Do you guys turn your servers off a night? reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BunkerMoewe · 2023-12-05 07:31 Hello everyone, do you turn your servers/homelab off during the night? I'm at the point, where I use my self hosted stuff on a daily basis. At night though, I turn my server off and back on in the morning. Do you guys do that as well and safe some electricity, or are all your servers up 24/7? Maybe you have some clever system in place to shut your servers off automatically. I would love to hear your approach! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NotTryingToConYou · 2023-12-05 07:38 I haven't turned it off since I built it a year ago ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Plane_Resolution7133 · 2023-12-05 07:39 I have my baby Xeon and a couple of tiny PCs on 24/7. Once my basement ‘datacente’ is done, I might have more machines running all the time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mshorey81 · 2023-12-05 07:40 Up 24/7. Everything from file storage, DNS, picture backup, Plex and all the accompanying apps along with TrueNAS with 200TB of storage is virtualized on proxmox and runs non-stop. Electricity is relatively cheap in my area and all my gear is fairly efficient. It's worth it to me to keep on all the time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sdR-h0m13 · 2023-12-05 07:41 24/7. You would't save a lot for the hassle of turning it off and on again 730 times a year. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MacGyver4711 · 2023-12-05 07:41 Never... At the moment it's -15c outdoors, so my two PowerEdge 730's (at 98 and 112w respectively) keep my office nice and cozy :-) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DIBSSB · 2023-12-05 07:44 I want to but cant as idk how to tun it on on schedule i can turn it off on scedule using cron job But turning on part idk I dont have ups and cant buy one 😭 On a unraid build with i5 11 th gen processor ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ttkciar · 2023-12-05 07:46 Some of mine run 24/7, others only occasionally, and some I turn off during the ***day*** during the Summer, so that my homelab doesn't overheat. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BlackSuitHardHand · 2023-12-05 07:48 At night, all the backup jobs and the build jobs to keep my containers updated ( I have customised images which need to be rebuilt to ensure they are up to date). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lesigh · 2023-12-05 07:48 I share my services with my friends and family so I keep it on 24/7 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- UltraPlankton · 2023-12-05 07:50 I run two laptops one has all the services that either me or the house uses 24/7 the other one is only used for quick machines or when I need a lab environment. And then my pi is running adguarddns ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nodejsdev · 2023-12-05 07:52 No, because that is when my backups run. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- secopsx · 2023-12-05 07:55 Turning them off sounds like a lot of work, they’ll run til they die. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Simong_1984 · 2023-12-05 08:00 You can usually schedule power on times from the BIOS. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GamerXP27 · 2023-12-05 08:01 keeping mine on 24/7 too much to just turn them off and then on again ---------------------------------------------------------------------- fab_space · 2023-12-05 08:01 yes, only the most power demanding one used for machine learning pipelines ---------------------------------------------------------------------- fab_space · 2023-12-05 08:03 -15?? are u in the dark side of Venus ? 😅 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- eve-collins · 2023-12-05 08:03 I don’t see any point in shutting a server down. The whole point is to have it all up 24/7, right? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- pm_something_u_love · 2023-12-05 08:09 Mine runs Frigate NVR as well as Tor bridge and Syncthing relay (I have fibre with lots of spare bandwidth), some friends/family stream media and I run overnight backups, so I leave it on 24/7. To be honest even if I didn't I'd just leave it on because I'm lazy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- gargravarr2112 · 2023-12-05 08:10 My systems are split into 24/7 and as-needed - the latter get shut down after use. This includes my actual rack servers with lots of disks and high-speed interfaces. Most of my self-hosted stuff is on my low-power Proxmox cluster of USFFs. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- gotamm · 2023-12-05 08:11 No ---------------------------------------------------------------------- macrowe777 · 2023-12-05 08:13 No I need the office warm for when I go in in the morning. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sleepyooh90 · 2023-12-05 08:13 Had -15 c last night here, it's just -8 now. Feels OK, don't even have my winter coat on outside, a good underlayer and a t-shirt is fine, add a hoodie if you Gona be outside longer. I hate summer warm, cold is way nicer ---------------------------------------------------------------------- wtfblubby · 2023-12-05 08:16 My Synology has a timer for this. It's shutting down late at night and powers on automatically in the early morning. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- zn448sk39 · 2023-12-05 08:18 At night is when all media is downloaded ---------------------------------------------------------------------- RydRychards · 2023-12-05 08:21 I only have one mini pc that I bought because it doesn't use a lot of electricity so it can stay powered on 24/7 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sulylunat · 2023-12-05 08:24 Nah. All the interesting stuff on my server happens at night. It works harder at night than it does during the day to be honest lol ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sintheticgaming · 2023-12-05 08:29 24/7/365. I have 3 servers in a hyper converged Proxmox cluster, and they all 3 run 24/7. Only time they’re down is during maintenance windows or hardware failure. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- bobowhat · 2023-12-05 08:33 As Simong mentioned, there is usually a setting in the bios that allows you to schedule turn on times. If there isn't, there should be an option to wake on lan. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- McGoodotnet · 2023-12-05 08:34 Servers don't go off. That is what desktops are for. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Simon-RedditAccount · 2023-12-05 08:35 No. However, my server is totally silent and consumes 3.3W on idle. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- root-node · 2023-12-05 08:37 When are your backups or long running processes going to run if you turn your servers off for half a day?! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Szwendacz · 2023-12-05 08:37 When would backups run then ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SpongederpSquarefap · 2023-12-05 08:40 I don't, but if you only use your servers in the day, I don't see why you couldn't schedule the stop and start ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HrBingR · 2023-12-05 08:40 It’s currently 35c where I live and it’s literally hell. Had some 37c days last week; stuck in a heatwave that should hopefully break tomorrow. I miss winter so very much. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Prynslion · 2023-12-05 08:43 I once created a script that will turn it to sleep and turn it on at a specific time but had to cancel it since I am now running frigate. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 80Ships · 2023-12-05 08:50 I used to shut my server down automatically at 1am and back on at 8am. Now I'm running a jank solution on a Ryzen 7 laptop I'm leaving it on 24/7. Pulls an average of 5W ---------------------------------------------------------------------- techypunk · 2023-12-05 08:52 I only reboot for updates or power outages. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Cart0gan · 2023-12-05 08:56 No, it's a server. The more uptime, the better. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- tounaze · 2023-12-05 08:58 Never, it's up all day and at night backups are done. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Cyberz0id · 2023-12-05 09:00 Three massive reasons why I don't: - Truenas Arc cache - Home assistant automations - DNS / pihole If it wasn't for those, I would be incentivised to shutdown to save 1/3 on power usage when I'm sleeping. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BunkerMoewe · 2023-12-05 09:00 Ol, that's very interesting. Do you measure your power consumption? That would be very interesting to know. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- originalodz · 2023-12-05 09:01 A homelab is something you can break whenever, restore it or build a new one. It serves a purpose for testing things. Just running services on servers is delivery. It's running on servers for stability, availability, security etc. Youtubers seem to not not separate these concepts a lot and often combine them together themselves so I understand why people who don't work with it would be confused. Funnily enough they often claim to work in \*Ops themselves.. hmf.. perhaps this is their way of bringing "test in prod" to home users? ;) My servers that provide services are 24/7. My lab is also 24/7 but it doesn't need to be, I'm just lazy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BunkerMoewe · 2023-12-05 09:01 I was thinking about automating it with an arduino attached to my power button pins on the motherboard. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- fishfacecakes · 2023-12-05 09:02 Nope ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MacGyver4711 · 2023-12-05 09:02 Heh.. Not really, but it's a lot colder than usual in Scandinavia right now. Was out for a walk on Sunday morning, and when I checked the weather forecast it said "-18, feels like -23". ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Leprichaun17 · 2023-12-05 09:04 Southern hemisphere gang represent! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BunkerMoewe · 2023-12-05 09:04 What makes your cluster low power? Curious to know how I could get my power consumption down a bit. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GolemancerVekk · 2023-12-05 09:06 Have you considered a power saving policy for your HDDs? Those are the biggest consumers anyway. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DWLeveller · 2023-12-05 09:07 Depends on your needs. Do you use/require any of the applications to be running during the night? I have all my servers running 24/7 as I have a lot of data streaming in that I use for analysing. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dotinho · 2023-12-05 09:09 I have an UPS that measures power. but most you can access IPMI that give you that information, also the management console usually give you that power info. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TheRealWhoop · 2023-12-05 09:11 Sounds over engineered, just use software to shut it down and wake on lan from a lower powered device to wake it again. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BunkerMoewe · 2023-12-05 09:15 I thought about that too. Sadly my motherboard doesn't support wake on lan. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- yowzadfish80 · 2023-12-05 09:18 Nope, runs 24/7 since I purpose built it for this. Primary server is an Athlon 200GE based system, so consumes hardly any power. NAS is a RPi4 with OMV. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- rcm_rx7 · 2023-12-05 09:21 I use a cheap smart outlet (flashed with tasmota) to get me power consumption stats. It's calibrated with a bit nicer tool, and should be fairly close. Based on what I see I'll pay about $40 a year for my server. Cheaper than the cloud services I'd be using. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CrimeShowInfluencer · 2023-12-05 09:23 Rock64, raspi2 and raspi3 running 24/7. Plex+Gaming Server getting woken up/hibernated on demand. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TheoSunny · 2023-12-05 09:23 Smart plugs are cheaper. You can use an app to turn it on and off, and set up your system to turn on automatically when the smart plug is on. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CWagner · 2023-12-05 09:24 Nope, but the power draw is also below 5W ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ssorgatem · 2023-12-05 09:26 It's on 24/7. Partly because it's also hosting HomeAssistant, which runs some important automations 24/7, like Alarmo which makes no sense if it's not running overnight, and Frigate for video surveillance (and also plugged into HA). It's on a UPS and it also alerts me in the case of a power outage. I have a big Reef tank that can't go hours without electricity, especially in winter or summer. Then, also because during the night I'll automatically update non- critical containers (like the \*arr suite) with watchtower, do a scrub of the Btrfs raid, backup stuff to a network drive and some other intensive or potentially disruptive tasks that I wouldn't want to inconvenience me during the day. It's also running on a minipc with a quite low wattage. The APU (a 4800H) has a TDP of 45W, but it rarely goes above 20W, the CPU stays at idle 75% of the time (I do have a Coral TPU for Frigate object recognition, which helps a lot). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ok_Expert_5751 · 2023-12-05 09:27 I've assigned myself a power budget for my home office. Any time I make a change, it has to consume less power than my existing setup. It can take a bit of planning and foresight to effectively implement. A recent mini-pc with a mobile processor and reasonably sized nvme drives takes almost no power to run 24/7. If you stick in a couple of spinning drives, it can meet most people NAS storage needs. PFSense runs virtualized on that machine. I do have my old dedicated PFSense machine on standby. If anything goes wrong with the virtual router, I can move a single network cable, turn on the backup machine, and get things running again in less than a minute. My backup NAS turns on once a day and runs all the backup jobs for every computer in the house. Then it shuts itself off. All those spinning disks take energy. My 24/7 servers and network all run on a UPS. In my limited experience, 95% of issues were caused by something shutting down unexpectedly. My more power-hungry workstation, application server, and storage server only run when I am likely to need them. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PVTD · 2023-12-05 09:28 Only if you don't gracefully shut down the server depending on HW used. I wanted to have a cloud gaming PC with parsec and a smart powerplug but it won't turn on, only if you shut down the server the "oof" way (and no, it's really set to always ON) Still looking for another way :P ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ssorgatem · 2023-12-05 09:29 many motherboards support scheduling though? like you can set it to automatically power on at the same time every day ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TheoSunny · 2023-12-05 09:30 Ah that sucks. It's true, is very hardware dependant; my homelab is just an overkill gaming desktop so the BIOS has an option to always turn on once power is restored, so even if I gracefully shutdown and turn the switch off, it'll turn right back on once the switch is on. Ofc I later figured out wake on LAN which made this setup unnecessary hehe. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- iluanara · 2023-12-05 09:30 My understanding is that people here have homelabs with one or more servers that host critical and non critical services. I understand on a corporative/production environment to make such a distinction, but on a self-hosting enthusiastic forum? Don't know man, a server is a server. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Tha_Reaper · 2023-12-05 09:31 thats weird. if i just use a shutdown command, my server still turns on after unplugging the PSU and plugging it back in. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Tha_Reaper · 2023-12-05 09:32 I used to, but now all my backups and scrub tasks run during the night. