. The desktop draws around 90-110W depending on load, but I dont leave it on 24/7.

Some things I have noted: Even when a computer is off (still plugged in), it will usually draw some current; Some power supplys will still draw power even when the switch on the power supply is off! I've seen up to 20W for some computers in various off modes.

Oh and since getting one of those power meters, we have managed to reduce our power consumption from 16kWh per day to 10kWh per day for the same period a year ago.

Etacovda

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#123080 12-Apr-2008 17:53

yep, i got one of those alto power meters too. PVR (3000+ 939, 1gb ddr400, 2xpvr150mce's, x1600 vid card, 320+300gb seagate drivers, dvd burner)+ stereo+tv+sky dec+604t wireless 4 port dsl router = 85w. So 200w for your cable router is completely ludicrous, your estimates are very, very off. @ 85w thats around $10 a month if mines on 24/7 - and i have it set to standby to S3 mode (gbpvr as well here).

edit - just was wandering around testing things - if you have a panasonic inverter microwave leave it turned off. Ours uses an utterly abysmal 65w on standby. On freaken standby! unbelievable, thats $7.50 a month to have a clock on your microwave....

richms

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#123139 12-Apr-2008 23:24

Those meters are inaccurate as hell on anything non resistive, so ignore it for the microwave.

calculating power consumption needs accurate samples of both voltage and current waveforms, these meters seem to just average the 2 of them and then fudge the powerfactor they report some how.

I have a halogen lamp that when dimmed to barely visable shows as 80 watts on the power meter, whereas on a spinning disc meter it averages out to about 35 watts when run for an hour. My compaq power supply in my desktop shows 25-35 watts when its off, and if it really was taking that then it would be quite warm. Which its not.

Work fine to see what a load of washing costs to do, and what it costs to run the heater since it cycles on and off, but useless for electronics. I got a spinning disc meter off trademe to measure usage, since its what the power companies use its the easiest way to see what things cost to run.

And I paid $50 for the meter at jaycar before te warewhare started selling them :(

Richard rich.ms

hazza87

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#123142 12-Apr-2008 23:41

My Zalman Fan controller has a very accurate power display readout on it ( Has a large box that plugs into the psu before the socket, then goes through a special usb port to the fan controller. When watching DVB-T never gets over 150w Thats for a Core 2 Duo oc'd to 3GHz 2GB RAM 8600GT 660GB of HDD's on a 450w PSU. Never ever ever seen it go above 200w even playing games or on Orthos Stress Prime.

Etacovda

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#123149 13-Apr-2008 08:36

richms: Those meters are inaccurate as hell on anything non resistive, so ignore it for the microwave.

hrm, bugger. I love the way they call it 'accurate' then on the jaycar site, hah. So do they generally read high, low or is it all about the place?

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