Electrical costs to run a home web server

Fri Jul 23 12:11:48 MST 2021

Those are good points Mark.  I home office.  No partners and my wife 
does not mess with my computers.

Lots of pros and cons.

Thanks!!

On 2021-07-23 11:50, Mark Phillips via PLUG-discuss wrote:
> Keith,
> 
> All things being equal, I would use the laptop. You can disable the
> screen and even close the lid, although I leave mine up about 30% for
> cooling.
> 
> There will come a time long after you install the OS that something
> will happen and the computer won't boot. You then need to (1) find
> that old monitor; (2) find the right cable; (3) find the right mouse;
> (3) pull out the computer from whatever corner it has been relegated
> to since you haven't touched it in, maybe years?; (4) hook up the
> monitor, mouse, etc. and diagnose the problem. With the laptop, just
> fold up the screen, reboot, hit f-something to get into safe boot, and
> diagnose the problem. The fun part is when your partner donates that
> old monitor to Goodwill in an effort to "clean up the clutter"....if
> ssh doesn't work, now you are shopping at Goodwill for an old monitor.
> 
> This story is based on real life experiences. Only the names were
> changed to protect the innocent.
> 
> Mark
> 
> On Fri, Jul 23, 2021 at 10:09 AM Keith Smith via PLUG-discuss
> <plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
> 
>> Thanks David!!
>> 
>> On 2021-07-21 19:26, David Schwartz via PLUG-discuss wrote:
>>> If this is just for learning, do you want or need it to run
>> 24/7/365?
>>> If not, you can shut it off when you don’t need it if you’re
>>> concerned about power.
>> 
>> The goal is for it to run 24/7 serving up one of my domains.
>> 
>>> 
>>> Note that a lot of old PCs have power supplies where the fans run
>> all
>>> the time. They can end up consuming quite a bit of power.
>>> 
>>> You might consider a 2012-vintage Mac Mini. It already has Unix
>>> built-in and everything you need to run as a server.
>>> 
>>> They’re between $150 and $250 on eBay and sometimes as low as
>> $100.
>>> 
>>> FWIW, thru most of the 90’s I had a little box I ran as a
>> dedicated
>>> server at a co-lo facility in town.
>>> 
>>> It was a mini-ITX with a 600 MHz x86 clone chip, 256 MB of RAM, a
>> 20GB
>>> HDD, and 10MB ethernet. I ran Debian on it. After the third HDD
>> died,
>>> I moved to a reseller-type WHM/cPanel hosting account that was a
>> LOT
>>> cheaper per month. (My current one is less than $20/mo.)
>>> 
>>> (The co-lo facility’s biggest monthly expense was their A/C
>> bill.)
>>> 
>> 
>> I have too much old hardware.  I was going to use an old Dell i3...
>> however I am thinking of using one of my old laptops.
>> 
>> Both have their merits.
>> 
>> The laptop has a build in monitor... however I do not need the
>> monitor
>> once the O/S is installed.  I then use SSH.
>> 
>> I'm thinking the Dell mini tower has a faster bus and memory. And it
>> has
>> 8GB of RAM vs 4GB of RAM on the Laptop.  I'm guessing the faster bus
>> and
>> RAM will make a difference.
>> 
>> They both have 2 cores and 4 threads.
>> 
>> Both CPUs benchmark the same and they have the exact same SSD.
>> 
>> I'm thinking the mini tower is better.  I do not think I will ever
>> use
>> 8GB of RAM on a home web server.
>> 
>> Given what everyone is saying, the amount of power used is somewhat
>> dependent on demand.  Low demand = low power usage.
>> 
>>> The Raspberry Pi Zero W costs $10, and has these features:
>>> 
>>> • 1GHz, single-core CPU
>>> 
>>> • 512MB RAM
>>> 
>>> • 802.11 b/g/n wireless LAN
>>> 
>>> • Bluetooth 4.1
>>> 
>>> • Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)
>>> 
>>> • Mini HDMI and USB On-The-Go ports
>>> 
>>> • Micro USB power
>>> 
>>> • HAT-compatible 40-pin header
>>> 
>>> • Composite video and reset headers
>>> 
>>> • CSI camera connector
>>> 
>>> It consumes 120-170 mA (but can source over 1A to USB), so can run
>> off
>>> of a USB battery pack if needed.
>>> 
>>> This puppy has more power and features than that mini-ITX machine
>> I
>>> had!
>>> 
>>> It comes with a ready-to-run Linux on an SD card and fits into a
>> box
>>> about the size of a pack of cigarettes. No fan is needed AFAIK.
>>> 
>>> You can plug nearly any size storage you want into the USB port,
>>> although the SD card can be used for additional storage.
>> 
>> I would like to try a Raspberry Pi ... maybe a future project.
>> 
>>> 
>>> -David Schwartz
>>> 
>>>> On Jul 21, 2021, at 6:50 PM, Keith Smith via PLUG-discuss
>>>> <plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Hi Eric,
>>>> 
>>>> I assume you live in the valley? And you use a master cool
>>>> evaporative cooler... Off topic question - Does your master cool,
>>>> cool your house reasonably in the summer and more so during the
>>>> monsoons?
>>>> 
>>>> On 2021-07-21 15:50, Eric Oyen via PLUG-discuss wrote:
>>>> Back when I ran a home server on my Athlon X2 with 1500 W supply,
>>>> the
>>>> machine never drew that much. Even with several disks spinning, 8
>>>> VMWare instances going and a few other goodies, that machine
>> never
>>>> drew more than 600w at maximum. I kept it live 24/7 for a few
>> years
>>>> and it added less than $120 yearly to the electrical bill. These
>>>> days,
>>>> that machine is out of service and is only good for parts. My Mac
>>>> mini, which draws at most 100 W under full load is on 24/7 and I
>>>> don’t
>>>> even see it add that much to the electrical bill here. There are
>>>> really only 3 high draw appliances in this house now:
>>>> 1. The refrigerator
>>>> 2. The stove/oven
>>>> 3. The master cool evaporative cooler. Everything else either
>> runs
>>>> on
>>>> wall warts or only gets used occasionally. In fact, we spend less
>>>> than
>>>> $150 a month here for electric. Now, if I put that Athlon X2 back
>>>> into
>>>> service, we might see $10 a month in extra use. I am still
>>>> contemplating putting it back up and using it as my go to linux
>>>> development machine.
>>>> -Eric
>>>> From the Central Offices of the Technomage Guild, Utilities Dept.
>>>> On Jul 21, 2021, at 7:33 AM, Keith Smith via PLUG-discuss
>>>> <plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>> I just read this quote about the electrical costs to run a web
>>>> server from home:
>>>> Cost: While it may sound cheaper to use that computer lying
>> around
>>>> doing nothing when creating your web server, when you factor in
>> the
>>>> cost of powering an old computer 24 hours a day, it can get very
>>>> expensive. A 250W desktop computer running 24 hours per day at 12
>>>> cents per KW/h is a whopping $262.00 per year!
>>>> ---
>>>> I think their math is wrong.
>>>> The average residential electricity rate in Chandler is
>> 10.85¢/kWh.
>>>> I'm thinking a low traffic PHP web server running on an old Dell
>>>> with a 400 watt power supply is not using but maybe 100 watts on
>>>> average.  I've read that the computer should use no more than
>> half
>>>> the power supply capacity.  Is this correct?
>>>> If my home web server is using 100 watts an hour that mean 100
>> watts
>>>> * 30 days * 24 hours or 72K watts.
>>>> I'm thinking 72 * .1085 = $7.81 a month.
>>>> Any thoughts are much appreciated.
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