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PVTD · 2023-12-05 09:37 Its an older gaming board. No excuse there but I was really hoping... GF plays Hogwarts legacy when traveling with it and we tested it. It does work on other boards. I hope I specified its on "some" not all boards :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lefl28 · 2023-12-05 09:37 Night time is backup time, so no ---------------------------------------------------------------------- rursache · 2023-12-05 09:38 no way, servers are meant to be ran 24/7. 100% uptime with a UPS just in case! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- wireframed_kb · 2023-12-05 09:38 Nope. There are a bunch of things that run during night, like backups and maintenance tasks. The backup server only runs when doing backups, though, to save some power. I also have a number of people who stream Plex at all hours, and we have some file-sharing and sites that run in production from the server, so it's not really feasible to shut it off. The backup server uses a CRON job to shut off, and a simple wake-time in BIOS to turn on. The production server runs ProxMox, so it has a CRON job that turns on and off the backup storage 10 mintues after the backup server wakes. (Because otherwise ProxMox fills up logs complaining that storage is inaccessible). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- FredrickandNeval · 2023-12-05 09:39 Never! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TheFumingatzor · 2023-12-05 09:39 No. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SurKaffe · 2023-12-05 09:39 Theres a subreddit for that! /r/uptimeporn/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TopdeckIsSkill · 2023-12-05 09:43 Of course I do. Mine is shut down most of the time (night and working hours). On open media vault there is a plug in that will perform various check before turning it off. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TopdeckIsSkill · 2023-12-05 09:44 Worst case scenario: use a wake on la app on your phone or any device to turn it up ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TopoRUS · 2023-12-05 09:45 24/7. Current uptime 145 days, previous was around 300 (turned off only for the cleaning). But in Russia fairly cheap electricity. With usual home server load around 100W it's around additional ~4$ per month. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- R0GG3R · 2023-12-05 09:45 Yes... I am using [UpSnap](https://github.com/seriousm4x/UpSnap) for scheduling shutdown and booting. I have multiple schedules for different servers, but using this one below for my OMV NAS; Weekdays: shutdown at 1.00 PM, start at 7.00 PM Weekend: no schedule (running smart and raid scrubbing during the night) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- LDForget · 2023-12-05 09:48 It’s been probably 30 years since I’ve turned a computer off at night, since then, 24/7. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- R0GG3R · 2023-12-05 09:53 Energy costs? Shutting down each night saves me about € 500,- / year. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ego100trique · 2023-12-05 09:53 Not using electricity when you don't use it ? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Useful_Radish_117 · 2023-12-05 09:54 I do have my main server on a schedule (10 am to 1 am). I call the power down timer from cron, it gives me the flexibility of turning it off manually if I leave the house for more than a day :) I run a dns+vpn combo on a separate machine (orange pi, it consumes literally nothing) which runs 24/7 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Leonichol · 2023-12-05 09:56 No. But the Cable Modem and 2nd Access Point are turned off on a schedule to save some power. Takes out about 24w. Or about... £22 a year. Lol. The server itself only takes like 20w, if not less. But it's all the stuff attached that eats up power. Everything going is about 70w. That's a UPS, 2 APs, server, 16 port switch, 2 modems, zigbee Bridge, 4 SSDs. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kneticz · 2023-12-05 09:56 24/7 Cattle not pets ---------------------------------------------------------------------- z-lf · 2023-12-05 09:58 I'm Enjoying the Americans getting confused at everyone else talking in Celsius. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- micalm · 2023-12-05 10:00 Nope. About 20W when idling (as in - I'm not using, and with 4.5kW solar panels there's really no point. Plus I'm hosting a couple semi-public services and tools on it, so just in case a friend needs to run an uncached DNS query at 4am, it's ready. ;) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Bagican · 2023-12-05 10:01 I'm turning off wi-fi at night, but i'm planning to at least disable most services (containers) too. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- primalbluewolf · 2023-12-05 10:03 But then my services wouldn't be available until I turned it back on again. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Annual-Comfort8027 · 2023-12-05 10:03 You can simply use a time switch, no need for Arduino ---------------------------------------------------------------------- primalbluewolf · 2023-12-05 10:05 Couple ways, one dirty method is to get a timed power supply. Cut the suckers power at a certain time, reintroduce later. It should wake on power. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GregPL151 · 2023-12-05 10:06 I have only a few Dell thin clients doing all my stuff and they get around 4 Watts each at idle (running some things 24/7) so what I do I have most of my non essential containers done on demand. When I access them via Nginx then it does a api call to Portainer to turn on the container on and in a few seconds I have it up and running. Then it turns it off after some time of zero traffic on this URL. I do not run any power intensive stuff but I will in the future so I will follow that concept to save power. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Geminii27 · 2023-12-05 10:06 24/7. I run websites and email servers that might be handling connection attempts overnight. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Spooler32 · 2023-12-05 10:07 Two Rock64 boards are on at all times. Up to seven small boards power on, ranging from 1Gb to 8Gb of memory each. K8s hosted on the master node (a container that slides around any of the hosts) controls node autoscaling via a custom fencing/power operator. It works. It could be less janky. I'd really like to make Karpenter work with it. I will some day, when I have time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- pixelvengeur · 2023-12-05 10:10 8h of power consumption less per day, times 365... That's still sizeable! Now unless you *need* to have it run 24/7, I see it as an absolute positive to turn it off when unused :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- pixelvengeur · 2023-12-05 10:11 Sounds like two of these three services could run on a low power appliance :> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sk1nT7 · 2023-12-05 10:17 My server runs 24/7, as it should since it is a server. However, reality is that the services are not solely used by myself. So shutting it down is a nono. Additionally, I don't care about shutting it down to save some pennies. I've built a reasonable server that fits my needs and power bill tolerance. It consumes about 15-20W. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Korkman · 2023-12-05 10:20 You motherboard doesn't need to support it. You NIC has to. Use ethtool to see if it does and if so, try enabling with the same. Automate that on system boot to ensure it is always active. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mikandesu · 2023-12-05 10:24 I'm running my server 24/7 for the last few years. I'm using Synology Nas 920+ (4 bay NAS) and it costs me about 30 euro a month in electricity. Just keep in mind that any home-built server will take way more electricity than that. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Cybasura · 2023-12-05 10:26 The only I turn it off is when there's a power trip, or if I require moving of things from my room ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dysoxa · 2023-12-05 10:27 Night is when the containers get updated, snapshots are made, disks are scrubbed, SMART values are checked and Linux ISOs are seeding. Sleeping is for humans. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DamascusWolf82 · 2023-12-05 10:30 I sleep some of them evtween certain hours using rtcwake. Just suspend to memory or disk for however long you want, I go off at 1 am and on at 7, doesnt sound like a lot but thats 1/4 of its idle power being saved, and I know that people shave off 10th of a watt at a time by changing components. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DamascusWolf82 · 2023-12-05 10:31 Its really not hard to automate using rtcwake ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DamascusWolf82 · 2023-12-05 10:31 Use rtcwake. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ro55mo · 2023-12-05 10:39 No. I self host email amongst other things so that needs to be available 24/7. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- eco9898 · 2023-12-05 10:41 No way, that would ruin my drives so quickly. It's not good to turn them off and on every day. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- edekeijzer · 2023-12-05 10:43 Why should a server run 24/7? I have customers where virtual servers are stopped outside office hours for cost reduction. Mostly test environments, but some production stuff as well. Minecraft is the most resource intensive service at home, my wife doesn't play a lot at the moment so I made a button which she can use to start the container (it will be up before the game has started on her desktop) and then I stop it again at night. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cookies_are_awesome · 2023-12-05 10:45 I go against the grain apparently, since I only use my server mainly as a NAS and for Plex, and I don't access my storage nor watch Plex every single day, so I don't need it on 24/7. Electricity isn't cheap, I just turn it on with WOL when needed and shutdown via SSH when I'm done. I do have a Libre Potato that I run 24/7 for Pi-Hole and to self-host a couple of websites, but that thing uses less than 5 watts of power. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- blending-tea · 2023-12-05 10:46 r/usdefaultism ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Varnish6588 · 2023-12-05 10:50 Nope, i am running a Synology nas, two mini PC and the UPS. running 24x7 for a year now ---------------------------------------------------------------------- originalodz · 2023-12-05 10:53 I get what you're saying however I do disagree; self-hosting is providing a hosted service yourself. A lab is something very different and I seem to have developed strong opinions about it lately. I realize this is not a discussion for this thread - it's not relevant nor productive. Not sure why I choose to start it :D ---------------------------------------------------------------------- eattherichnow · 2023-12-05 10:55 No. There are things used from the outside here. If I was the only potential user, and if I could just run it when I’m active, I’d be running it my pc. If my power costs were particularly high, I’d look into what hardware I use and how it’s set up. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- freedox · 2023-12-05 10:57 If you HDDs in there you definitely want to keep it running to prolong their life span. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- beerswillinidiot · 2023-12-05 10:57 At times, it can be informative. I found that power usage with different governors was not much different under light load. Old z400 runs between 90-130w, usually. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- predmijat · 2023-12-05 11:02 Turning it off and on poses greater risk for hardware failure :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sk1nT7 · 2023-12-05 11:05 You do you and there are cases where shutting down servers make sense. I personally do not. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- bombero_kmn · 2023-12-05 11:06 I measured all of mine once, for the nine full time systems I had it works out to a few dozen dollars a year. It was so insignificant I haven't thought about "power draw" since. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nolooseends · 2023-12-05 11:08 I think you actually increase the risk of breaking hw by constantly turning it on and off, instead of letting it run 24/7. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ruined_Oculi · 2023-12-05 11:09 What about people using Celsius without specifying, assuming everyone else dies ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Flicked_Up · 2023-12-05 11:14 Yes, I shutdown the NAS every night. Don’t even turn it on if I’m not going to use it. Why? Because the kWh costs £0.35 here. What I don’t shutdown is a couple of Lenovo M700’s which are not that power hungry ---------------------------------------------------------------------- icyhotonmynuts · 2023-12-05 11:15 Winters where I'm at get to -40, even colder with the windchill. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- unusableidiot · 2023-12-05 11:15 They run till they die/anything fails/I want to change the HW config. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- icyhotonmynuts · 2023-12-05 11:16 What's funny is that -40 in Celsius is the same as -40 Fahrenheit. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- james1979_2 · 2023-12-05 11:17 no, but i don't think the consumption of 3 rpis is that high. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Tha_Reaper · 2023-12-05 11:18 thats a shame. And you are sure the option in the BIOS is set correctly? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Internal-Initial-835 · 2023-12-05 11:20 24/7 for me. They're always doing something. Plus the 10-20 minute boot time from pressing the button to having all vms up and running wouldn't be fun every day :) If my server is down then there's no internet. I run things that need to be 24/7. I could split them to smaller pis maybe but by the time i've done that i'm not sure i'd save that much compared to the added hassle and i'd end up ditching the main server in the end. That would make things less convenient for me. My server generates some heat so in the cold my heating is on less. I'm sure theres still a cost. Its not as power hungry as some and i justify it by always remembering the money i'm saving by self hosting things that i would have to pay for otherwise. IF you can shut down and not lose anything then there's no reason not to i guess. Any saving is a saving. If you're self hosting stuff then there's a decent chance you need it to be able to do things when its not getting used. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- W4ta5hi · 2023-12-05 11:21 because everyone outside of the US does ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ruined_Oculi · 2023-12-05 11:23 Point is everyone assumes these things ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kavee9 · 2023-12-05 11:23 Not really. It just runs like a beast since the day I spun it. I mean rare failures and prolonged power outages have happened where I had no choice but to shut down, but I don't do it regularly. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ron_krugman · 2023-12-05 11:25 I run everything (admittedly, not a whole lot) on a Raspberry Pi. It is completely quiet and I have the LEDs turned off. I would only consider turning it off during a heat wave to eliminate the tiny amount of heat it produces. But during winter, turning it off makes no sense whatsoever -- especially at night when electricity is cheaper anyway. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- W4ta5hi · 2023-12-05 11:26 If 96% of people use celsius and 4% use fahrenheit, which one would you default to? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TheDunk67 · 2023-12-05 11:31 NUC and fanless mini, SAN spins down disks when unused. Low enough power to not worry about it, besides half the year is heating season so it's not wasted. Wouldn't want to pay the electric to run old enterprise equipment though, seems cheaper for most home uses to buy modern low power hardware. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Kainotomiu · 2023-12-05 11:34 The root comment said '-15c'. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- FallowMcOlstein · 2023-12-05 11:34 does wake on lan work with a fully shut down device? I thought it was for sleeping devices lol ---------------------------------------------------------------------- l8s9 · 2023-12-05 11:34 On 24/7 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Shogobg · 2023-12-05 11:35 He was thinking that’s Kelvin. