Hardware advice for economical/quiet home server.

[Whiffle]

Hello,

This is the hardware used for my current home server:

G1840
MSI B85M-E45
12GB RAM (2x4GB and 2x2GB)
1 x 64GB Crucial M4 SSD
2 x 2TB Samsung F4 Harddrives
1 x 6TB WD Red Harddrive
TBS TBS6905) Quad DVB-T2 TV Tuner
Superflower Goldden Green 350w PSU
Tower with 1 x 140mm exhaust fan and 1 x 120mm intake fan (both fans thermo-regulated).

Until recently, I was running Windows 10 on it but have made the leap to Linux and am now running it headless with Openmediavault.

In addition to just serving my client's with media, I also run TVHeadend on it for recording all my TV.

Two main things are a problem:

1. I cannot get WOL to work.
2. I cannot find a satisfactory way to get the server to sleep when idling and then wake up for scheduled recordings (this was really easy to set up with Windows but really complex with Linux).

Is it just easier just to leave my server on all the time instead or do you think I should keep on trying to fix the problems instead?

If it is suggested that I leave the server on, what sort of annual cost do you think it would be, in comparison to letting it sleep? As a general rule, the server would probably be sleeping from about 8am to 6pm during the week.

Would it be worth thinking about upgrading my hardware with something a bit more economical/quieter?

 

[Mujja]

A similar setup to my HTPC which I leave on 24/7. Like yours I have a small SSD for the OS (Windows 8.1) but as it's used in the living room for Live TV it's left on so there is no delay while it resumes from sleep. And WMC used to have issues recognizing tuners after a resume, not sure if it's still an issue.

To make it quieter replace the case and heatsink fans with quieter ones and use a fan controller to reduce the rpm.

I have a Q6600, 5x 2TB F4s, Sapphire HD5xxx passive cooling 3x dual DVB-T2 and a DVB-S2 squeezed in to an ATX HTPC case with 2x 80mm exhaust fans on the rear. The HSF and exhaust fans are set to 900rpm. The components inside probably get hot in the summer but nothing has failed over 5 years and it's probably saving me money over a Sky/Virgin subscription.

 

[Whiffle]

Do happen to have any idea what the energy consumption might be on your set up?

 

[Mujja]

Using http://www.powersupplycalculator.net/ estimated idle power is around 100W and max power is 300W.

And https://www.ukpower.co.uk/tools/running_costs_electricity estimates 100W at 12hrs/day over 1 month (360hrs) ~ £5

 

[Whiffle]

Interesting.

I have done the same and I get 56 W idle and maximum of 128 W.

Taking into account inefficiencies of my gold-rated PSU, hard drives spinning down and the fact that the CPU will not be doing anything like encoding etc, I reckon that it would draw 75W on average, every hour.

If always on, this works out at about £1.43 per month.

Assuming, very roughly, that half the energy would be saved by sleep mode, this equates to spending £18.00 (annually) on it running 24/7 as opposed to £9.00.

If my assumptions are anywhere near accurate, £9.00 extra, per year, for the advantages of always having the server ready to go seems pretty good.

 

[Whiffle]

Playing devil's advocate for a bit:

If I truly wanted a virtually silent (i.e. other than hard drives) and even more frugal power draw, what would be the best options in terms of hardware upgrades?

I assume that a 160w pico psu should suffice and would be very efficient and silent.

What type of motherboard would be a good choice? A passive motherboard like a J1900 or something by ARM (though they are comparatively expensive!).

Also, I am sure that I have seen, somewhere, a fanless motherboard that even has the PSU powerbrick built into it.

 

[bremen1874]

this equates to spending £18.00 (annually)

Seems low...

If you're optimistic and assume the server will pull 50 Watts at the wall and is running 24/7 it works out to roughly £50/year (assuming 12p/unit).

50 Watts x 24 hours = 1.2 KWhr/day * 365 = 438 KWhr/year * £0.12/unit = £52.56/year

 

[Mujja]

For my server I use a Streacom FC5. It's a low profile case with enough room for a MATX board and 5 2.5" HDD. You could put in 3.5" HDD but mine is full of SSDs with an Intel low power quad core CPU and a 150W nano PSU. It's completely fanless and silent and sits in the TV cabinet with the HTPC.

The HTPC use to be the main 24/7 PC but where I was always tinkering, swapping TV cards and repairing Media Centre I needed a server which was always available. The HTPC is full of 3.5" HDDs which hold all of the media. The server holds all the important media which is backed up to the cloud. Everything from the HTPC, Server and VMs is shared using DFS.

 

[Whiffle]

Seems low...

If you're optimistic and assume the server will pull 50 Watts at the wall and is running 24/7 it works out to roughly £50/year (assuming 12p/unit).

50 Watts x 24 hours = 1.2 KWhr/day * 365 = 438 KWhr/year * £0.12/unit = £52.56/year

Thank you.

You are completely right - my earlier calculations were flawed.

£50.00 is getting to the point of not exactly being insignificant - especially given that you suspect that I am being optimistic and that my average pull is going to be rather more than 50 Watts.

I guess my main options, now, are probably going to be upgrading with some more economical hardware or learn how to get WOL and Sleep Mode working properly.

 

[Whiffle]

I never was able to sort the issues with WOL and Sleep Mode - have decided to just upgrade a few parts to get it to a more acceptable wattage for leaving it on 24/7.

I am considering upgrading the motherboard and CPU with an integrated fanless montherboard/cpu combo.

What do you reckon I should be looking for - would a passive Broadwell or Apollo Lake be acceptable?

I am thinking of swapping the quad tuner for a couple of HDHomeruns, for maximum flexibility, so the the new motherboard doesn't even need any PCI/PCI-e slots.

Furthermore, I am thinking of only using 8GB of the RAM, so it only needs two RAM slots.

Ultimately, I could probably get away with either a mini-itx - my only requirement is that it has 4 Sata 3 ports.