Windows home server build that is energy efficient
2013-12
Dean
I want to build a home server and I plan to run windows server 2012 essentials. I want to use it for storage, file sharing, dlna to my tv, host a couple of websites (not much traffic if any at all) and maybe run a minecraft server on it (but not essential obviously).
I'm concerned that having a computer running 24/7 is going to blow out my electricity bill so is there a way to minimize power usage? What sort of wattage should I expect a server to use? What hardware component uses the most power?
Lucas Kauffman
If you are building something that small you can get by with an intel atom or an AMD Fusion board. I have one at home and I think it pulls about 34 watt.
CPU and graphics cards are the biggest power hoggers.
HopelessN00b
Go headless (no monitor, you can RDP in) , and go with an low-power CPU, like an Atom or Fusion, as recommended by Lucas. Its the hardware and how heavily it's utilized that determines electricity costs.
There's a fairly big niche market these days in low-power servers, so you should look into that (use the Google). A lot of them are meant to run Linux, but some are compatible with Windows, or can have Windows installed as an option. If you get a plug server or a similar small machine designed to minimize power use, you can run it for literally pennies a day.
I've got a couple around the house somewhere and they cost less to run than my desktop... which really isn't all that much, when you do the math. Say, 850W (which would be the maximum draw of my desktop PSU) *$0.13*24 == $20.40 a day, if my computer was running at full power draw 24/7. It actually draws around 5% on average, so it costs me about $350 a year to keep my desktop on full time. A home server, with a similar expected utilization would cost about the same, unless you have wildly different prices for electricity. One of my actual enterprise-grade servers (A Dell NX3100) only runs me about $500 a year in electricity, or less than $10 a week, so you really shouldn't expect a server by itself to blow out your electric bill.
jvanderh
Anybody has any measurements of how much electricity does a Windows Home Server (say one of the HP models) use while being on 24/7?
I have an old PC running at home to store files that everyone can access from their laptops, but it is using too much power. I'm wondering if it would be worth to buy a WHS to replace it.
Kwh consumption per day or month is what i'm looking for, as rates vary from place to place.
Edit: Here are my conclusions, feel free to let me know if I'm not right.
Based on Stephen measurements (which validate Joel's estimates), I've come to this conclusions:
An HP WHS with a 2Ghz Celeron (rated for 65W TDP) with only 2 HDD and 1 GB of ram could be well under 2 Kwh a day (The 2.4Ghz Quad Cored max TDP is 105W and was measured at 2.5 kwh per day with 4 HDD and 8GB Ram).
That's a saving of almost 3kwh per day against the old box that averaged 4.6 kwh per day (over 1000 kwh per year). @25 cents/kwh we pay here, that's about $275 a year savings in energy, meaning ROI is less than two years at current (likely to go up) electricity rates.
Now, there is also a new HP WHS with a 1.6 GHz Atom processor. I'll have to check its performance since that would mean even greater savings.
Edit 2: The Atom powered WHS (I researched one from HP and one from Acer) claim that load power usage is 26 watts and that they can go to sleep @ 3W and turn back on upon accessed automatically. @ 26w that means 0.6 kwh per day (meaning even faster at less than 1 year ROI).
Edit 3 (Jul 28): Got my hands on a Fluke meter with data logging capabilities and a clamp and took some samples over time of the power usage of my current PC. The average was 3.45 Kwh per day.
Stephen Harrison
I recently upgraded a server I had running at home, it was a Windows 2k3 install which I believe is what is under the covers of Home Server.
Originally it was a 1.4GHz single Athlon with 1 Gb ram and 5 HDDs - headless system.
Power Consumption: 192W (4.6 Kwh a day)
Replaced with a 2.4Ghz Quad core Intel, 8 Gb ram and 4 HDDs again headless.
Power Consumption: 106W (2.5 Kwh a day).
I was very impressed at the power saving for a better machine! And as I run Hyper-V on it I was able to run the old server image, my build machine, a Home Server virtual machine and others all on the one box so it was well worth the upgrade.
I believe the dedicated home servers are designed to be low power but if you add lots of external HDDs with their own power supplied add about 15w (0.36 Kwh a day) for each one.
All the values were measured with a cheap plug in module so probably not especially accurate.
Paul Sonier
You may be interested in a Kill-A-Watt device; it allows you to directly measure the electricity usage of any device.
Tom Wijsman
An old rule of thumb I used to use was $200 per year per pc. But that was several years back. Things have likely changed significantly since then, both in terms of $ per watt (higher now) and watts per PC (higher than in 1999, but actually down I think in the last couple years).
Taking that as a starting point though, if you figure a PC lasts for 5 years that's $1000, or double the cost of a basic PC. If you can halve the power use of the PC you'll shave $500 off the TCO, or roughly $9/mo. But again, things have changed.
I know another big difference is that my old estimates included display power costs. Early LCDs used significantly less power than CRTs, to the point where they'd pay for themselves fairly quickly in many business scenarios where the display was on 8hrs or more per day (this is due to the LCDs that quickly achieved enough economy of scale to get so cheap so fast). Recent displays are brighter and use more power again. But in this case the machine will likely be headless, and that will throw my estimate off even further.
As a final note, the reason the $200 per year number has stuck so long in my head is that it stayed true for a very long time. Given there are number of factors affecting it in both directions — increased energy costs, increased overall requirements, followed by improved efficiency and removing the need to power a display — the number may not be all that far off.
Peter Turner
Give Edison a shot. I never actually figured out what it does for you, but it does tell you the energy consumption of your computer, how much it costs, etc...
kishore
Any specific reasons for windows home server?. Linux is a good choice for home server if you have little experience with pc's as you may have to do some customization. You can build a custom pc with 45w processors.
TheTXI
Notice, though, that there are three things consuming electricity:
The monitor -- a good monitor with Windows correctly configured will spend just a few watts per hour. Measure it, though, even if it is "turned off".
The computer's power supply. All electricity consumed inside the computer goes through it, and the performance of the power suppy is very important. A little bit more money to get a more efficient power supply is justified for servers nowadays.
The no-break inherent power loss. Everything that transforms electricity consumes some of it, unless you are talking super-conductors. If it produces heat, then it's consuming electricity.
I recommend you measure each of these things separately (of course, the no-break measure will give the total for it and the computer), and consider alternatives available in the market with better energy efficiency.
I'm a Windows user, I'm a PROUD user of Windows Vista 64, and think anyone staying with XP or 32 is a sissie. I'm not calling anyone names (those XP and 32 bits-users aside), I'm not even denigrating Microsoft or its products -- and God knows that, as a user, I'm entitled and have reason for that at times.
And, finally, this is an answer, and not even a particularly good one information-wise, though I certainly answered to question to the extent of my knowledge. So if you don't like the humour in it, go ahead and vote it down. But, as there is a bitter truth to my remark on the destiny of souls, I'd very much appreciate it being left there.
djangofan
If you have a budget around $500+ then you could build a Windows Home Server with this and it only consumes around 80W (http://www.mini-box.com/PicoPSU-120-WI-25-12-25V-DC-DC-ATX-power-supply ).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136064