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TheRealWhoop · 2023-12-05 11:37 You're right, bad wording on my part. Sleeping machines use very little power though, you're just powering the memory. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- iamdroppy · 2023-12-05 11:40 TIL Fahrenheit makes sense at exactly -40 degrees ---------------------------------------------------------------------- a_mandrill · 2023-12-05 11:40 do you have a Intel Atom X5 like me? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TheRealWhoop · 2023-12-05 11:41 You can get a cheap 3rd party NIC that supports WoL, use that instead of your motherboards built in. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- viviolay · 2023-12-05 11:42 For me, part of the point of stuff I host is to have it available 24/7. I can’t really hear my server anyway and it sits in my living room so noise isn’t an issue. I don’t know how much power it draws but I assume not a lot since its a SFF hp desktop with modest hardware. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- iamdroppy · 2023-12-05 11:42 most problems on a servers happens during boot…. especially for my (ex) good old PowerEdge (it was a refurbished 64gb DDR2 that would give me slot issues during boot so I would have to take them out and clean most of the times) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Simon-RedditAccount · 2023-12-05 11:42 A fanless Celeron N4000 :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dumbasPL · 2023-12-05 11:50 If I didn't want something to run 24/7 then I would just run it on my PC. So I think the answer is pretty obvious. 98% uptime is the goal for my lab, that's about a week of downtime per year. And my ISP is making this extra hard this year... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Labeled90 · 2023-12-05 11:52 No, though I probably should do some underclocking or something. Winter, gas is more expensive than electricity so anything warm in my basement is welcome, spring/summer the solar panels generate enough excess energy that I'm not concerned about costs. One of my servers hosts a private site for family and I'm not going to tell them you can only access this between x and x hour. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- halpoins · 2023-12-05 11:54 Christian Lempa recently did a video on this topic, and he makes some good points. https://youtu.be/MDtbNxeHCYg?si=-lyXnkDIWxkufRSb Personally, I run mine 24/7 because it’s small and I want certain things to happen like backups and updates. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DIBSSB · 2023-12-05 11:58 I need automated at same time daily like turn on at 9 am and turn off at 8 pm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DIBSSB · 2023-12-05 11:58 Thanks let me check ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sebasdt · 2023-12-05 11:59 Yes, but not always like when hosting gameservers and my friends are online. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DarkKnyt · 2023-12-05 12:00 Do you know off the top of your head how much this will save? On my next local reboot, I'm going to shift my 5 spinny disks to something more conservative to reduce my185 W idle. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kysfu · 2023-12-05 12:04 LOL ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Epistaxis · 2023-12-05 12:06 And it's more trouble, but theoretically possible (depending on your network setup), to remotely wake it up outside scheduled hours with wake-on-LAN. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ke5han · 2023-12-05 12:07 My question is, how much power does your server draw when idle? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- glowinghamster45 · 2023-12-05 12:09 I appreciate you actually doing the proper math. In case anyone else is interested, 331.9 million to 8.1 billion = 4.09% ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DyceFreak · 2023-12-05 12:11 **cold storage** is a thing. Can't be cryptolocked if your backup systems aren't alive. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sekhen · 2023-12-05 12:12 No. It's on unless the power is out. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DyceFreak · 2023-12-05 12:13 Don't lie. That's the automated script that never runs because you do it manually during the day. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AlternativeBasis · 2023-12-05 12:13 I live south Brazil, but I think I have some polar bear genes in my gene pool. I really hate heat, and never, ever needed a electric blanket, but because I generate a lot of heat (as every S.O. said). Cold feet and cold hands isn't a really problem to me. My dream retirement spot is the Argentin Patagonia, max temperature it's about 20C. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jormono · 2023-12-05 12:15 My networking cluster (router, modem, rpi4 running home assistant, and an old desktop running omv + Plex - spinning 4 disks) used a little over 2 kWh yesterday, I don't think it varies much. For comparison my elecric clothes dryer pulled about 8.6 kWh in the two loads I ran yesterday and my whole house heat pump pulled about 11.6 kWh. Hell my living room circuit pulled just shy of 4 kWh and my wife was home all day. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Meganitrospeed · 2023-12-05 12:16 Looks like you would profit more from a Solar install than shutting down the Servers ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Absentmindedgenius · 2023-12-05 12:18 My low power servers aren't worth switching off, and I don't want to spin down the drives on my big NAS every day. I do have a backup NAS that I keep turned off. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- guptaxpn · 2023-12-05 12:19 Woah. European electricity is nuts. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- FallowMcOlstein · 2023-12-05 12:20 fair enough. Is it reliable to sleep your server though? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- guptaxpn · 2023-12-05 12:22 Why is this getting downvoted? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DasKraut37 · 2023-12-05 12:23 You have no idea how much many of us would kill to be able to think in metric. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- iavael · 2023-12-05 12:24 Just use rtcwake(8) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- flygoing · 2023-12-05 12:24 There's a funny standup bit by I wanna say an Australian? Talking about how F actually makes a lot of sense for the human experience when in the 0-100 range. 0 is "0% hot" and 100 is "100% hot". Anything above is "too hot" 😂 Edit: misremembered, he's actually from England. Simon Fraser ---------------------------------------------------------------------- verylittlegravitaas · 2023-12-05 12:29 A lot of Americans can't readily tell you the temperature water freezes or boils. It's kind of ridiculous. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- iavael · 2023-12-05 12:30 It does, because motherboard and network card are still partially powered even if your system is off. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- andvell · 2023-12-05 12:30 That is what I sometimes think, each electric equipment I have helps warming up my home and I burn less propane. All energy spent somehow dissipates as heat. Propane is worse for the environment as well. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Soogs · 2023-12-05 12:31 No I leave them on. I work from home and it keeps the home office nice and warm. Saves turning central heating on during the working hours. I do turn my prep/test machine off when not needed though. The other 3 nodes remain on 247 although I could turn one of them off over night but at this time of year the heat is welcome ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mihonohim · 2023-12-05 12:33 Only shut them down when I have to open them up, risky to turn them off and on. But they keep my extra room in the basement warm and nice. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- chmikes · 2023-12-05 12:34 My self hosted home server is doing maintenance jobs during the night. Scraping web sites, making and sending report mails, making backups of remote servers, etc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sudodoyou · 2023-12-05 12:34 You can actually justify a small percentage of the electricity bill this way! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- da_frakkinpope · 2023-12-05 12:36 And I'll pay around $340. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MrAlfabet · 2023-12-05 12:36 WHAHAHAHA^HAHAHAHA^HAHAHAHA^HAHAHAHA^HAHAHAHA^HAHAHAHA^HAHAHAHA^HAHAHA HA^HAHAHAHA^HAHAHAHA^HAHAHAHA^HAHAHAHA^HAHAHAHA^HAHAHAHA^HAHAHAHA^HAHA HAHA^HAHAHAHA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jmajeremy · 2023-12-05 12:39 The only time it goes off is power failures and occasional maintenance. Even when I'm asleep my server is still doing stuff, like downloading TV shows, and running a Tor node. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- iavael · 2023-12-05 12:40 You should take into account that electronics and mechanics (cooling fans and harddisks if we speak about computers) have highest risk of failure when they are powered on or off. So switching system on and off every day shortens it’s components lifespan. You won’t notice this on extremely reliable components like CPU (that can easily work for dozens of years, so 20 years of work instead of 30 years is not what you usually would care about), but you may experience earlier failure of less durable parts like fans, harddisks, power supplies etc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TheRealWhoop · 2023-12-05 12:43 What'd you mean reliable? Does it reliably sleep and awake? That depends fair bit on your OS and config, but generally speaking if setup correct - yes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Analysis-Klutzy · 2023-12-05 12:47 How much do you pay per kwh ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 2CatsOnMyKeyboard · 2023-12-05 12:50 I'm using a mini pc, doesn't consume too much power. Running 24h. It makes backups at night. It also has services accessible for others. Probably nobody uses it at night though. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ScratchinCommander · 2023-12-05 13:00 But free healthcare ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Dash------ · 2023-12-05 13:00 I have am HP microserver and I turn it off since the electricty prices exploded. I have it shut down automatically at night and then turn on in the morning. Considering the price of electricty + infrastructure I guess falls at around 0,4€/KwH and lets say on average the server pulls 40W we end up at around 1KwH a day. ends up 12€/month and 144€ a year, which would represent around 15% of my whole electric bill. By turning it off I save around 50€ a year. Would it kill me not to do it? Nope, but why not. At the start of the year the price of electricity was even higher by around 50% and thats when I set it up. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -rwsr-xr-x · 2023-12-05 13:05 I do, because I live in an area where power is $0.43c/kWh. All non-essential compute that isn't working through a dataset or isn't public-facing on my /28, gets turned off nightly. I'll turn it back on again the next day if I need it for any lab or work related projects. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- planeturban · 2023-12-05 13:05 No. I’m running a proxmox cluster on HP Elitedesk 705 machines. Things mostly idles anyways so I’d guess it’s max €5 a month for the cluster. Add some switches, NAS and other stuff (monitors, retro computers and synths) in my “hobby room” (I rent a separate “office” for my hobbies and WFM) and it’s all in all about €12 in electricity a month. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- discoshanktank · 2023-12-05 13:06 Bro it’s not that hard to learn. No need to kill anyone ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DasKraut37 · 2023-12-05 13:09 Have you seen how much traffic there is? Plenty of need. 😜 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nkt_407 · 2023-12-05 13:11 fascinating! what do you guys have on these servers? I'm interested in building my own ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SaleB81 · 2023-12-05 13:13 I turn off everything but one NUC when leaving home for more than 48 hours, else everything is always on. I am working toward shutting down or hibernating the main desktop, but still not yet there. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- andvell · 2023-12-05 13:16 Exactly, and turning things off would save pennies. It is not even worth any time for calculations. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ruined_Oculi · 2023-12-05 13:17 Fahrenheit ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -rwsr-xr-x · 2023-12-05 13:21 > Do you measure your power consumption? That would be very interesting to know. Not the one you replied to, but I can lend my experience here. I have an extensive homelab (probably closer to /r/HomeDataCenter since I publicly host services and have for 20 years). I measure power using a combination of methods, depending on the device and its architecture: 1. Each x86 device runs [scaphandre](https://github.com/hubblo- org/scaphandre) and that gets fed into Prometheus and Grafana dashboards on my LAN. Scaphandre measures consumption using `intel_rapl`, so I can see the exact cost in dollars of every operation on my machines. Want to see how much it costs to deploy OpenStack on that 88-core SMC machine in dollars and cents? This will do it. Want to measure how "expensive" those Docker or LXD containers are? Scaphandre has you covered. 2. My UPS (a [CyberPower OR1500LCDRTXL2U](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0039YX77C)) also measures consumption at the _rack_ level. It has a built-in UI with graphs and logging that allows me to see every watt going in and out of the UPS, including line voltage changes, spikes, outages from the utility provider. I also installed the [RMCARD205](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01615H29O) to get it on the LAN, because using NUT or USB was not an option, and costs more money to keep a second machine running just to pull these statistics. 3. For appliances/servers/devices that cannot run 1. or are not plugged into 2. (such as my [8-node Raspberry Pi4 cluster](https://imgur.com/a/FfcN1vh) or my OrangePi 5 cluster), I plug them into a [Sonoff S31 smart plug flashed with Tasmota](https://tasmota.github.io/docs/devices/Sonoff-S31/) firmware. The output of that gets fed straight into Prometheus and Grafana, by [enabling the prometheus endpoint](https://www.markhansen.co.nz/monitoring-electricity-with- tasmota/) and building it from source. These plugs (I have 30 of them) live on their own, separate, secured VLAN on my network and I can see every device's consumption in real- time, including my home appliances, like the sump pump, refrigerators, cooling fans, laser printer and more. It also gives me the ability to control it via voice, NFC tag and the web UI in Home Assistant if needed. 4. At the circuit and panel level, I also use a [16-port Emporia Energy Monitor](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08CJGPHL9/) that measures every watt coming out of every one of my panel's circuits, including "The Office" where my homelab lives. This is also [plugged into Home Assistant](https://community.home- assistant.io/t/emporia-vue/178737) so I can see trends over time, but Emporia also has a free dashboard service on their public website that I can check in real-time for any trends, for up to the second, minute, hour, day, week, month and year graphs and data. With this layered approach I can monitor every watt being consumed by every process, device, rack-level, circuit level and entire home level from a single pane of glass, and spot anything that steps out of line (such as when my sump was kicking on for 2 minutes every 8 minutes for 6 months, alerting me to a significant amount of water flowing under my home). Hope this helps! