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Worth it as home (media) server?
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Worth it as home (media) server?

YmpkerYmpker Member
edited December 2018 in General

Through Uni I can currently get the following used PC for 50€:

Fujitsu P9900
i5 650 3,2 Ghz
8GB RAM
120 GB SSD
DvD reader

  • 10€ optional Fujitsu 19" B19-5 ECO monitor.

Might be better performing than my Pi, however eat lots of power probably too I guess, eh?

Comments

  • YuraYura Member
    edited December 2018

    75Watt TDP. I would avoid it for home media server because it eats power and you have to dissipate it too - fan noise.

    Thanked by 2Ympker ehab
  • I agree.

  • @Yura said:
    75Watt TDP. I would avoid it for home media server because it eats power and you have to dissipate it too - fan noise.

    @Yura said:
    75Watt TDP. I would avoid it for home media server because it eats power and you have to dissipate it too - fan noise.

    That's what I thought. Not worth it for the RAM and SSD either I guess?

  • Adam1Adam1 Member
    edited December 2018

    Yura said: 75Watt TDP

    TDP isnt what it uses 24/7, whole system will probably consume less than that when idle, and probably not too much more when playing back video, although it'll creep up with higher bitrate 1080p h265.

    but you should offset those possible increased electricity cost (cents per hour) vs initial outlay, I'd guess it'd take many years to justify spending more, unless you have specific needs like 4K@60Hz and h265 10-bit

    50 eur for that spec is really good, can you send me one? (southern spain :D)

    Thanked by 1Ympker
  • Look into C6 / C7 power states and get a CPU capable of doing these power states. My home server idles < 20 watt.

    Thanked by 1Ympker
  • Adam1Adam1 Member
    edited December 2018

    solaire said: Look into C6 / C7 power states and get a CPU capable of doing these power states.

    1st gen core cpus have c6, idle @ ~6watts

    edit: replaced graph above because it previously included peripherals.

    Thanked by 1Ympker
  • deankdeank Member, Troll

    Just grab a cheapo NUC. Costs more but the space saving is unbeatable.

  • There's an alternative to having your server run 24/7. That is, if you don't have services that need to be run 24/7 on this server, and you're willing to wait a few seconds before you can access your server. To do so, simply use a spare Raspberry Pi or similar to wake up your server at your request. You can use Wake on LAN for this. Basically, you'd connect to your Raspberry Pi from outside the house (through i.e. HTTPS), then have the Raspberry send a WOL request to your server, which would then boot. It's far from ideal, but something worth considering. Though WOL is fairly insecure you should have no issue using this on your local network.

    If you want it to run 24/7, but with minimum power consumption, you will need a CPU, motherboard & PSU (preferably certified as "80 Plus Gold" or better) that support C6 / C7. I have a Celeron G1820 running as a homeserver myself, which is only capable of running in C6 power state, but even in C6 uses < 10 watt at idle. I do have 2 harddisks spinning (~ 3 Watts each), that I may spin down on inactivity but the drawback there is that excessive spinning down / up puts wear and tear on the disk, and considering the price of the disks (~ 130 euro each) versus the power they consume on a yearly base (let's say 6 Watts per hour for both, makes 52.56 kWh per year (* €0,22) = € 11.56), pretty much leaves me careless.

    The server (assuming it's idle most of the time but also on full Plex load every now and then with the misses and/or myself watching shows from abroad), would average at around 30 Watts. That's 22 kWh per month (= ~ €4.91). That's less than half of the cost of the Netflix subscription I used to have, and gives me access to 8 TB of movies / series, my password vault (Bitwarden), Git repositories (Gitea), etc.

    Compared to Hetzner auction servers (sold at around € 25 incl. VAT), my homeserver is still € 20 / month cheaper (= € 240 / year). Return of investment < 2 years.

    Thanked by 1Ympker
  • bakagetabakageta Member
    edited December 2018

    @Adam1 said:
    but you should offset those possible increased electricity cost (cents per hour) vs initial outlay, I'd guess it'd take many years to justify spending more, unless you have specific needs like 4K@60Hz and h265 10-bit

    50 eur for that spec is really good, can you send me one? (southern spain :D)

    Seconding this, that's a good price for what you're getting. If you're really concerned about power draw or heat/fan noise, odds are good you can drop a comparable Xeon in. An L3426 is only 45W, and if you need even less performance a dual-core L3406 is only 30W. Both are cheap enough to still keep it a very budget-friendly system.

  • You could alternatively buy a laptop on ebay with a broken screen and CPU with <15W TDP and 2.5k+ cpubenchmark score.

    Thanked by 2mfs Ympker
  • NeoonNeoon Community Contributor, Veteran
    edited December 2018

    Unsure about the power costs later, for the price not bad sure.
    No idea what you pay for power, maybe get something that uses less then 30W on idle.

    Thanked by 1Ympker
  • Because of german power prices I wouldn't use it.
    But you could sell it for ~200€. And if you can get several, resell them all. That's a lot of money for very little work!

    Thanked by 1Ympker
  • What about and odroid XU4 or HC?

    Thanked by 1eol
  • Raspberry Pi 3 B+ (or A+ for less power) with a hdd/ssd connected. I think you could even try a PI Zero. The limit is your imagination.

  • YmpkerYmpker Member
    edited December 2018

    Thanks for all the feedback :P
    Iirc there are 3 more available so I have some time to consider :)

    Used laptop would be way more money I guess even though maybe a bit less power consumption

  • not following the logic on idle power, if it's not in use presumably it'd be in standby, not idle, so far less power draw, probably save pennies a month.

  • @default said:
    Raspberry Pi 3 B+ (or A+ for less power) with a hdd/ssd connected. I think you could even try a PI Zero. The limit is your imagination.

    I already have a Pi 3B+ in use running as my current pms and an unused Pi Zero W

  • I use raspberry pi. I've been using it for more than a year as a home server. The biggest bottleneck is USB 2.0, which caps the data transfer speed to 20mb/s, although this is good enough for a home media server. Unless you are planning to run video transcoding, I see no reason to worry about hardware spec and power consumption.

  • XU4 +1.

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