With the current ‘Credit Crunch’ and the threat of global warming, having your server on 24/7 is probably not the best thing for your pocket and the environment. So what can be done? The most obvious is to turn it off! By default WHS is set to back your PC’s up between midnight and 6am, which makes sense as most people won’t use their PC’s during this time. My own 2 PC’s take about 15 minutes each to backup, so having the server on for 6 hours every night just to spend 30 minutes backing up is a bit of a waste IMO. The best solution I have found so far is the WHS plug in Lights Out. After installing it on my MediaSmart server I have set it up to suspend between 11pm and 6am. I’ve been using it like this for a few days now and it seems to be working ok, and the backups are working as per normal (although now starting at 6am).
Lights Out is not for the feint hearted… You have to disable a service before it will work (otherwise the server will wake up every 30mins) so head over to the forums and have a read through before deciding on whether to install it…
So what can be done about the electricity the server is using during the day? My MediaSmart server has a 90w power supply and with 2 drives will on average use around 60-70w. This works out to roughly £50 per year if the server was on 24/7. I decided the easiest way to offset the power now used by the server was to change all my light bulbs for energy savings ones. My house has quite a few lights and came to an average of around 1,200w! By changing to energy efficient bulbs this is now down to about 250w, so quite a substantial saving. These new bulbs only cost me a little under £60 so they should pay for themselves by the end of the year.
If you want to work out how much electricity your server/lights are using, try this website:
http://www.ukpower.co.uk/running-costs-elec.asp
Here’s how I worked out my usage:
1,200w worth of light bulbs on for an average of 3 hours a day:
1.2Kw x 60 hours = 72 KwHours
72 KwHours x 9p (My electricity company’s price per KwHour) = 648p
Divide by 100 for price in £ = £6.48 per month
£6.48 x 12 months = £78 per year
Running server 24/7 = £50
Total: £127
Change to 250w Energy Saving bulbs saves £62
Install Lights Out and have server powered down for 6 hours per night saves £38
Total Saving = £100
So just doing a few small things to your home can save you a bit of money (enough to take the wife out for dinner at least…)
July 14th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
How does suspending a WHS for 6 hours per night save £38 per year when the total cost per year for 24/7 server running costs £50? Surely you mean that 6 hours would save around £12.5 per year:
24 hours * 365 days = 8760 hours
£50 / 8760 = 0.0057 pence per hour
(24 - 6) * 365 * 0.0057 = ~£37.50 cost of 18 hours use a day
6 * 365 * 0.0057 = ~£12.50 cost saving
July 15th, 2008 at 12:18 am
1,200W of bulbs isn’t very many bulbs. I have more than that in just two rooms of my house that just in the master bedroom and bath and two closets. I have a 4 bedroom home. Are you sure you meant more than 1200W?
July 15th, 2008 at 6:40 am
I think James has raised a very valid point about power consumption (this is why I use a Tranquil WHS - 38W with two drives) and using other means to off-set additional power consumption is a good idea (for your pocket and the environment).
Go around the home and add up all the devices that are running 24/7 (either in standby or on) and it will make you think.
Given that 1W costs about 88p a year (on 24/7 and average cost of 10p per unit) you can quickly work out the running costs of your gear and take steps to reduce it. (Don’t forget most energy companies are promising price rises in the region of 40% later this year)
I now always ask myself “how much will this add to the electricity bill each month” before buying another non-essential 24/7 device.
July 15th, 2008 at 8:02 am
Hi,
You can tell I only got a D in my maths GCSE! I put the wrong figure in for the power saving on my WHS. Putting it on standby now costs me £38 pounds (instead of £50), so I’m actually saving £12…
Will be more thorough next time!
As for my 1,200w worth of bulbs I had already got rid of them before I added them up, so I worked on the assumption that the 20 bulbs I have were 60w each.
July 15th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Other ideas to lower WHS power consumption:
- Use a software underclocking/undervolting program (CrystalCPUID and 8rdavcore are two I know of) to cut CPU power below Cool n’ Quiet levels.
- Use S2kCtl to disconnect the processor from the system bus and clock down the processor significantly when not in use.
- Set windows Power Options to power down HDDs when not in use.
- Switching to a PicoPSU/power brick combination to increase PSU efficiency at low power ( http://www.silentpcreview.com/article601-page1.html )
By using 8rdavcore and S2kCtl, I was able to get my base power draw ( 1 HDD) down under 50W.