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mikandesu · 2023-12-05 13:21 Here's power usage on my NAS: https://ibb.co/XX5Tk8n ---------------------------------------------------------------------- pixelvengeur · 2023-12-05 13:22 True. I'd argue that HDDs can be set to spin down when not in use, so turning your computer on and off once a day is not what will kill them (especially if you have staggered power ons, so as not to spike your PSU). I didn't think about fans though ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MrSliff84 · 2023-12-05 13:24 Used to auto-standby my unraid server for some time when it was in my living room and wake it up by monitoring states on my firewall. But since it's in the basement it's running 24/7 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- rik1402 · 2023-12-05 13:24 Like ~ 0,38€/kwh in Germany ---------------------------------------------------------------------- learn-by-flying · 2023-12-05 13:25 No, enterprise gear is designed to run 24/7; I have plenty of automated things running overnight such as backups, DVR recordings. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Analysis-Klutzy · 2023-12-05 13:25 Ouch! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CactusBoyScout · 2023-12-05 13:28 No I have friends/family in other time zones who access my Plex server. It’s not night time for everyone at the same times. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- thil3000 · 2023-12-05 13:29 Canada has cheaper electricity with the same kind healthcare, the only problem is cold, or it’s a solution for the heat management half of the year ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Awkward-Class-7230 · 2023-12-05 13:34 No. It's cold outside, i pay for my electricity by "**square meter**", i pay for heating by usage. It's cheaper to start some encodes on the CPU than to heat up using radiators. Also it's just one PC, which i use as a desktop and my homelab in a VM 5900x, 96 gb ram, RTX 2080, 3x3tb, 3x2tb hdd. Will however replace the HDD's with some bigger ones instead - got them for free It is however pulling a stable 300W (\~91$ /month) if i were to pay for my usage. I am however paying \~43$ for all my usage. And a stable 0, for heating. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- gooseberryfalls · 2023-12-05 13:35 Won't we all! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Johannesboy1 · 2023-12-05 13:35 Linux-Yoda ---------------------------------------------------------------------- R0GG3R · 2023-12-05 13:37 No, I have solar panels... Energy costs in Europe are high mainly because of the war between Ukraine and Russia. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- xmmr · 2023-12-05 13:38 So it's not server ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Greedy-Mirror-944 · 2023-12-05 13:39 They are using small form factor devices l, which will typically be low power office devices. Most workloads don't need much power so these little boxes are enough for running core services, whilst only sipping at power. It's down to hardware though, If you're running noisy commercial equipment there's not much you can do, other than introduce a low power device to run your core services, then power on your larger server as and when you need to run heavier workloads https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_form_factor_(desktop_and_motherb oard) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- zombieagain · 2023-12-05 13:40 Never! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sagewah · 2023-12-05 13:47 Nah, I just turn the lights out and put a blanket over them and they doze off by themselves. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Lee_Ars · 2023-12-05 13:48 Between the NAS and the two servers, my total maximum sustained usage hovers at around 130W, with my idle usage looking more like 90W. Normalized electricity rates where I live work out to about $0.15/kWh, so absolute worst-case cost if everything was running at 100% utilization all the time would be roughly $170/year or about $14/mo; minimum lower bound would be ~$118/year or ~$10/mo. That range of spend is acceptable to me for the trade-offs provided by not having to screw around with powering things off and on, and the extra wear & useful lifetime reduction caused by that much power cycling. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Majestic-Contract-42 · 2023-12-05 13:53 If there was a way to reliably do it, I would only have it on from 1500-0300. However, one of my docker stacks never starts correctly at boot. Being honest, I never put much effort into it, I am sure there is some simple command or something to get that one stack to be delayed or whatever it is that's needed for it to startup reliably. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DMenace83 · 2023-12-05 13:53 How does a smart plug going to turn on the PC? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- planeturban · 2023-12-05 13:54 Depending on where in Europe. I’m in Sweden (SE2) and I’d save about €40-50 a year if I were to shut my servers down in the evenings. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- chazzeromus · 2023-12-05 13:55 i ran out of ports on my switch so i bridge my desktop directly to my 2x 10gbe port NIC on my NAS, turning it off means no internet :D ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EndlessHiway · 2023-12-05 13:59 No. Mine barely use any electricity and I don't see any point. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Yeedth · 2023-12-05 14:01 My media server turns off. My nuc running crucial stuff such as adguard and home assistant stays on ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ryluv2surf · 2023-12-05 14:01 **cronjobs are your friend** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- rubs_tshirts · 2023-12-05 14:02 That is the coolest post I read all month ---------------------------------------------------------------------- laffer1 · 2023-12-05 14:05 As an American, can confirm a lot of people don’t know that in Celsius or Fahrenheit ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ryluv2surf · 2023-12-05 14:05 i'd say probably depends on usage and hardware, i don't self host my own server but use a VPS to host my own email/website/etc... Well i got a raspberry pi4 that has an uptime of 1.5 years minus reboots for kernel updates but it's literally just an SSD connected and my home NAS. somebody more knowledgable should jump in but I'd say learning about cronjobs is a game changer, you could do stuff like set times for reboots or events at reboots or literally any thing like run this script 82 days from now but only if it's Wednesday etc.. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Archmage_Gaming · 2023-12-05 14:05 Yes, but only because I'm not the one paying the power bill. Right now I'm only running a media server with some productivity tools so it's not the biggest issue to turn it off at night (especially thanks to app control and WoL), but once I move out I'm planning on adding some stuff like Home Assistant that would benefit from being left on. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cardboard-kansio · 2023-12-05 14:06 That's still normal. I go hiking [all year round](https://imgur.com/gallery/Y5Ta6d7) here in Finland, and and comfortably warm camping [in my hammock](https://imgur.com/gallery/okmEmCM) down to -20°C (and that's my limit only because I don't have budget for fancy winter gear). It's not about the temperature being low, it's more about your understanding of insulation basics (layering, dressing up and down, not getting wet) and your general attitude. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Avanchnzel · 2023-12-05 14:06 Nope, I don't even turn off my desktop PC, because of all the stuff that is open (and I don't trust hibernation since some bad experiences in the past). Besides, it saves me from ever having to use the radiator. 😋 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- laffer1 · 2023-12-05 14:07 Meanwhile it’s 36F here and I’d like to go back to warmer weather. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sinister_Crayon · 2023-12-05 14:10 Nope. Night time is when backups, maintenance and so on occur. I have scripts set up to run on CRON jobs throughout the night to ensure my lab is working at tip top shape the next day. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- myself248 · 2023-12-05 14:10 The stuff that runs 24/7 runs on low-power hardware, a couple of single-board computers and routers with hacked-up firmware. It's so low-power that I have 15-ish hours of battery backup, and as such its uptime is not affected by power outages. The high-power stuff (desktop for CAD and AI stuff, NAS, etc) gets shut down sometimes. Right now most of that is also running 24/7 because I've got tasks running and it's winter so the extra heat isn't an issue, but in summer I get more fastidious about only running it when I need it. It only has 20 minutes of battery, so if power goes out, but it's already off, I luck out and don't have to scramble to start the generator. It all has wake-on-LAN though, so I can bring it up remotely over the VPN even if I'm not home. (I ssh into the router and send the WOL packets from there.) Shutdown is manual, when I feel like I'm done with it for a while. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- laffer1 · 2023-12-05 14:11 I’m estimating it around $364. That’s five servers, 2 switches, a Meraki mx, cable modem/router, ups, WiFi ap, and time server. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EnigmA-X · 2023-12-05 14:13 IMHO, running a server will cost you a bit more than just the cost of electricity. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- islandsimian · 2023-12-05 14:14 I have a RPi set up just for sending the startup/shutdown commands to the idracs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Expensive_Finger_973 · 2023-12-05 14:16 I only turn it all off if I am going to be away for a night or more. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- techie2200 · 2023-12-05 14:18 My homelab is low power, so it stays on all the time. It's also doing stuff 24/7, so I don't want to shut it down or it'll have a backlog to catch up on. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EnigmA-X · 2023-12-05 14:20 My server takes about 50W on average. Thats 0,05kWh. 8 hours downtime will save me 0,4kWh per day and thus 146kWh per year. The cost of electricity for me is 0,3 EUR/kWh. This means that switching off my server for 8 hours per day, will save me about 44 EUR/year. However, malfunctioning disks, ram, or whatever component will most likely be much more expensive to replace. Even if this happens only once in 2 years. Next to that, the energy it takes to create and ship this replacement part (end to end) will most likely be much much more than whatever I save by switching my server off. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TheSmashy · 2023-12-05 14:22 We have 24 hour ops here. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- iamdroppy · 2023-12-05 14:22 hah, both wrong, I'm Brazilian that worked in England and now lives in Spain, and I still haven't found a single Fahrenheit!!!! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- LukasAtLocalhost · 2023-12-05 14:23 It's only 112w? I could get one of these ---------------------------------------------------------------------- elstevo2 · 2023-12-05 14:25 Nope, 24/7 In my household but that's largely because we have family on the other side of the planet who access some of the services and due to timezones turning it off and on for them would drive me batty ---------------------------------------------------------------------- rymn · 2023-12-05 14:26 They can turn off? Lol. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AlteRedditor · 2023-12-05 14:30 Any recommendations for 200TB NAS? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- rTidde77 · 2023-12-05 14:31 You set the BIOS to automatically turn on the PC when power is restored to it...so then when you turn on the smart plug the device auto powers on ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ImStrandedHere · 2023-12-05 14:31 What is this "off" you're talking about? /s ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dazchad · 2023-12-05 14:32 Depends on how expensive power is. 200w for 12h daily is 105 dollars per year at 12c per kWh. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- scotrod · 2023-12-05 14:34 I have an HPE ML350 Gen9 which SCREAMS for 5 minutes straight while initializing everything. There's nothing in my house that brings as half as noise as this. Definitely wouldn't wanna hear this every morning at 8am when I start work lol. Besides, my routing also sits on it as a VM. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Cheeze_It · 2023-12-05 14:39 I specifically built my server using a Ryzen 5700G, undervolted it and curve optimized it to -27, lowered the turbo ever so slightly too. It runs 24/7 and sips around 50-60w for most workloads. It'll spike up to 70w or 80w if I load up all CPU cores but that's a rarity. It basically will do all computing tasks with fairly low total load wattage. So for reference... Ryzen 5700G, 64G of RAM, a RAID card (which I need to eventually move off of), 2 HDDs, an SSD, 3 fans. 50-60w average. It's INSANELY efficient. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- pixelvengeur · 2023-12-05 14:40 The savings will vary from lab to lab. Mine, being Epyc-based, pulls ~110W on average, some use single digit wattage ratings and some have a rack full of equipment. There is a threshold where it's not practical nor sane, and it will vary with power consumption, electricity prices. I'm paying ~0.33€/kWh and, had I not installed solar panels, I'd shut it off every night. As of now, the consumption is offset by the panels, so I don't. If you have kilowatts worth of equipment, there is surely stuff you can dial back or shut down. If you have thin clients and SoC boards, you don't have to worry about it. But there are a few of us in-between those extremes, who should at least consider the possibility of, if not shutting down the system, at least scaling services down when unused. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mika5555 · 2023-12-05 15:06 wake-on-lan ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lagavenger · 2023-12-05 15:11 My server is relatively low power. Just regular things like plex and nextcloud. And we use plex so frequently all day long to stream music, Rockabye Baby, for the toddler. It’d be a huge hassle to boot it up every morning, or at odd times in the night to put on nap time music for the kiddo. Hypothetically, if I had a high power server, I would entertain frequent shutdowns. But I prefer having low-power equipment that barely moves the meter. I’m not doing anything that requires lots of processing power anyway. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BloodyIron · 2023-12-05 15:11 No, that's when backups happen lol. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- boocap · 2023-12-05 15:12 I've had a home server in some form powered on continuously since 1997, my power bills are always reasonable and besides to me it's worth it to always have my stuff available and not have to rely on 3rd parties besides my ISP. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CreativeGPX · 2023-12-05 15:14 In general: - It's often a hard problem to predict with total accuracy when a server needs to be up or not. So, trying to do so can create some user friction. Even more so if turning the server on and off is a manual process. - Server software and server admins may depend on having low-usage times to do background tasks. - The amount of wear and energy use from frequently cold booting a server may offset plenty of what you're trying to avoid by not having it sit there idling. - Between power management options and the ability to buy the right hardware for the job, power usage doesn't have to be that crazy. There is also a longstanding kind of pride regarding server uptime. I think this relates to the fact that trying to maximize uptime forces good practices as oppose to the "eh, I just reboot it every once in a while to fix/avoid these random problems I can't explain." That all said, if you know your use case and the tradeoffs, you do you. I think sometimes people forget a server (as hardware) is just a computer and a server (as software) is just a program that...serves you stuff. There's nothing special about it that necessarily means you have to treat "servers" differently than your phone or toaster. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sexpusa · 2023-12-05 15:17 I only turn off my high wattage machines at night, my efficient main server stays on always. It costs me .11 $ USD a day so turning it off for 8 hours saves me .03-4$. What is the point? I'm not that frugal. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dreniarb · 2023-12-05 15:24 My backup server kicks on at 11pm. Then once the last backup script runs it shuts back down again. