Be Excellent To Each Other

Hello.

I have a PC at home running 24/7 as a file server, torrent box and whatever else I need. It stores all of my music, movies, TV shows, pictures, drivers, documents, iso, world domination plans and biscuit recipes.

The problem is... I think I'm killing the planet.

The machine is basically a hold-over from my pre-xbox days, when PC gaming meant more than Cafe World on Facebook and is over powered for the task. It was recently rebuilt from the stuff that JC sold me and consists of:

Core2Duo E4500 underclocked to 2Ghz
3GB of DDR2
Triple SLI motherboard (with Alienware BIOS )
Nvidia 7600GT 256MB Graphics Card
80GB System Drive
500GB Drive for storage
1TB Drive for Videos and other media
It's running Win7 Enterprise 64bit and works fine.

I was concerned about the amount of electricity that I'm burning through. What are my options here? Do they involve a new Mobo? I could really use onboard GFX here I guess. Would a low power CPU make a difference?

"TBH" I'd say ditch it and get one of those tiny things that Chinny got - you know, with the atom processor like a netbook. Put the drives in an external enclosure.

Not unless there was an external enclosure that can take 3 sata drives all at once. I'm not keen on increasing my cable amount

Do you need all 3 Satas running? If you got a small machine it would have a built in drive for the system, wouldn't it? Keep the 80 as a backup.
Make sure drive spin-down works!

PS I wouldn't normally say "buy a new thing" to solve the problem but I do think you'll be struggling to get the power consumption down with a normal PC motherboard and PSU. A bit like starting with an 80s volvo estate and trying to get 100MPG, it's not going to be easy.
Feel free to prove me wrong though!

Why do you need 3 drives? Just get a big external that has a SATA connection.

Sounds like an Acer Revo is what you need like wot I have. It's tiny, runs from a laptop supply and goes to sleep very efficiently.

I must get around to doing the review I promised.

I need 3 drives, because I have 3 drives and can't really afford a 2TB or bigger to replace them.

The Revo + a huge external would probably be ideal, but I ain't got the money for that.

*sigh* Nose to the grindstone then

Just a thought, you possibly want two setups here - keep the 80 + 500 in your current machine and only fire it up when you are actually using it.

Do a media server / torrent / ALLEY machine that will be always on as well, and connect the 1TB to that. Then you don't need anything as fancy as a Revo, even an old netbook with tiny screen (can be had for $cheap) might do as a proof of concept. There are other small / fanless systems from a few years ago that would work as well, and won't cost much second hand. Even a mac mini if you fancy playing about with one.

Dave, chances are you can underclock the GPU too. My friend did so with this 4870 yesterday and reakons its running super cool.

Low powered cheapness FTW.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Dell-Vostro-A100_ ... 27af1ee479

That's not a bad shout.

How many SATA's does it have can anyone see?

I think it's two Dave. the board is basically a Foxconn ITX board. So tbh? 500gb on one channel and DVD drive on the other. I suppose you could even either remove the DVD once Windees is installed or use external drives.

EDIT. Sorry, 1tb. Didnt see you had one that big !! ooer !

2 channels?
http://www.deliran.net/refrence/Vostro_ ... arison.htm

(Again, if you keep your existing system as well there's no need to cram 3 drives into it).

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Intel-D410PT-Fanl ... 548wt_1166

It gets better. Since I have a case that works fine, how about just the mobo?

Yah 2. Look at the A100 on the left side. The A180 has 4.

EDIT. Yeah that's pretty much the same thinger Dave tbh. Saves you almost £40 and you don't get a case and psu you don't need.

Mini ITX isn't going to fit your case I don't think? Also, you probably want the smaller sized PSU to go with it - a "normal" sized 400/500W rated thing might be wasting more power than it's supplying if you only want 20W.

But otherwise yes, a fanless mini-ITX is the right place to start, keep looking and you'll probably find a built system for less.

ITX will fit in an ATX case, albeit with a lot of space left over. You might be right about the PSU though

A psu only outputs what is being drawn on it though right? So lets say you have a 1kw psu youre not using that, only what the hardware sucks?

Mini ITX should fit his case? Dunno. The back plane looks pretty standard, I suppose its just whether the posts would line up. If not then I suppose it would have to be the Dell really. Time you add a PSU and case itll go well over £100 I would have thought?

No, PSUs let out about 85% of what they take in from the mains. The rest goes into heat, that's why there's a fan. Big ones waste more power even doing nothing, like a car with a big engine.

Ah OK I see. Yeah Dell thinger FTW then I guess. They're probably open to offers too.

I reckon I could find an older 200W PSU in one of my many cases.

So basically, I just need the mobo and possibly an external case for the 500GB drive. I suppose the 1TB drive can go in the media center PC though, since it's only ever needed when that is on.

This could work!

Sounds reasonable.

To solve your (hopefully temporary) too-many-drives problem, you could bung a USB-to-sata converter onto one drive, but connect the power to the main PSU (i.e. keep it inside the case, I assume there's room).
Cheaper and should take a bit less juice than an external enclosure with separate supply.

Good call. I read up on that board and apparently it has loads of USB headers so you could run one internally and connect drives to it.

Kalmar, this is contrary to my understanding of how a MOSFET switchmode PSU works. Are you sure?

