Home Server Electricity Cost

[ZareZ]

I love the idea of having a home server. I think It's an amazing learning oportunity and really useful but I'm really worried about the cost it will add to the electricity bill (which I don't pay myself).

I have a Gaming PC which i don't use anymore because I go to highschool in another city and live in a dorm so I just use my low end laptop.

Specs:

i5 8400 (6 core)

HyperX Fury 16GB 1666MHZ (2x8gb)

MSI B360M PRO VD

MSI Dual Fan 1050 2GB

MS 500W Power Supply (probably bronze I have no idea It's a cheap off brand psu)

Sandisk 128gb Sata SSD

WD Blue 1TB HDD

Genesis Titan 700 Case

I plan on taking out the GPU and setting up a lot of cool projects since this hardware is pretty good for a home server (self-hosted bitwarden, searx search engine, nextcloud, plex in the future etc. using docker), I just need an estimate of the damage it will do to the bill. The cost per kWh converted to USD is $0.01. Can anyone help me out?

 

 

[OhioYJ]

I have a post here that mentions my NAS, power consumption, and dollar amount for the month to run it.  It would be more power hungry than your machine, but might give you an idea.

[manikyath]

there's more to it than just the power draw of the computer itself. you need to take into account that when you have aircon, you'll be working the aircon harder for that same wattage. at the opposite of that, if you have heating, your heating will have to work less.

 

where i live, combined with the rather.. problematic way we heat the house.. any watt my server draws is essentially saved in a reduced need for resistive heating. and for the month or two where i need aircon, the server moves to a space that isnt airconditioned.

 

having that said.. assuming your computer will be mostly idling, taking into account the efficiency on that power supply may be dog shit at idle power draw.. if your power cost really is 1 cent per kwh, you're looking at *maybe* 10 bucks per year.

[ZareZ]

2 hours ago, manikyath said:

there's more to it than just the power draw of the computer itself. you need to take into account that when you have aircon, you'll be working the aircon harder for that same wattage. at the opposite of that, if you have heating, your heating will have to work less.

 

where i live, combined with the rather.. problematic way we heat the house.. any watt my server draws is essentially saved in a reduced need for resistive heating. and for the month or two where i need aircon, the server moves to a space that isnt airconditioned.

 

having that said.. assuming your computer will be mostly idling, taking into account the efficiency on that power supply may be dog shit at idle power draw.. if your power cost really is 1 cent per kwh, you're looking at *maybe* 10 bucks per year.

There are 3 viable places the attic, a spare living room that’s unused and not heated and a room thats just used as a place for the washing machine all depends on where it will be easiest to get an ethernet cable to. I don’t really like the idea of the attic because i have to bring a ladder any time i need physical access to the server but it’s probably the easiest place to get an ethernet cable to and it’s pretty cold. Either way temperature shouldn’t be a problem and i can always just leave a window open in these rooms. The power supply i am worried about and will probably swap out for something less sketchy and more power efficient but i haven’t even started this project. Thanks for your reply!

[ZareZ]

2 hours ago, OhioYJ said:

I have a post here that mentions my NAS, power consumption, and dollar amount for the month to run it.  It would be more power hungry than your machine, but might give you an idea.

Thanks!

[manikyath]

27 minutes ago, ZareZ said:

The power supply i am worried about and will probably swap out for something less sketchy and more power efficient but i haven’t even started this project. Thanks for your reply!

two things:

- office bangers tend to be quite efficnet power supplies. as it turns out offices care about efficiency too.

- upgrading a power supply for efficiency is *not* a profitable thing.

[ZareZ]

15 hours ago, manikyath said:

two things:

- office bangers tend to be quite efficnet power supplies. as it turns out offices care about efficiency too.

- upgrading a power supply for efficiency is *not* a profitable thing.

Thanks for all the valuable info! I’ll get it up and running when i get home this week and I’ll post an update here