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- hackifier1 · 2023-12-05 15:24 I use a scheduled task to turn off the server at a given time unless certain services are currently being used, then I use WOL to wake the server in the morning. I skip on shutdown a week and that's when the backups get done. Works well. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- zaluthar · 2023-12-05 15:26 Synology turns off automatically and starts automatically. Saves 30W. If needed my actual homeserver, which runs 24/7 can start it up even when I'm remote from home. The homeserver has a lower energy footprint, averaging 12W. Backups run during the day. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- fab_space · 2023-12-05 15:32 -81 karma are u happy now? PLEASE MORE ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PublicSchwing · 2023-12-05 15:33 I’m in camp “keep the hard drives spinning.” It’s tough, as I try to conserve power- so conflicting. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- fuzz_64 · 2023-12-05 15:35 Depends on the server. My router / NAS / IIS web server are on 24/7 (1 physical box with a bunch of virtual machines) My second box that I use for AI, game dev, music recording is only on when needed as it draws a lot more power. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mio9_sh · 2023-12-05 15:38 man, we don't do backups and maintenance works in the days, we only do that after office hours, and you guessed it, it's the night. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DivineKEKKO96 · 2023-12-05 15:41 !remindme 3h ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Venusn99 · 2023-12-05 15:41 Wow.. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- RemindMeBot · 2023-12-05 15:42 I will be messaging you in 3 hours on [**2023-12-05 18:41:14 UTC**](ht tp://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2023-12- 05%2018:41:14%20UTC%20To%20Local%20Time) to remind you of [**this link **](https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/18b6q3q/do_you_guys_t urn_your_servers_off_a_night/kc3o99p/?context=3) [**CLICK THIS LINK**](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Remin dMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5Bhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2F selfhosted%2Fcomments%2F18b6q3q%2Fdo_you_guys_turn_your_servers_off_a_ night%2Fkc3o99p%2F%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%202023-12- 05%2018%3A41%3A14%20UTC) to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam. ^(Parent commenter can ) [^(delete this message to hide from others.)] (https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Delete %20Comment&message=Delete%21%2018b6q3q) ***** |[^(Info)](https://www.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/e1bko7/remind mebot_info_v21/)|[^(Custom)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?t o=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5BLink%20or%20message%20inside %20square%20brackets%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%20Time%20period%20here)|[^(Yo ur Reminders)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot& subject=List%20Of%20Reminders&message=MyReminders%21)|[^(Feedback)](ht tps://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Watchful1&subject=RemindMeBot %20Feedback)| |-|-|-|-| ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nbfs-chili · 2023-12-05 15:42 I use a [Kill-a-watt](https://www.amazon.com/P3-P4400-Electricity- Usage-Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU/ref=sr_1_5?crid=ADRAYIJN28TL&keywords=kill %2Ba%2Bwatt&qid=1701790863&sprefix=kill%2Ba%2Bwatt%2Caps%2C981&sr=8- 5&th=1). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DivineKEKKO96 · 2023-12-05 15:42 This could help you https://www.reddit.com/r/esp32/s/yR5CBytOzj ---------------------------------------------------------------------- untilthewhale · 2023-12-05 15:43 Hey, a question regarding backing up homelab. Where do u backup the apps/data? NAS I guess. Can I use a separate SSD/HDD for the same? And, what things do you backup? Everything stored on storage?? And, how to automate it? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- szayl · 2023-12-05 15:48 Nope ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TuggerSpeedmen · 2023-12-05 15:50 I used to when it was just me on plex but now that i have added family i dont. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- acdcfanbill · 2023-12-05 15:50 on the contrary, that's when i have them set to download and do other various tasks because no one is using bandwidth during the night. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- gargravarr2112 · 2023-12-05 15:54 USFF desktops - HP 260 G1s. Dual-core i3s with SSDs. Measured at 8W at idle. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Gabisonfire · 2023-12-05 15:57 "Linux ISOs" wink wink ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SilentDecode · 2023-12-05 16:05 No. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- volcs0 · 2023-12-05 16:06 Haven't turned it off in 15 years -except or reboots, upgrades, etc. etc. It probably isn't cheap - big sweaty server with 12 drives and fans spinning fast all of the time. I've considered going to a low-power options - with fewer (high TB) drives, but I haven't made the jump yet. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SilentDecode · 2023-12-05 16:06 What specs do those have if the usage is that? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EitherMen · 2023-12-05 16:10 Get one of those smart plugs that has set time power kill functions, there's some cheap ones on AliExpress. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SnowyLocksmith · 2023-12-05 16:10 Hey! Me, and my 12TB of ubuntu 22.10 LTS feel attacked ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mrmclabber · 2023-12-05 16:13 no ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ratudio · 2023-12-05 16:14 i scheduled my archive file server (rackmount 36 x 3.5 bays + 2 x 2.5 bays ) to turn on/off on weekdays while on weekend it run 24hrs. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- neoblue1 · 2023-12-05 16:22 How do you recommend to do gracefully shut it down? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TopdeckIsSkill · 2023-12-05 16:23 I'm on OpenMediaVault. There is this plugin: [https://github.com/OpenMediaVault-Plugin-Developers/openmediavault- autoshutdown/tree/master](https://github.com/OpenMediaVault-Plugin- Developers/openmediavault-autoshutdown/tree/master) it automate the turn off with multiple conditions. There is also a wake plugin but it's basically a cron job ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TryHardEggplant · 2023-12-05 16:26 At -40, they’re the same so it doesn’t matter. So just another month or so. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- M_R_Ducs · 2023-12-05 16:27 lol. No, its on 24/7. I feel a little bad about consuming 400 watts continuously, but admittedly, during the winter months, it does help heat half of the house, and I haven't turned on the furnace yet this year. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- gybemeister · 2023-12-05 16:27 Don't do that, you'll kill you hard drives. Better have the OS turn off in the evening and the BIOS start in the morning. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Swiftzn · 2023-12-05 16:28 I don't afford my PC that luxury why would I do that for my servers. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SilentDecode · 2023-12-05 16:33 What specs do those have if the usage is that? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DrinkCokeZero · 2023-12-05 16:34 yeah and then i tuck my server into bed lmao idiot ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ParaDescartar123 · 2023-12-05 16:37 Wow. How? Give deets please. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jonayo23 · 2023-12-05 16:39 I bought a cheap PCIe expansion card on Aliexpress that gracefully turn on / off my PC, you might find it useful, just search for "tuya PCIe" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MacGyver4711 · 2023-12-05 17:02 Single E5-2698v4, 4x64gb ram, dual 1Gbit + dual 10Gbit NICs (daughtercard), 2x200gb sata SSD for boot, 6x1.6gb SAS SSD for server 1, server 2 is identical exept for the additional 4x800gb SAS SSDs. The load is generally quite low, though. As is the noise level, I might add. Nice old workhorses these 730's :-) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- psychicsword · 2023-12-05 17:06 I haven't turned my server off voluntarily in more than a decade. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- psychicsword · 2023-12-05 17:08 What is running 24/7 to do the wakeup tasks? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Other_Engineering454 · 2023-12-05 17:10 I only have a few users, but with the time differences between timezones, and sleeping schedules being different there are really only a few hours a night that no one would be accessing it. During that time I run all my scripts (backups, check for updates, and various other scripts). I would also be the one who would forget to turn it on in the morning, and not realize till I was out and about trying to use one of the services. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SilentDecode · 2023-12-05 17:10 Oh wow neat! Have you made any customizations to the BIOS in order to keep the power low? I recently did this, and the power went down to 56w on idle with a single E5-2630Lv4 and 6x32GB. Full specs on mine: Single E5-2630L v4 6x 32GB 2400Mhz ECC REG 1x 128GB SATA SSD for boot 6x 500GB SATA SSDs for storage H730p controller Broadcom 2x Gbit, 2x SFP+ daughtercard (prob the same as yours) Single 495w PSU Running ESXi 8 I have a single E5-2697Av4 laying around and I might plop that back in soon. Took it out for idle usage, but I notice quite a difference in performance between the 10c/20t at 1,8, or the 16c/32t at 2,6. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jasondaigo · 2023-12-05 17:15 I did before when I had rack cases. Now i can’t hear them anymore and they run 24/7. all 3 pcs relatively low power though. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HrBingR · 2023-12-05 17:15 Wanna trade? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- imthefrizzlefry · 2023-12-05 17:16 Plug an Arduino or raspberry pi into the headers on the motherboard to bypass the physical button with a relay. Use an esp32 if you want it connected to your LAN for manual override. Or get a PI-KVM with the atx adapter, and write a cron job to push the button. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- silence036 · 2023-12-05 17:19 I have the pdu turn outlets on and off on a schedule, makes it real easy. Just gotta have a task on the servers to shut down by themselves beforehand ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ovirt001 · 2023-12-05 17:19 Mine run 24/7, I have background processes that run overnight. I did find a cheaper alternative to PDUs though - TP-Link HS300. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kthepropogation · 2023-12-05 17:23 On a typical day, everything plugged into the UPS running my server uses 1.2kWh per day. This includes the router, the WiFi AP, and my disk array. I like and use low-power mini-PCs, so my usage is likely lower than average. If I turned all of this off for 8 hours per day, I would save approximately 5¢ per day. Just my home server, probably less. That’s just not worth it to me for the inconvenience. Pretty much any other energy saving effort would be more productive. My server also has FDE, and at restart requires a password. If 5¢ per day is the cost of me not having to do that, it’s worthwhile. From an environmental perspective, there is arguably a benefit to running at night. At least where I live, energy is generally at its greenest at nighttime, especially during the summer. Therefore, if you can shift more of your energy-intensive usage to nighttime (e.g. zpool scrubs, backups, git-gc, other scheduleable tasks), you’re able to reduce the CO2 impact of these tasks, while also reducing the impact of these tasks on the performance when humans are using the system. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mshorey81 · 2023-12-05 17:23 I built mine using external SAS enclosures connected to an HBA that's passed through to a TrueNAS VM on Proxmox. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- geroulas · 2023-12-05 17:24 I guess if you turn it off at night its a PC, not a server. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- hellomateyy · 2023-12-05 17:25 I typically grab my Linux ISOs from your typical usenet and what not. Is there a way for me to "give back" and let other Linux users download their stuff from me? Where would I start? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dereksalem · 2023-12-05 17:26 That is...really cheap. I have pretty cheap electricity ($0.05/kWh) and I still pay \~$130/yr with the servers not doing much. Granted, that's 2 servers that are a both a bit more beefy than I need, but still. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Darkextratoasty · 2023-12-05 17:26 My apartment is heated with radiative baseboard heaters, so I use servers for 100% of my heating. If I gotta burn electricity to heat the place I might as well do something with it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EitherMen · 2023-12-05 17:27 Why will it kill the hard drives? Assuming you have a set power down time on the OS and a following power off timer via the smart socket. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- bendmunk95 · 2023-12-05 17:32 sO Ur nOt wIlLiNg 2 tO SaVe 146 dOlLaRs A yEaR? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GhostTheSlayer · 2023-12-05 17:35 I'm planning on moving my stuff to a rpi5 + external HDD dock and shutting down my server. Waiting to actually get it then see how that goes and need to measure the actual consumption. Also thought about using the rpi for wfh machine as everything is done on remote VM's anyway. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Nullifi3r · 2023-12-05 17:37 I Run a freshtomato router with a wake-on-lan feature and cron jobs support. So, I made a cron job to shut down the server around 12:30AM, and another cron job on router's side to wake it around 6~7 AM so that it's ready by the time I start to work. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Steerider · 2023-12-05 17:38 Booting up a computer can be more wear and tear than just leaving it running. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- rcm_rx7 · 2023-12-05 17:39 Yeah I'm not counting the rest of my network devices which would surely bump up my costs a bit. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- herbal_broccoli · 2023-12-05 17:49 yes after i say goodnight to them. gotta take care of your stuff ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ApricotPenguin · 2023-12-05 17:51 Within the BIOS, there is usually an option to set the machine to power on at X time. ​ Your main risk at that point is whether your BIOS has the correct time set, and a CMOS battery that isn't dead/failing :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sexpusa · 2023-12-05 17:57 Lol thanks for the chuckle. I am super frugal but it is worth 14.6$ to not have to turn it on and off 730 times ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Simon-RedditAccount · 2023-12-05 17:57 MSI Cubi N with Celeron N4000, fanless, running Ubuntu Server with containers. Actually, any CPU with TDP <10W can be fanless. Including relatively new and quite powerful [N100](https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ ark/products/231803/intel-processor-n100-6m-cache-up- to-3-40-ghz.html). Plus Linux [generally eats much less power](https:/ /www.reddit.com/r/HomeServer/comments/17klp2o/guess_the_power_consumpt ion_of_lenovo_thinkcentre/) than Windows. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kdlt · 2023-12-05 17:57 ..what? The point of my server is that my PC doesn't have to run 24/7.. so no? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- wanze · 2023-12-05 18:00 We don't all have a shit ton of hydro, unfortunately. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SitDownBeHumbleBish · 2023-12-05 18:00 My odroid and rpis stay on forever unless stopped by me. I don’t think they take that much energy/cost to run. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Redneckia · 2023-12-05 18:02 Thank you for you service ---------------------------------------------------------------------- shellmachine · 2023-12-05 18:02 Uuuuuuhm, no. