[kwlug-disc] [OT] linux server power

[John Van Ostrand]

----- Original Message -----
> On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 08:08:34PM -0500, Insurance Squared Inc.
> wrote:
> >
> > A quick back of the napkin estimate from the electrician indicated
> > the
> > two machines might be costing me 30+ bucks a month in hydro alone.
> 
> That seems quite high.

Let's do the math. I don't know what electricity rates are and from kwhydro.ca's web site it's not clear what values I add up. So I'm going to go with 10c/KWh.

So a 100W load running 24x7 would use 100W * 24H * 30.5 days / 1000 = 73.2 kilowatt hours. At 10c/KWh that's $7.32/month. 

Atom processors are 13W or less.
Xeons are 60W to 150W.

Memory takes a significant wattage as does the motherboard, display adapter and hard disks. It's easy to think a conventional server is consuming 250W and up. And that's over $18/month per server.

-- 
John Van Ostrand 
CTO, co-CEO 
Net Direct Inc. 
564 Weber St. N. Unit 12, Waterloo, ON N2L 5C6 
Ph: 866-883-1172 x5102 
Fx: 519-883-8533 

Linux Solutions / IBM Hardware