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So SBCs are shit now? Anything I can do with my collection of Pis and old routers?
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this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2024
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I have an x86 proxmox setup. I stuck a kill-o-watt on it. Keep your pi setup if it does what you want, and realize that there's someone out there who is jealous of your power bill.
How bad is it?
My current file server, an old gaming rig, consumes 100w at idle.
I'm considering a TrueNAS box running either 2.5" ssd's or NVME sticks (My storage target is under 8TB, and that's including 3 years projected growth).
Go tweak your power and fan settings. 100w at idle is way too much unless it’s 15 years old.
Fans, especially small ones are very sneaky energy hogs. Turn them waaay down.
Depends on what your server is running. Multiple GPUs, HDDs, and other fun items start to add up to well over 100W. I justify it by using it to keep my 3d printer filament dry.
If you have multiple GPUs in your home server you’re probably doing it wrong. But even then, at idle, with no displays connected, the draw will be surprisingly low.
Most systems with some ssd/NVMe, 2-4 DIMMs and maybe a drive or two should idle closer to 50w-60w.
Agreed, don’t do what I do if you value your power bill. To be fair, my network switch pulls more power than my cobbled together server anyhow.
If you’re getting two gaming PCs out of one hypervisor, you might be doing it right.
Newer CPU’s tend to use a good chunk more power under low loads than some older ones. Going from 1st Gen. Ryzen to 2nd Gen. got me about 20 watts higher total system power draw with my use case. And 3rd Gen. is even worse.
Intel is MUCH worse at it than AMD, but every Gen. AMD keeps cranking up those boost clocks and power draw and it really can make a difference at low to mid range loads.
My Ryzen 3000 based system uses about 90 watts at “idle” with all my stuff running and the hard drives on.
It’s probably more about aggressive default bios speeds. Tweak your c states / bios overclocking / pcie power management / windows power management features. Idle power has gone down on most chips.
The Ryzen 3000 should truly idle closer to 20-30w.
That is after tweaking bios settings. Originally I was at around 100 watts, now I'm closer to 80.
Keep in mind that's with a bunch of hard drives, and it's not a 100% idle, more of a 90% idle which is where modern "race to idle" CPUs struggle the most.
Nothing to be done. It's old. Only fan to adjust is cpu, and I can tell when the cooler is getting dirty because the fan stays at higher speeds.
Otherwise there's one large, slow rpm fan in the case, always on low speed.
It's $1/day. I've done the math a few times
$1/day? At 100W average power usage, that's 2.4kWh per day, suggesting that where you live, the price is 41.67 cents per kWh, ~~roughly double that of California.~~
Is electricity that expensive where you live?
Edit: it's been a while since I lived in the Bay area, I hadn't realized that the electricity price now ranges from 38-62 cents per kWh, depending on rate plan and time.
Holy crap! I have a n100 SFF that consumes 5-6 w idle (with WiFi on) and I have an old i5 (gen 6 I think) that consumes 30 at idle. Your rig is defiantly not meant to act as a server (unless you want to mine bitcoons or run boinc...)
Lol, yea, it's old, was built for performance, and hasn't run right in a while.
I'm looking to setup a NAS and turn that thing off
My x86 Proxmox consumes about 0.3 kwh a day at around 15% average load. I've only had the Kill A Watt on it for a day, so I don't know how accurate that is, but it shouldn't be too far off.