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MacGyver4711 · 2023-12-05 18:04 I don't think I did anything special in the BIOS, but as sharing is caring - feel free to show your settings and I can compare with mine. Would surely be nice if I could see an even lower power consumption :-) These servers used to run Oracle databases, and came with E5-2637v4 (4c at 3.6ghz) due to licensing costs. Didn't make much sense with Proxmox (or virtualization in general), and as I had two 2698v4 lying around from some scavenging it turned out pretty decent. Yes, 2.2ghz is slow, but as I don't have any apps/vms/containers that require that much speed it works ok. Being around 8 years old they still do the job. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- katrinatransfem · 2023-12-05 18:06 Mine is on all the time. Firstly, I self-host my own email, which apparently is a no-no, but nevermind. So it needs to be on to receive it. Secondly, Home Assisstant runs on it, and it is monitoring temperatures / weather forecasts / heating / etc. Secondly, the backup and a load of scripts run overnight. Fourthly, it is in a super-inconvenient location out of the way of everything else so getting to it to turn it on and off is a bit of a pain. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- niemand112233 · 2023-12-05 18:08 Ofcourse. 35c/kWh here... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Niceygy · 2023-12-05 18:09 Mine goes into "low power" mode, aka most containers/services updated, backed up then switched off for the night. Saves a penny or two 😉 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- purepersistence · 2023-12-05 18:09 Of course not. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jerwong · 2023-12-05 18:14 What kind of scrubbing are you doing? Are you referring to fstrim? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- eve-collins · 2023-12-05 18:17 Wow. Well either your energy costs are absurd or your server is pulling an enormous amount of energy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- eve-collins · 2023-12-05 18:19 I think it depends on what are you running your server for. If it’s automated tasks (download things, monitor things, etc) or smart home or a VPN etc, then you can’t tell when it’s needed and when it’s not. It’s needed virtually 24/7. I don’t want to turn on the server when someone in my household is trying to access a website and I want to block the ads, for instance. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ta-mere101 · 2023-12-05 18:24 was thinking the same, keeping it running is proooba ly better than adding a spin up every day ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SamSausages · 2023-12-05 18:34 always on. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- skynet_watches_me_p · 2023-12-05 18:39 Folding@Home keeps the pipe in my garage from freezing. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Agreeable_Wash_378 · 2023-12-05 18:44 Never. I cannot see where the power button is when it gets dark so i cannot turn them off 🤣🤣🤣 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TaserBalls · 2023-12-05 18:47 Off just means it's still in the box, right? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TaserBalls · 2023-12-05 18:49 seriously though, I think I'll save it and read it again next month. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- iDrinkyCrow · 2023-12-05 18:55 Its extra funny when tons of places get to -15F too lol ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jaycuse · 2023-12-05 18:55 Main reason I keep mine on 24/7 is ... sharing copies of... linux iso files. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nonlogin · 2023-12-05 18:55 200TB sounds more like a server rack rather than nas )) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Mount_Gamer · 2023-12-05 18:57 I do this as well. Wake on lan is probably under utilised and if I'm honest, I only started using it about a year ago. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- anossov · 2023-12-05 19:00 I haven't turned off my *desktop* since 2005 (except for maintenance of course), servers are completely unthinkable ---------------------------------------------------------------------- National-Dust-2194 · 2023-12-05 19:01 What do you mean? The cost of the server itself? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Meganitrospeed · 2023-12-05 19:10 Im from Europe and I live in a remote area canary islands, our energy comes mostly from sources that need to be imported first (so extra pricy) I havent seen an increase because of the war tbh, but if you already have solar, how about battery backup ( that plugs into your solar), would also provide to be an full house UPS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- default_user_acct · 2023-12-05 19:13 I just use ARM/Intel Atom on things that stay up all the time. I never turn off my workstations, which are laptops, so they have their own power management/low power modes cause battery. I might put them to sleep occasionally. I've done a lot to my house to increase energy conservation. I've never noticed anything significant with computers. I also WFH, have 3 kids, and a wife who WFH. Basically my power consumption is more from everyone being home all the time and kids being in every room, worrying about the PC power consumption would be bike shedding. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- znpy · 2023-12-05 19:14 incredibly based. i like you. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HTTP_404_NotFound · 2023-12-05 19:17 Nope. My servers remain running 24/7/365. Between the 5 of them that are always running, they average around 300-350 watts, leading to a grand total around 500 watts total consumption on my server breaker. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- vrsrsns · 2023-12-05 19:20 I was gonna plug a Kill-a-Watt into mine to get an idea of consumption but then I’d have to turn it off and to answer your original question, I never do that. My offsite backups happen in the wee hours, which is one reason. But bringing everything back up is not exactly fully automated for me either, so it’s kind of a pain. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Check-Mate-sir · 2023-12-05 19:33 I am very realistic about my server total load, so I run on a 65W desktop chip. Having said that the power load is minimal and can run 24x7x365 without giving it a second thought. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Stevieflyineasy · 2023-12-05 19:34 I think this leads into the whole , having power efficient set up starts. Cause no I would not leave my 300w idle server on 24/7 , unless it was running the network , something important, like a web site , DNS etc ---------------------------------------------------------------------- WhittledWhale · 2023-12-05 19:39 > Propane is worse for the environment as well. That really depends on how the electricity in your home was generated. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HeliumIsotope · 2023-12-05 19:39 Do the servers turn back on automatically after power loss? If so, then a smart plug on a schedule is a much better solution. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- no-fapping-way · 2023-12-05 19:42 If it’s populated with mechanical disks, it’s highly likely to shorten their lifespan though. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 5230826518 · 2023-12-05 19:43 1. change your electricity provider. you should not pay 45ct. 2. how much more expensive is e.g. 28ct/kwh (current rate for new contracts) compared to your heating per kwh, because in winter you essentially only pay that difference because for every kwh your equipment uses you will heat a kwh less. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- no-fapping-way · 2023-12-05 19:45 400watts!!! At idle? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AlteRedditor · 2023-12-05 19:47 Thank you for the explanation! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AlterNate · 2023-12-05 19:49 My ZimaBoard only draws 6w. I go months between reboots. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- inkedkoi · 2023-12-05 19:51 24/7 they are on. I would not want to come into work with the servers still off and everyone bombarding me with msgs before I even was out the door at home. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- crewman4 · 2023-12-05 19:51 Man I turn off my servers the whole home , heating, lights , stops 😂😂 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MegaVolti · 2023-12-05 19:52 I lab idles at 2-3W so no. And my daily (well, nightly) jobs like backup and automated updates run during the night, so double no. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TuhanaPF · 2023-12-05 19:56 I have a NAS, two mini PCs, and one medium sized desktop. It's not really using that much so nah, I don't bother. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SirPoopsAlot7 · 2023-12-05 19:57 Wait people turn their servers off?! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- andvell · 2023-12-05 19:57 I know... I am in Ontario, Canada. Although we still have some dirty generation, a pretty big share is nuclear. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dazchad · 2023-12-05 19:58 I'm not in Germany. I got that from googling "Germany kwh price 2023" But the point still stands. Energy price vary wildly, and so you should take that into consideration. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Hotwinterdays · 2023-12-05 19:59 No, in fact, I strive for as much uptime as possible. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dazchad · 2023-12-05 19:59 0F - Kinda cold 100F - Kinda hot 0C - Water freezes 100C - Water boils 0K - Dead 100K - Dead ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jonathanhiggs · 2023-12-05 20:05 Next time I move I’ll get some solar panels on the roof; free compute and heat ---------------------------------------------------------------------- austozi · 2023-12-05 20:11 I need it to run cron jobs at night, so no, it stays on 24/7. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Erikt311 · 2023-12-05 20:14 When else are all the backups supposed to run? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- derpmax2 · 2023-12-05 20:23 No. 24/7. Just a single box. Pulls around 90W. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Mr_BananaPants · 2023-12-05 20:24 At midnight, a crontab shuts down the system, followed by the smart plug cutting power five minutes later. The PC's BIOS is set to auto- boot on power restoration. At 6 am, the smart plug activates, and the PC restarts. I've automated this to prevent unnecessary running of Jellyfin, Immich, Transmission, etc., during the midnight to 6 am period, also saving on electricity costs. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- alex2003super · 2023-12-05 20:28 Still useful if the system crashes and you need to hard-restart it ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dysoxa · 2023-12-05 20:30 I'm using TrueNAS which makes it trivial to setup recurrent `zpool scrub` tasks ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Spartan5382 · 2023-12-05 20:40 How in the love of Thor, God of lightning, do you get r730s that low on power consumption? I idle at 210 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dysoxa · 2023-12-05 20:40 I'm using TrueNAS, which makes it very simple to send incremental backups to another TrueNAS instance. I would recommend this solution if you can. In the past I also used rsync over SSH to copy my important files to an external HDD plugged in a Raspberry Pi at a different location, but that involves way more setting up and chances to go wrong. You don't have to backup everything if backup space is at a premium, you don't even have to backup at all actually. It's generally seen as a good idea, but nobody's forcing you. If you decide to do it, just make sure that you are able to do it safely and that your backups can indeed be used if you need them. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dysoxa · 2023-12-05 20:46 I don't know anything about usenet, but what you're describing is actually how torrents work. You download your stuff from everyone that has it, and once you have it your client starts to share it with everybody that still needs it. You just have to install a torrent client (I recommend qBitTorrent or Transmission) choose the "torrent" option when downloading something and open the torrent file with your client. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- zeta_cartel_CFO · 2023-12-05 20:47 Nope. Too much work. I have 2 somewhat large servers and few mini-PCs. Some of them run critical stuff that needs to stay on 24/7. It's not worth the hassle. Also I live in an area with relatively cheap electricity. I rather save money elsewhere. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 5230826518 · 2023-12-05 20:47 [here](https://www.verivox.de/strom/strompreisentwicklung/) is a graphic for the average new contract price over time. usually you are garuanteed the same price for a whole year, which means that the new contract prices soared a lot but most didnt have to renew their contracts at that time so would not be effected nearly as much. today the average price was 28,16ct/kwh and it hasnt been 45ct in 2023 except for like the first week in january? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- pusillanimouslist · 2023-12-05 20:47 Unless if you have a pretty hefty server setup or live in an area with very high power rates, a server or two won’t really move the needle ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kriebz · 2023-12-05 20:53 I haven't turned off a computer for anything but service or maybe while I'm on vacation since 2001. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- blentdragoons · 2023-12-05 21:01 why would i do that??? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AnonymusChief · 2023-12-05 21:02 Nope. At night is when the maintenance tasks run, e.g. updates, backups, cron jobs…etc. And the constant powering on and off of a server may not be good for the hardware. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- andvell · 2023-12-05 21:04 Radiative baseboards are made of Uranium or Plutonium? 😀 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Darkextratoasty · 2023-12-05 21:05 dunno for sure, but they taste like plutonium ---------------------------------------------------------------------- w4v3st0rm · 2023-12-05 21:20 I measure power consumption with an Efergy Elite with some power clamps that send data over radio, intercept them with a script which decodes data from an rtl sdr and feeds zabbix and grafana. So I get near real time clamp consumption fed to zabbix and grafana makes calculations and graphics per hour/day/total which match my bills. It was a fun journey being able to do this in c and python ( not being a dev ) and playing with rtl sdr. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- laffer1 · 2023-12-05 21:21 Sounds great. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HonestPrivacy · 2023-12-05 21:27 The method I used to use before keeping servers on 24/7 (back when electric was really expensive for me) I had a single pi that had nginx installed. Then I had my more powerful server that was way more power hungry shut off if it hadn't received a request within 15 minutes. If a request came into the pi when the main machine was offline, it would send a request to the ipmi and wake on lan (did both in-case one failed as sometimes the ipmi would bug out) since it had a custom 504 Gateway Timeout page. Then the machine and services started within a few minutes and I would refresh the page. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- credditz0rz · 2023-12-05 21:28 I got a small box with nextcloud on it that turns it self off after eight hours of uptime and no one logged in. I start it from time to time when I need it over wake on LAN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DamascusWolf82 · 2023-12-05 21:40 Nothing, if your bios supports it (I havent enountered one that doesnt) it will wake *itself* up using the rtc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EnvironmentalBoard · 2023-12-05 22:09 No, because of timezones. Some of my family lives in a different timezone, so there isn't really a time when the servers are not used. There is a time frame when the usage is usually low, but I use it for backups. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- li-_-il · 2023-12-05 22:36 >Propane is worse for the environment as well. Have you ever questioned yourself where the electricity comes from? From the socket isn't it? