Power consumption

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L. Beau Grees
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Power consumption

Post by L. Beau Grees » Mon Sep 12, 2016 2:24 pm

Hi. I'm prepping for a new build. In my small home-office, there are three positions. The new build always goes in the primary position, that rig moves to the secondary position, and that one moves to the tertiary position. The old one from the tertiary position generally gets sent to recycle.

But this time, I'm thinking of putting Linux on that old rig (and it's really old) and putting it the den down in the basement, for use as a backup server (to back up all the other systems and NAS). So, there will be questions about the new build, but it seemed wise to start with some questions about the suitability of this old system for the purpose mentioned.

First, could anyone offer some thoughts on the power consumption of this old rig at idle:

Mainboard: Asus P5Q SE v1.xx Intel P45
Processor: Pentium E5200 Max TDP 65W
RAM: Kingston 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2
VIDEO: MSI R4350 (MSI-V161) ATI Radeon HD 4350 512MB DDR2
HD: Seagate Barracuda ST3500320AS 500GB 7200rpm
Other Drives: DVD Writer and 3.5" Floppy

[The DVD writer and floppy could be removed, but they don't draw much at idle anyway.]

Of course, more storage will be added for backing up to.

Thanks for your thoughts.

CA_Steve
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Re: Power consumption

Post by CA_Steve » Mon Sep 12, 2016 3:15 pm

P3 Kill a Watt is a worthwhile investment.

I bet it's in the 50W-70W idle range. My old e8400+ P45 mobo + HD 5770 +SSD + HDD idled at 72W under Windows 7. I'm a fan of repurposing, but consider a low power recent gen system would probably pay for itself in idle power savings.

L. Beau Grees
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Location: Adanac

Re: Power consumption

Post by L. Beau Grees » Mon Sep 12, 2016 5:33 pm

Thanks, Steve. I think your numbers are about right; and that definitely changes things. At that rate, I wouldn't want to leave it running 24/7: annually, 365x24=8760hrs, so each watt = 8.76kWh, and at $0.20/kWh costs ~ $1.75 per year. Even 50W would cost $87.60, and 70W = $122.64.

New plan: have it remain off most of the time, and then wake up once a day to do rsync snapshots of the NAS, which should take very little time. Even one hour/day would cost just ~ $5.00 a year. And I could still use it occasionally, as time permits, to gain some additional Linux experience.

So then, it's on to the new build, and I'm sure to have some questions on that :lol: !

L. Beau Grees
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Re: Power consumption

Post by L. Beau Grees » Sat Sep 17, 2016 3:49 pm

The build mentioned above is really much too slow for modern Windows OS. Would it be worthwhile, performance wise, to add a 32GB or 64GB SSD for $20 or $30, to run Linux?

CA_Steve
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Re: Power consumption

Post by CA_Steve » Sat Sep 17, 2016 7:58 pm

Your main benefit with an SSD for the OS is boot time. Don't think it'll speed up the HDD disk copy/backup speeds. That said, my suggestion would be to look for reviews for the specific SSD you are considering. When you get down that small, the SSD is only populated with a few chips, so you lose a lot of the speed benefit you would normally get from many chips/many read/write channels. Or, they could be relatively ancient SSDs...

quest_for_silence
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Re: Power consumption

Post by quest_for_silence » Sun Sep 18, 2016 11:08 am

L. Beau Grees wrote:Would it be worthwhile, performance wise, to add a 32GB or 64GB SSD for $20 or $30, to run Linux?
Personally I'd look for something like these: http://www.ebay.ca/itm/322144208605

L. Beau Grees
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Re: Power consumption

Post by L. Beau Grees » Sun Sep 18, 2016 5:30 pm

CA_Steve wrote:Your main benefit with an SSD for the OS is boot time. Don't think it'll speed up the HDD disk copy/backup speeds. That said, my suggestion would be to look for reviews for the specific SSD you are considering. When you get down that small, the SSD is only populated with a few chips, so you lose a lot of the speed benefit you would normally get from many chips/many read/write channels. Or, they could be relatively ancient SSDs...
Thanks Steve; it seems you're right on with your comments. NCIX (Cdn site) doesn't even seem to have any under 120GB, and the ones under $50Cdn on Newegg (Cdn site) seem pretty horrible: these two seem to have decent reviews, but other than that I can't tell much about them at all:
Silicon Power Slim S55 2.5" 120GB SATA III TLC for $50
Silicon Power Slim S60 2.5" 60GB SATA III MLC for $38.

L. Beau Grees
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Re: Power consumption

Post by L. Beau Grees » Sun Sep 18, 2016 5:33 pm

quest_for_silence wrote:
L. Beau Grees wrote:Would it be worthwhile, performance wise, to add a 32GB or 64GB SSD for $20 or $30, to run Linux?
Personally I'd look for something like these: http://www.ebay.ca/itm/322144208605
Thanks Luca, though I'm doubtful about used SSDs. I did find both Samsung and Intel 120GB SSDs for $70Cdn on Newegg and NCIX. I think I'll get one of those for my secondary system (not the one described above), which doesn't yet have SSD.

quest_for_silence
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Re: Power consumption

Post by quest_for_silence » Sun Sep 18, 2016 7:20 pm

L. Beau Grees wrote:Thanks Luca, though I'm doubtful about used SSDs.

I'm not (particularly about those Intel MLC drives): obviously, do what you think best.

