home server power saving tips?

[mineblaster]

recently i installed a watt meter in my server rack and found out that it uses 1100 to 1200 watts day in day out. there is a handful of systems there is a couple of first gen amd eypc systems and a old 4th gen i5 for remote gaming.

 

i was after some tips and tricks like settings to save on electricity as some months are getting expensive

[Electronics Wizardy]

What all are you running? 

Run less systems? Can you merge the tasks of the servers? 

[Needfuldoer]

We're going to need more specifics on the hardware you've got and what software it's running. All we can tell you for now is "turn things off".

 

Can you consolidate all your non-gaming-PC services onto one machine with a bunch of RAM in it? My home server (specs spoilered below) idles at around 200 watts.

 

Spoiler

Dell PowerEdge R730XD

Dual Intel Xeon E5-2637 v4

256 GB DDR4 2400 Reg ECC

12x 12TB WD Red Plus HDD (well, white label equivalents)

Nvidia P2200 (for Plex)

Dell/Broadcom 10Gbe Ethernet mezzanine card

2x Intel P3605 1.6 TB PCIe SSD

Dual 750 watt 80 Plus Platinum power supplies, part number PJMDN

 

[mineblaster]

6 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What all are you running? 

Run less systems? Can you merge the tasks of the servers? 

Most of the usage comes from a single socket epyc 7401p that runs as a truenas server .it's got 12 3tb running in a hp 2600 disk shelf. Aswell as a few vms for plex pi hole and sometimes game servers it dose have 10 nvmes aswell .2 are for the os and 8 are in a pool mapped as iscsi volumes.it also has  256gb of ram

 

I do have a i5 4690 and a gtx 1080 as a remote gaming box as intel ark on my main desktop can run into issues. It is headless so no monitor sucking up power

 

I do have an ups but I'm not sure how much power it uses to keep the batterys charged as it is quite a large unit and has an expansion unit aswell

 

https://www.apc.com/shop/mk/en/products/APC-Smart-UPS-3000VA-230V-RM-2U-with-UL-Approval/P-SUA3000R2IX38

 

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, mineblaster said:

Most of the usage comes from a single socket epyc 7401p that runs as a truenas server .it's got 12 3tb running in a hp 2600 disk shelf. Aswell as a few vms for plex pi hole and sometimes game servers it dose have 10 nvmes aswell .2 are for the os and 8 are in a pool mapped as iscsi volumes.it also has  256gb of ram

 

I do have a i5 4690 and a gtx 1080 as a remote gaming box as intel ark on my main desktop can run into issues. It is headless so no monitor sucking up power

 

I do have an ups but I'm not sure how much power it uses to keep the batterys charged as it is quite a large unit and has an expansion unit aswell

 

https://www.apc.com/shop/mk/en/products/APC-Smart-UPS-3000VA-230V-RM-2U-with-UL-Approval/P-SUA3000R2IX38

 

 

So 2 systems and a jbod? 1100w seems very high for that config to me. How much power are each of the systems using?

 

For the drives changing to something like 3x20TB drives would give you more space and use much power.

 

 

[OhioYJ]

51 minutes ago, mineblaster said:

i was after some tips and tricks like settings to save on electricity as some months are getting expensive

How often do you actually access this stuff realistically? If it's regularly then it's justification for it to be on all the time. In my case I was accessing my NAS once a month or so for backups. So it sits off, and I use wake on lan to turn it on remotely as needed, and shut it off it when done. This means it generally runs one day out of the month instead of 30. This does mean I have to run scrubs and such manually too every so often since it's off most of the time so the scheduled ones don't run, but really that's the only downside. 

[mineblaster]

12 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

So 2 systems and a jbod? 1100w seems very high for that config to me. How much power are each of the systems using?

 

For the drives changing to something like 3x20TB drives would give you more space and use much power.

 

 

and a pfsense box aswell but that is a pentium 1508 and its setup as just a router and the rack switch mikrotik crs354 48g 4s 2q rm

[Needfuldoer]

29 minutes ago, mineblaster said:

it's got 12 3tb running in a hp 2600 disk shelf.

That's probably 200-300 watts all by itself, 24/7, whether it's in use or not. Does your main chassis have room for three or four 12 TB hard drives?

 

29 minutes ago, mineblaster said:

I do have a i5 4690 and a gtx 1080 as a remote gaming box as intel ark on my main desktop can run into issues. It is headless so no monitor sucking up power

I'd guess there's another 50-100 watts while this machine's active.