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- M_R_Ducs · 2023-12-05 22:38 Yep. That's the whole rack. 4 servers plus networking. Most of it is one older server which has tons of spinning rust. Drive power consumption and heat can really add up. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Protohack · 2023-12-05 22:41 Never.. they’re meant to stay powered on indefinitely. Plus spinning your platters up and down constantly isn’t great either. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kjasdiw43 · 2023-12-05 22:42 who would've thought what will happen with drinking the green koolaid and closing nuclear power plants, letting your greatest ally bomb the multibillion gas pipeline and sending money to a eastern corrupt shithole ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Legitimate_Proof · 2023-12-05 22:46 Yikes! That's a lot of electricity for "not doing much." It's more than twice as much as my apartment uses (including refrigerator, not including heat or hot water). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- swuxil · 2023-12-05 22:56 average is a bad metric here. price for new contracts reached over 60ct/kWh for short contracts, while contracts binding for 2 years were available for 45ct/kWh - so a lot of people had to decide whats more likely - prices going further up, or going down again. some win, some loose. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- swuxil · 2023-12-05 22:58 fun fact - one gram plutonium contains enough calories for the rest of your life ---------------------------------------------------------------------- swuxil · 2023-12-05 23:00 some only provide limited options to choose from - by far not all boards provide a full set "always on", "always off", "last state" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dazchad · 2023-12-05 23:02 Another commenter said energy price now is much better/less worse than 45c/kWh. I got that number from googling, but it seems the link I chose is outdated. In any case, power price is still an important variable when choosing which hardware to have powered on. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- swuxil · 2023-12-05 23:02 wanted to use a smart plug running with tasmota for this - turns out, tasmota crashes way too often and gets reset by the hardware watchdog, and (at least when using the smart plugs i did) this leads to short power outage when rebooting the smart plug ---------------------------------------------------------------------- electromage · 2023-12-05 23:06 No, other people are using them at night. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Devrij68 · 2023-12-05 23:22 This is super rad. Out of curiosity, would you consider using gesture to control some of the devices you currently use voice for? Ultraleap hand tracking now has python bindings so you could create triggers for home assistant, and it'd run on Raspian even on an RPi4, so in theory you could use gesture to just point at a device, or give it the middle finger to switch it off lol. Yes, this is a project I want to do, but don't have any smart devices to hook up! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- scfw0x0f · 2023-12-05 23:24 Wildly inefficient heat; you might as well have electric baseboard. Get a heat pump. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- scfw0x0f · 2023-12-05 23:25 Off, no; but I let them sleep or use whatever power saving modes they have. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- guptaxpn · 2023-12-05 23:28 Is this incremental update scheme based on ZFS? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ajt9000 · 2023-12-05 23:30 I don't, but if you are interested in doing that I would look into network booting and setting up a low wattage controller device like a raspberry pi to send boot up and shutdown signals to your main server on a timed basis. Another thing you could do would be to use a server management framework like maas that does the same thing, but also incorporates management of virtual machines and network systems. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- virtualadept · 2023-12-05 23:31 Absolutely not. All my stuff is grinding away constantly. Even if I'm not interacting with them directly I have monitoring software and automations processing at least some of the data. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ParkingPsychology · 2023-12-05 23:47 Probably. + Upgrades + replacements of failed parts. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ParkingPsychology · 2023-12-05 23:53 must be a rack or something. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- hyperblu7 · 2023-12-05 23:59 24/7. They're all on low power machines. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- peacefulshrimp · 2023-12-06 00:02 Never, I have my dns and homeassistant running on my server, so it’s definitely a no go ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sadness_elemental · 2023-12-06 00:05 yeah, it shuts down at 1am and wakes up at 7am. just a shutdown cron job and the mobo has a wake at time feature. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 5redie8 · 2023-12-06 00:10 This worked for me until I remembered that I don't pay for my heat lol ---------------------------------------------------------------------- simwai · 2023-12-06 00:14 It depends on your goals. When you just wanna have some testing fun with it you turn it off if no important process is running. If you wanna host some websites or bots 24/7 you should keep it on. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cheddoline · 2023-12-06 00:18 My Pi Pico -based weather widget is powered off at 1 am and on again at 5:30 am thanks to an ESPurna-based smart outlet, but that's not so much to save the tiny wattage it uses as that micropython and long uptimes are mutually exclusive, so it needs a pretext to be rebooted every day. My servers are the target for outdoor video cameras and also host public facing web and email services, so no, they don't get powered off. Frequent power cycling is bad for spinning rust hard drives anyway. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Fluffer_Wuffer · 2023-12-06 00:20 A couple of years ago, when electricity cost started rocketing I did a lot of work to automate this.. which was a challenge, given I use ESXi on SFF PCs.. I wrote a python script that would get called after the nightly back-up which * Moved all "critical" VMs to a single hosted * Suspend non-essentials VMs, then shut all my other hosts At 4pm (when I'm about to arrive home) * Power cycle the socket for each host on the PDU (Hosts were set to power on when power was restored) * Restored all VMs It was very "amatuer", for example to power cycle the hosts, it had to use telnet and simulate keypresses etc.. It worked quite well, then I decided I wanted a PDU with power-switching and monitoring, which mean buying a different brand... which suddenly meant the script didn't work, and I never got round to updating it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Neither-Engine-5852 · 2023-12-06 00:21 I run 2 Dell Micro PC’s, a few raspberry Pi’s and a NAS. I’ve started automating start up/ shutdown at various points during the day and night. 1 PC solely runs Plex. This is online throughout the day and shuts down at night. Another PC does all of my downloading/media management (Sonarr, Radarr etc) This PC fires up for a couple of hours on a morning, does its thing, then shuts down again. Then the same thing happens on an afternoon. It’s online for about 4 hours a day and always manages to successfully get all of my content in this time. My NAS follows the same schedule as the Plex PC. Then I’m running raspberry Pi’s for any services that I want to be online 24/7 (my website, pihole, VPN, home automations etc) The Pi’s also send the WoL/shutdown commands for the PC’s and NAS. I’ve also added a “shutdown override” switch in my home automations, so if I ever want the machines to stay on, I can just turn the switch on and they won’t shut down. Not sure how much power this is saving me as I haven’t compared my energy monitoring results since I implemented it. I can’t imagine it’s a huge amount though. Possibly a pointless endeavour. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- bartvanh · 2023-12-06 00:38 Always on. In addition to all the benefits already mentioned, during at least half the year the energy isn't wasted anyway as it contributes to warming the house. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ultradip · 2023-12-06 00:40 The S in NAS is Server... The form factor really doesn't have much to do with it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Wide-Neighborhood636 · 2023-12-06 00:42 If that's the night it is scheduled for deep cleaning yes, otherwise they run 24/7 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ultradip · 2023-12-06 00:43 Invoke a RAID scrub in the middle of the day, and see how that works out. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- krowvin · 2023-12-06 00:53 I do not, because: 1. on an EV electricity rate plan it is cheaper at night by a factor of 5 for me in the midwest 2. i update severs at night, run scrubs, do backups 3. other people use apps on my servers at night 4. my NVR stores to one of the servers ---------------------------------------------------------------------- brianlovelacephoto · 2023-12-06 01:12 Nah. Runs 24/7. During the summer it's my make the unbearably hot summer even hotter and in the winter, make it bearable without turning on the heat, machine 😂 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- randomcoww · 2023-12-06 01:23 I have a low power setup so I would not care to do this to save power, but I think it is a good way to weed out any dependency issues with startup and shutdown. It is kind of like repeatedly testing a disaster recovery process. An environment that can reliably start and stop is not trivial to set up with multiple servers and services. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- bamhm182 · 2023-12-06 01:24 You can turn these things off?!? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Brilliant_Sound_5565 · 2023-12-06 01:31 No as it only uses 10w of power lol ---------------------------------------------------------------------- anna_lynn_fection · 2023-12-06 01:46 They'll die when they stop running. [Current thread on /r/sysadmin](https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comm ents/18b8qsb/whats_the_weirdest_shit_youve_found_in_a_data/kc3f33g/) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- anna_lynn_fection · 2023-12-06 01:47 On top of all that, that's when the other devices in the house are backing up to the server/nas. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- zer0fks · 2023-12-06 01:52 I run SoC servers (Xeon-D) 24/7 with an expected lifespan of a decade. I’m 7 years into my first one. Probably put 5+ petabytes through my TOR relay. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- schellenbergenator · 2023-12-06 02:01 I accidentally deleted all my docker container config files. I can never shut mine off. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- untilthewhale · 2023-12-06 02:06 Aha. This answered all my queries. I'll check this out. Thanks buddy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MrKhalos · 2023-12-06 02:06 It's actually Network Attached **Storage**, although your point about NAS not inherently implying form factor is true. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- anna_lynn_fection · 2023-12-06 02:10 My self-hosted server is trash. Literally. Everything I have in it was decommissioned shit from work that was going to go to trash, except for the USB HDD enclosures. I don't invest a lot of time or money in the home server. It's really nothing more than a file server for movies and shows, Jellyfin, Syncthing, and urbackup. It's an **old** 3rd gen i5 and two 8 bay Syba USB drive enclosures. It's not efficient. I could have grabbed an actual old server, but that would use even more power. So, anyway... I have a couple Killawatts for measuring power use and here's what I saw. | Device | Watts | Monthly Cost | | --- | --- | --- | | Syba 8 bay - full | 55w | $7.07 | | Syba 8 bay - 3 drv | 19w | $2.44 | | i5 3470 | 32w | $4.11 | These were all idle/settled measurements. I was most interested in knowing how much money was being wasted while they sat idle. All my drives are various sizes, BTRFS raid10 with raid1c4 for meta and system data. I thought about maybe just getting a couple new large drives and saving money on electricity. Until I figured out it would take me about 4 years to recoup the costs. I've also thought about having the system sleep and shut down, but I've been doing this since the 90s and, just like [the conversation going on right now](https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/18b8qsb /whats_the_weirdest_shit_youve_found_in_a_data/kc3f33g/) in r/sysadmin, I've seen way too many hardware deaths occur when the life support is turned off. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HCharlesB · 2023-12-06 02:16 No. At night is when my servers do the most interesting things. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- moosetracks555 · 2023-12-06 02:20 That sounds awesome! Do you have some images / videos online anywhere of the data you have collected? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- andvell · 2023-12-06 02:22 Yes, my comment was about making use of the inefficiency. Or knowing that the wasted energy becomes heat. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TheVirus32 · 2023-12-06 02:54 Depends. Is electricity as expensive where you live as it is where I do ? If so, better run proxmox on an old yet capable gaming laptop. 25w with everything running on it, two external SSDs ensure redundancy. Is it as good as a dedicated tower with tons of room for drives and so on and so forth ? Nope. But I hate letting capable non-power-hungry hardware going to waste. Heck - if on/off is an issue, set up your router or a pi zero w to manage WoL in your place ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JivanP · 2023-12-06 03:15 This behaviour is usually configurable in the UEFI/BIOS/firmware settings. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- My_New_Main · 2023-12-06 03:33 Isn't there a script online to generate those files from your containers? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- pythonbashman · 2023-12-06 03:45 Nope. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- scfw0x0f · 2023-12-06 04:00 Understood. It's not clear that net it's worse for the environment than burning propane. Depends on how the electricity is generated. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- andvell · 2023-12-06 04:05 Mostly nuclear power here. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nodiaque · 2023-12-06 04:07 Server does backup and other task during night so no. It's also part of my network with DNS service and other. Server always on. It's not like it cost a lot even if it's a 28 cores beast. Honestly, put HDD power down, use tweak to change CPU governor to power save and I'll cost less then turning a light for 5 minutes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- gbdavidx · 2023-12-06 04:12 24/7 sir ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DIBSSB · 2023-12-06 04:12 I am unriad anything similar for it ? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- architectofinsanity · 2023-12-06 04:26 Two 11th gen NUCs take about 10W each sitting idle or 50W running wide open… nah. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- american_engineer · 2023-12-06 04:36 It's not totally unreasonable to turn it off at night depending on your electricity costs, but keep in mind that you are putting increased wear and tear on your equipment by turning it off and on. Especially hard disks but also electronics. One day it won't turn back on and it will likely be because you power cycled it thousands of times over the previous 5+ years. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- r4nchy · 2023-12-06 04:43 Yes ofcourse 1. configure your servers/pc/routers etc to schedule shutdown 2. we need to also cut the power from these devices as well, so get good quality relays powered by a microcontroller. Make sure to place at least one Power ON-OFF delay timer between relay and devices just as a precaution if your relay wants to turn on-off 20times in a second. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Noeyiax · 2023-12-06 04:51 Been on 24/7 for 2 yrs now, bless God , but I do hardware cleaning at least once a year and reapply paste,etc xd ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ktwrd · 2023-12-06 04:52 I don't, mainly because my housemates might be streaming something or one of my friends is playing on my servers. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- hezden · 2023-12-06 05:46 Obvious troll post, mods? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- neuromonkey · 2023-12-06 06:02 Wait... they can go off? Like, no longer on? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ammadmaf · 2023-12-06 06:03 Run till they fail ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dysoxa · 2023-12-06 06:32 Yes ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Inexces79 · 2023-12-06 06:36 I have a few thin clients as servers and a small form factor pc. All stuff is 80watt continuous. The costs are part of my budget for this “hobby”. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- wtfblubby · 2023-12-06 06:43 This might be true... Or not. I don't know. But for sure the drives will live long enough to be replaced by bigger ones before they die of hardware failure.... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mshorey81 · 2023-12-06 06:49 Well, NAS meaning a virtualized instance TrueNAS but being made up of 16 x 12TB drives in a couple SAS enclosures attached to my main server and passed through HBA to TreuNAS. So physically, yes, multiple devices but logically a comprising a single NAS. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mbkitmgr · 2023-12-06 06:54 No ---------------------------------------------------------------------- unixuser011 · 2023-12-06 08:34 > Energy costs in Europe are high mainly because of the war between Ukraine and Russia Because lets not totally discount the energy companies price gouging, etc ---------------------------------------------------------------------- unixuser011 · 2023-12-06 08:35 ether y'all have very low power systems, low electrical costs or don't care how much you use. I could keep my switches and router on 24/7 but I couldn't imagine keeping the entire lab up all the time ---------------------------------------------------------------------- gybemeister · 2023-12-06 08:36 Turning off the computer using a smart plug is like yanking the power cord out. In a server with hard disks (not SSDs), if the head is reading/writing there's a high probability that it may lead to data corruption or even mechanical problems. If the power down is done by the OS then the disk is parked so all is ok. But what is the point of having a smart plus on top of setting things up in the OS? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Electrical-Debt5369 · 2023-12-06 09:37 My work shifts are too varied, as is my sleep schedule. I just can't find a time we're it's actually sure to not be needed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- maof97 · 2023-12-06 09:57 I pay for 40c in Gemany ---------------------------------------------------------------------- maof97 · 2023-12-06 10:00 *Cries in paying 8 times that in electricity* ---------------------------------------------------------------------- tracker141 · 2023-12-06 10:43 99.99999 uptime ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dogmarket123 · 2023-12-06 10:46 They don't work when they are switched off. I'm actually conscious about thermal shock when they power up (if that's really a thing). Besides, I run stuff on a VPS and Raspberry Pi's at home. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PaulEngineer-89 · 2023-12-06 11:25 My servers at idle run around 4 W total. So that’s 2.88 kwhrs a month whether I use them or not. At around $0.12/kwhr I would maybe save around $0.40 per month. One only truly runs backups so I could have it go to wake on lan and not just spin down the HDD and maybe get it to less. I can’t totally spin down because it runs DNS and a bunch of other essential stuff. It’s a mistake to run Dell R600 series or other monster systems if you aren’t counting IOPS on a big database server or something that requires it. And if that’s what you are doing it makes sense to spin down or more. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dhyaneshwar_94 · 2023-12-06 12:03 I don't switch them off but I give them a 5 minute break everyday between 3 to 4. I make them reboot daily, everything including my router too ---------------------------------------------------------------------- timawesomeness · 2023-12-06 12:18 No, I'm not the only one who uses the stuff I host and it's not very expensive to keep them on 24/7 because I've intentionally selected low-power MFF PCs for servers. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- schellenbergenator · 2023-12-06 12:43 I would imagine there is somewhere, I should probably look into it before I restart it for some reason. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Rakn · 2023-12-06 12:48 I just let it spin down the drives when not in use. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- RoseEsque · 2023-12-06 12:56 > Nothing, if your bios supports it (I havent enountered one that doesnt) it will wake itself up using the rtc. So parts of the motherboard are running 24/7 to do the wake up tasks? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- J4m3s__W4tt · 2023-12-06 13:02 Turning everything off would be a bit much, but i would love to have devices that somehow go to a state of needing very little power. Running only a single core at a slower speed and with only a single RAM chip active. I don't think that already exists, but it would be nice. Maybe you could do that with a cluster, at night all services run on a single node and in the morning all other nodes are started and services get migrated to be spread over all nodes. Having your server unresponsive for five minutes the first time you use it for the day is acceptable, but manually starting a shut down and then re-entering encryption keys after booting is annoying. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -rwsr-xr-x · 2023-12-06 13:07 > That sounds awesome! Do you have some images / videos online anywhere of the data you have collected? I don't have it all in one place, but I should probably write a blog series about it. I have detailed write-ups on how to build Tasmota, how to expose S31's on the network, how to lock them down, etc. I have a nightly Tasmota build server running in a LXD container (measured with Scaphandre to be the cheapest way to build, vs. a VM or baremetal), that pushes those firmware objects to the webserver where all of my Tasmota plugs are configured to fetch and install when I do a monthly firmware update sweep across my infra. Come to think of it, this could be useful. I'll add that to my holiday backlog of blog posts I've been capturing on my task list. Thank you for the reminder! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -rwsr-xr-x · 2023-12-06 13:08 RemindMe! 2 weeks ---------------------------------------------------------------------- RemindMeBot · 2023-12-06 13:08 I will be messaging you in 14 days on [**2023-12-20 13:08:06 UTC**](ht tp://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2023-12- 20%2013:08:06%20UTC%20To%20Local%20Time) to remind you of [**this link **](https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/18b6q3q/do_you_guys_t urn_your_servers_off_a_night/kc80ffh/?context=3) [**CLICK THIS LINK**](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Remin dMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5Bhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2F selfhosted%2Fcomments%2F18b6q3q%2Fdo_you_guys_turn_your_servers_off_a_ night%2Fkc80ffh%2F%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%202023-12- 20%2013%3A08%3A06%20UTC) to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam. ^(Parent commenter can ) [^(delete this message to hide from others.)] (https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Delete %20Comment&message=Delete%21%2018b6q3q) ***** |[^(Info)](https://www.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/e1bko7/remind mebot_info_v21/)|[^(Custom)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?t o=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5BLink%20or%20message%20inside %20square%20brackets%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%20Time%20period%20here)|[^(Yo ur Reminders)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot& subject=List%20Of%20Reminders&message=MyReminders%21)|[^(Feedback)](ht tps://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Watchful1&subject=RemindMeBot %20Feedback)| |-|-|-|-| ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -rwsr-xr-x · 2023-12-06 13:18 > Ultraleap hand tracking now has python bindings so you could create triggers for home assistant, and it'd run on Raspian even on an RPi4, so in theory you could use gesture to just point at a device, or give it the middle finger to switch it off lol. I hadn't considered hand gestures, but that would require me to be in front of some sort of imaging device to recognize them. I often control these devices while walking around the house (_"Alexa, turn printer on"_, _"Alexa, what's the homelab temperature?"_ and so on), but I'll look into it. I'm considering the addition of [Matter to my infrastructure](https://tasmota.github.io/docs/Matter/), phasing it in, but I haven't added any integration yet. > Yes, this is a project I want to do, but don't have any smart devices to hook up! You may not need any 'smart' devices at all to work with it. I have all of my plugs configured to work with web hooks, voice integration, etc. This means I can turn on or off any device, smart or otherwise, from anywhere (mobile, voice, NFC, etc.). Feel free to pick my brain on any of these pieces, I've been using them for quite some time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Devrij68 · 2023-12-06 14:21 For context, the idea I was toying with was having a Leap camera in my sofa armrest, with cables into an RPi inside the hollow armrest. Then do like a pinch gesture to activate some Hue lights and have different axes for brightness and colour. Maybe in the same device have a grab gesture for audio control in the same vein. The eventual plan being to fit these around the house so each device is contextual by location, but reuse a lot of the same code and just change the targets. As far as smart plugs, that is a good idea. My wife is obsessive about turning things off at the plug. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- unai-ndz · 2023-12-06 17:42 So now you have the server and a low power applience running and neither of them can be turned off. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ninjersteve · 2023-12-06 19:52 Yeah exactly, I miss the days I was paying only $0.25 USD for a kWh delivered. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- evilkasper · 2023-12-06 21:09 That's a great way to ruin my uptime numbers. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HighMarch · 2023-12-07 00:37 You leave them dead? Put some points into Necromancy, and make your technology continue to serve. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HighMarch · 2023-12-07 00:42 If ALL your machines are SSD's, the impact is likely minimal. If you're using spinning platters, starting and stopping is generally the hardest thing they'll endure. The power consumption of my purpose-built NAS is like 100w, when not under load/being utilized. That works out to around $100/year to operate, most likely, since the windows of high usage are far less common than low. Cutting that down to 12 hours would cut me down to more like $50/year to operate it, but since the amount of high-usage would go up (since it has less total availability), I suspect it'd be more like $60-70/year to operate. At that point, I'm talking about saving $30-50/year in exchange for increasing my start/stop cycles added to my machine by 30 times (it gets shutdown/restarted about monthly, depending upon update needs/reqs). Not worth it, imo. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TheLinuxMailman · 2023-12-07 01:46 I turn off my servers and disconnect them from all wires if a fierce thunderstorm is nearby and I am present and able to do so. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TheLinuxMailman · 2023-12-07 02:04 Cool! Well, not really. My home is heated with radioactive baseboard heaters too. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TheLinuxMailman · 2023-12-07 02:07 But if it's electric heat you are not paying for then some creative rewiring might be in order. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 5redie8 · 2023-12-07 02:21 Nope, baseboards :( ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Darkextratoasty · 2023-12-07 03:51 Is radiative the wrong word? Like they radiate heat. Idk what to call it ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DamascusWolf82 · 2023-12-07 07:34 The absolute bare minimum, so little power that you might think it a rounding error unless you knew otherwise. In fact, I’m not even sure if the motherboard actually actively consumes, or if it just is *off*, then recieves a signal from the rtc to wake up, same as pressing the power button. Any logic running would be chipset level so as insignificant as possible. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- RoseEsque · 2023-12-07 09:54 > The absolute bare minimum So not nothing. That's the point. If a system is being woken up, something MUST be doing the waking up. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 0hca · 2023-12-07 10:34 ...and the biggest cost of all...time. Lots and lots of time! :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DamascusWolf82 · 2023-12-07 22:11 Please go and measure the power draw on a server that has been shut down with rtcwake and come back to me with the power draw so we can discuss further. I believe it to be negligable. I don’t understand your fixation with this topic - I am simply suggesting that people who want to reduce their power draw use rtcwake to do so. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ParkingPsychology · 2023-12-08 01:48 Definitely. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- root54 · 2023-12-08 04:13 This human fucks ---------------------------------------------------------------------- RoseEsque · 2023-12-08 11:22 > I believe it to be negligable. Absolutely. It's negligible but it's not nothing. From the POV of power consumption it doesn't really matter, but it's not nothing. If it was nothing you'd be able to unplug the entire system. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- reddit3432954 · 2023-12-08 18:26 A server can run with 10 years uptime without much effort. But if you plan on power cycling every day, 365 cold boots per year, I would gather the chances of longevity are reduced. Copper gets hot, copper gets cold, caps get hot, caps get cold. That's a lot harder on components instead of leaving them on so they can live their life unbothered, moisturized, happy, in their lane, focused, flourishing. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BCIT_Richard · 2023-12-08 21:24 Nope, only downtime is maintenance or power loss. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DamascusWolf82 · 2023-12-08 21:47 At this point you’re just repeating the same thing over and over without reading what I’ve already said. If this is how stubborn you feel the need to be about such a non issue, then I feel for your day- to-day. This feels like arguing with patrick star. Please do not reply unless you have something new to add to this comversation, such as information regarding the power draw of s5 state hardware using rtc as a power-on signal. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BucsLegend_TomBrady · 2023-12-08 23:06 I just use the BIOS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- RoseEsque · 2023-12-09 11:47 Huh, ditto. I'm stating something quite simple and you're just choosing to ignore it and keep on talking around the issue. Have a very nice and, as I'm sure you will, ignorant day. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EtheaaryXD · 2023-12-10 00:56 Additionally, don't buy things that plug directly into the wall from AliExpress. You can't trust that they won't catch on fire within a few months as they don't normally pass regulations testing. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Im1Random · 2023-12-11 11:09 If I would shut down my server my whole network would go down so definitely never.