Now there are issues about how the efficiency of a given PSU varies with input load (citation), which is related to but distinct from what you are discussing.

I was trying to explain that a large power supply, very lightly loaded, will be noticeably less efficient than a small power supply at 3/4 load or so. So in this case, a smaller supply is better.

I may have over-simplified above, but I assume you agree with that?

So, the reasons for that will also mean that the supply switched on by itself and not powering anything, the larger one *will* take more power. More magnetic losses, a bigger fan to run, it will be in discontinuous mode so less efficient use of the transformer... Right?

Also: input load?

Yes, I agree with that. The rule of thumb I follow is that the quoted PSU efficiency (say 80%) will apply when it's between about 50% and 75% of rated load (so 500-750W of drawn current for a 1kW PSU, say). Outside of that range of load, efficiency falls -- although it's my understanding that it doesn't fall drastically until you are well outside of that range, so I don't worry about it. It's almost impossible to get a computer PSU down to 20% loaded, I think; unless you set out to do it by plugging a 1kW uber-PSU into a mini-ITX board with no HDDs or something.

I could be wrong on this though. I'm operating more from received wisdom than direct experience.

Haha, yeah. You know what I mean!

To get back to Davpaz's original comment, I think kalmar is correct, you should buy something. I bought a DNS-323 NAS unit for £150 which replaced an always-on server built from commodity kit; the electricity consumption saving meant it paid for itself in about 12-18 months, because it drew less than 10W when the drives were spun down (which was most of the time).

I do think we might be in that ballpark though - I got the impression this was a repurposed gaming rig, so possibly has a 500W PSU. If a a mini-itx with the drive spun down only takes 10W, that's only 2% loaded! In that scenario, there's definitely as much waste as useful power going on.

It's perhaps not as drastic as I'm making out, but it's definitely one of the factors in why those little fanless systems with laptop PSUs are dramatically better at this, it all adds up.



Likewise - you probably noticed that any plots you can find on the web are for manufacturers highest efficiency supplies and they helpfully don't plot what happens below 20% load. Some science might be needed here

Unless I'm missing something in the first post, it seems like you don't actually need a PC.
I've got a Buffalo Linkstation that does all that stuff.

Hmm, that reminds me, I have a buffalo linkstation HD-H250LAN which has been lying around for over a year unused because I didn't get on with it and couldn't be bothered to sell it. I think you can run linux and all that servering stuff on it. Anyone want?

Thanks for the offer Kalmar, and the general advice, all you other peeps. I reckon a new Atom Mobo is the way to go. I'll move my 1TB HDD to the Media Center (as it's storing videos, that's where it's needed anyway) and pick up a basic mobo from ebay.

In response to Grim...'s point about now needing a PC, you may be right, but I like the flexibility of a Windows install and the idea that I still use it for everyday stuff as well if needed

But you have a PC for turning on when you need to do "stuff".

Fair point though, the missus might be hogging the good computer.

Ah, but since I have an Xbox, 'stuff' isn't very demanding. I also have a laptop and a netbook, so I guess I'm just ascared of Linux

Get a Mac!

I was able to use Linux fine.

Go figure....

I'm sure the everyday stuff will be ok, but I'm a tinkerer by nature and downtime affects the WAF

Get a rubber band, put it around your wrist, everytime you feel the urge to tinker, snap it. Over time, the urges will decrease.

But I enjoy it!

Tinkering that is. Not Pain.

Although....

Virtual Machines are your friend then

ok, right now, both computers running, tv on, a few lights on, hd movie streaming from one pc to the other, energy monitor says 0.6kw. Is that good?

600W - Could be less. You'll need to narrow it down..

UPDATE!

I have replaced the media server with a netgear nas for storage and an old HP machine for sickbeard duties.

Now, with a few tweaks to power management settings and a bit of personal discipline, my house idles at 140w. From a peak of around 600w idling.

Happy with that.

That's more like it! Good work.

Cheers bud. It's taken a lot of head scratching and a few pennies.

Hopefully not enough pennies to make the whole 'spend less on bills' thing pointless. We did get a £140 rebate from npower last month though.

The Kalmar seal of approval!

That's.. WEIRD.

I was still considering the Hp microserver, to get my power draw down, then I did some digging on the power consumption of my imac.

It runs at around 100w, idles at 50w and sleeps at 1w.
The microserver runs at 40w.

Somehow I doubt buying the microserver will save me any money! The savings on sleeping the imac overnight will be wiped out by the microserver being constantly on in the background during the day...

That's the main reason I bought an iMac in the first place, after tiresome messing around with horrible NASs and what have you. Hard to beat one machine that can do everything server-y *and* is your actual computer.

Doesn't have to be a Mac either, any non-stupid laptop would work, though whether it would last as well as this iMac, being switched on for 6 years, I'm not so sure..

I chose an old HP d530s for 3 very good reasons. Firstly, the power supply's maximum output is 185w, so I knew it wasn't going to be drawing a lot of juice. Secondly, I know from using them at work over the years that they're very good at spinning down drives and lowering power to the cpu when it's not needed. I think it ticks over at about 200mhz until it needs to spin up. Thirdly, even though it was made about 8 years ago, it still has gigabit ethernet.

(and super secret reason number 4: it was about to be disposed of at work, so it was free )

Mine is a 2009 27" version. Pretty bloody impressive power consumption for that!