 

29 minutes ago, mineblaster said:

I do have an ups but I'm not sure how much power it uses to keep the batterys charged as it is quite a large unit and has an expansion unit aswell

Float charge shouldn't be a huge power draw, since it's just keeping the batteries topped off with a trickle. According to the spec sheet, the battery charger will only draw 175 watts. Unless you have a dead battery it's trying to bulk recharge, the UPS probably isn't a huge factor. (It's old, but according to APC it should be 96% efficient.)

[mineblaster]

3 minutes ago, OhioYJ said:

How often do you actually access this stuff realistically? If it's regularly then it's justification for it to be on all the time. In my case I was accessing my NAS once a month or so for backups. So it sits off, and I use wake on lan to turn it on remotely as needed, and shut it off it when done. This means it generally runs one day out of the month instead of 30. This does mean I have to run scrubs and such manually too every so often since it's off most of the time so the scheduled ones don't run, but really that's the only downside. 

i did think about scheduling but but my gf and i don't have set schedules and working during the day on week and nights the next. the truenas system dose have ipmi so its not too hard to power off and on. 

[mineblaster]

5 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

That's probably 200-300 watts all by itself, 24/7, whether it's in use or not. Does your main chassis have room for three or four 12 TB hard drives?

 

I'd guess there's another 50-100 watts while this machine's active.

 

Float charge shouldn't be a huge power draw, but UPSes aren't perfectly efficient at passing AC through.

the ups has 24 x 12 7ah lead acids i did replace them in 2021

 

the i5 isnt set to any sort of sleep as i do not know if virtual desktop or the oculus air link can wake it up. it dose a corsair psu with the corsair link so a may be able to get a separate readout off it

[Needfuldoer]

20 hours ago, mineblaster said:

the i5 isnt set to any sort of sleep as i do not know if virtual desktop or the oculus air link can wake it up. it dose a corsair psu with the corsair link so a may be able to get a separate readout off it

A Kill-a-Watt is an addictive toy. I bet that gaming machine isn't too bad at idle as long as the power supply is appropriately sized.

 

Decommissioning your drive shelf is definitely the low-hanging fruit. That thing's got to be drawing more power than my entire server does.

 

See page 4 of this report from HP:

https://www.hpe.com/global/livingprogress/environmentalprogress/productdata/Countries/_MultiCountry/iteco_storag_2010224132710.pdf

 

As for the Epyc server, make sure you've got all the BIOS settings to their power saving profile, instead of maximum performance.

[mineblaster]

29 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

A Kill-a-Watt is an addictive toy. I bet that gaming machine isn't too bad at idle as long as the power supply is appropriately sized.

 

Decommissioning your drive shelf is definitely the low-hanging fruit. That thing's got to be drawing more power than my entire server does.

 

See page 4 of this report from HP:

https://www.hpe.com/global/livingprogress/environmentalprogress/productdata/Countries/_MultiCountry/iteco_storag_2010224132710.pdf

 

If you pay 20 cents per kilowatt-hour, that drive shelf is costing you about $35/mo to keep running.

 

As for the Epyc server, make sure you've got all the BIOS settings to their power saving profile, instead of maximum performance.

I don't quite have a kill o watt but my server rack has this handy panel I made 3 weeks ago

 

I am billed 22 cents a kwh

 

 

Also the amd system was still in performance mode so savings there.

also i had the othe disk shelves in standby a unplugging them saved close to an amp. I didnt think it would be that much but the more you know i guess.

[Needfuldoer]

4 hours ago, mineblaster said:

I don't quite have a kill o watt but my server rack has this handy panel I made 3 weeks ago

 

I am billed 22 cents a kwh

 

Also the amd system was still in performance mode so savings there.

also i had the othe disk shelves in standby a unplugging them saved close to an amp. I didnt think it would be that much but the more you know i guess.

You just saved yourself at least $35/mo. It's a start!

 

Again, a few large capacity drives could replace the remaining tray. Refurbished 12 TB drives are around $100 apiece; if you buy four of them they'll pay for themselves in power savings within a year.

[mineblaster]

15 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

You just saved yourself at least $35/mo. It's a start!

 

Again, a few large capacity drives could replace the remaining tray. Refurbished 12 TB drives are around $100 apiece; if you buy four of them they'll pay for themselves in power savings within a year.

I didn't realize how much those disk shelves use as much as it dose.  also its crazy how cheap drives are getting now aswell. i think picking up some up when i have cash again will be the plan.