L. Beau Grees
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Re: Power consumption

Post by L. Beau Grees » Mon Sep 19, 2016 3:55 pm

Having looked at the reviews, not only from Newegg and NCIX, but also from sites like AnandTech and TweakTown, it seems that the available small-capacity, low-cost SSD's like Adata, Team Group, and Silicon Power, and even more well known brands, are to be avoided.

So, limiting the selection to Intel and Samsung SSD's under $100Cdn (new), the following were found:
Samsung 750 EVO 256GB $100
Intel 540s 240GB $100
Samsung 650 Series 120GB $92
Samsung 750 EVO 120GB $70
Intel 535 120GB $93
Intel 540s 120GB $70

As far as I could determine, both Samsung and Intel each use their own controller, but I'm not sure which series are TLC, and which are MLC. Though I don't need anywhere near the capacity for the build described above, these are the smallest ones I could find from those two manufacturers. Would any of them make sense for the old build?

But also, in what order would you rate the drives listed above, as it is likely that I will add one of them to my secondary system (i7-2600, 8GB, 2TB drive).

Finally, for the new build, in the 500GB capacity, which of the Samsung or Intel lines would you recommend?

CA_Steve
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Re: Power consumption

Post by CA_Steve » Mon Sep 19, 2016 7:28 pm

For your light use, I don't think there's a significant difference between the Intel 540 and the Samsung 750 EVO. I haven't followed up on them to see what the customer feedback is...if similar, and the prices are similar, see which provides a better toolkit. Samsung makes their own controller. Intel uses Silicon Motion.

As for a new build, I recommend the 850 EVO.

L. Beau Grees
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Re: Power consumption

Post by L. Beau Grees » Tue Sep 20, 2016 4:24 pm

Thanks, Steve. I've been leaning towards the 850 EVO over the Intel, and will likely go that way for the new build.

AnandTech shows the 750 EVO lags the 850 EVO, but is likely plenty good enough for the old machine(s). Just not sure if I can justify $70 for that old machine (for the middle machine, yes).

CA_Steve
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Re: Power consumption

Post by CA_Steve » Tue Sep 20, 2016 8:49 pm

As mentioned earlier, the only benefit for the old machine would be faster boot time. But, really, how slow is Linux to boot on an HDD? Surely it doesn't have the cruft of Windows....

quest_for_silence
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Re: Power consumption

Post by quest_for_silence » Wed Sep 21, 2016 2:48 am

L. Beau Grees wrote:Just not sure if I can justify $70 for that old machine

For the P45 rig, likely there's no difference whichever the SSDs is (bottleneck'd by the 3Gbps SATA interface): just for this one, look for a used/refurbished 160Gb/300GB Intel 710s (or 320s), you won't regret (over any new SSD).

Vicotnik
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Re: Power consumption

Post by Vicotnik » Wed Sep 21, 2016 3:23 am

CA_Steve wrote:As mentioned earlier, the only benefit for the old machine would be faster boot time. But, really, how slow is Linux to boot on an HDD? Surely it doesn't have the cruft of Windows....
I agree, but there's a lot more fun to try out Linux without that noisy 7200 RPM HDD.

L. Beau Grees
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Re: Power consumption

Post by L. Beau Grees » Fri Sep 23, 2016 12:26 pm

Yeah, you guys are right. No point in putting more money into this old rig. It should handle Linux plenty well just as it is :wink: .

Luca, you convinced me to search for used SSD's; what I found was very disappointing. Judging from the asking prices, a seller seems to think his old stuff is some kind of treasure. What's more, the shipping charges he'll be asking are ludicrous! [For example, that link you posted earlier: the SSD price starts out okay, but then he wants $33 for shipping! We're both in Canada; the shipping should be like $3!] In the end, one ends up paying more for the used drive plus shipping, than for a brand new device (often with free shipping) :roll: .

Sure, it would be nice to have a quiet SSD in there. But it will be down in the basement, so the noise won't be a problem. And it'll probably be accessed mostly by SSH from the office, so I won't have to be in front of it, listening to it :lol: !

Thanks for all the input. Now to figure out how to replace that machine.

quest_for_silence
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Re: Power consumption

Post by quest_for_silence » Sat Sep 24, 2016 12:52 am

L. Beau Grees wrote:Luca, you convinced me to search for used SSD's; what I found was very disappointing

That may happen: as you're not in a hurry, you might just set a search on the bay (I know, it's rather tricky nowadays setting it up properly), and whether something suitable should ever pop up (a 240GB Intel S3500 is sometimes an option too, but often in the microSATA - 1.8" - format), just grab it and then clone your existing disk onto it.

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