Rackmount and server general

I recently came into possession of a Dell PowerEdge 1950. I didn't pay for it, and don't really need it... But would like to make use of it. What do with it?

>also server general

Moving your power bill into another user-class.

>I recently came into possession of a Dell PowerEdge 1950. I didn't pay for it, and don't really need it... But would like to make use of it. What do with it?
Sandbox to test VMs.

In on off operation, it uses too much power for an always running home server.

>>also server general
Hmm lets see how that works without the /hsg/ tag and with this OP.

this

if your power is free then use it for whatever you need, if you dont need it for anything sell it.

Is this thing really that inefficient? How much wallet rape are we talking here?

if all you need is a ssh box use a old laptop, if you are doing 24/7 heavy lifting then use this if you need it.

The thing is I don't 'need' it at all. It was given to me.

I was wondering if there was anything cool I could let it do until such a time I do find a valid use for it, but if it's really as much of a power hog as has been suggested and that I am reading it is, I'm starting to have second thoughts.

Is it that the power supplies are inefficient, or does the hardware just inherently require a bunch of power?
If the former is true, should I look into more efficient power supplies and does such a thing even exist?

its not the PSU, but they probably idle at 50-200W compared to a laptop or desktop at 20-110

ITT: Poorfags moaning about electricity when it's < $0.2 /kWhr

>has never paid an electric bill in his life

this though

one day you'll have central air

The search I did had 680W consumption under load on this one. Maybe that's the upper value, but I think it's really bad anyhow.

In /hsg/ I've generally advised to get 5-20W-ish SBC / onboard x86 that cost somewhere from under $100 to about $200 to buy new.

While power costs vary depending on where you live, 1W is ball park $1 per year in 24/7 operation... you get the problem, right?

PS: 5-20W don't include HDD(s). 680W under load may include HDDs. Won't change enough since drives are like 7W each.

And even if most load would be idle and it's "just" 150W, it's still not worth using 24/7. Which is presumably why it got decommissioned?

From what I understand it was purchased for dirt cheap for no particular reason and was never really used. So it found its way to me.

I can't beat the price, but still have no idea what to do with it.

my rate just went up to seven cents a KW-hr a while back.

I remember seeing a thing from a magazine in the early 50s that predicted that nuclear power would one day make electricity so cheap that it wouldn't be worth the bother of metering it and charging you for it, it'd just be given away free as a public service. I want that future more than I ever wanted a flying car desu.

If you operate it 24/7, it'll presumably cost you more than buying a new home (file, media, vpn, various-stuff-you-want-to-run) server in one year already.

Do whatever else that helps you in on-off operation.

Cheap. US national average is around 12, EU around 20 cent (partly because of energy efficiency measures).

>US national average is around 12
that gets skewed by a few states with really high prices

Can't you see how much radioactive waste gases they push to the atmosphere? In addition to that they pump out billions of gallons of radioactive waste water to oceans and god forbid if there's a nuclear explosion like in Hiroshima. They're literally weapons of mass destruction so there's the whole humanity at stake. Why won't anyone think of the children!

>general
NO WE ALREADY HAVE ENOUGH GENERALS YOU FUCKiNG CANCERFAG

"Average" generally means that in some places it's more, in some less... sure?

Maybe you're sitting somewhere where it's only $0.7 per watt and year, that still doesn't entirely make it the best idea to run 130W or 660W extra.

OP's machine isn't an interesting 24/7 server, I'd say.

You should post this in complaints general.

I'm happy with generals, they keep the regular topics more focused.

as in, it's really cheap in most places, except for a few where its really expensive (California, Hawaii, etc)

Literally go to Reddit if you want continuous "generals".

>nuclear power would one day make electricity so cheap that it wouldn't be worth the bother of metering it and charging you for it, it'd just be given away free as a public service. I want that future more than I ever wanted a flying car desu.

lmao

Do you know why nobody bothers with nuclear power anymore?

>muh Chernobyl muh Fukushima

No, that's not it. The real answer is that it's just too damn expensive. Literally every other method is cheaper - coal, nat gas, wind, solar, hydro etc - nuclear is much more expensive. French somehow made it work from an economical standpoint by going full retard and basically mass producing nuclear power plants, except now they want to shut it all the fuck down because, guess what, it's too expensive.

And California and so on have a lot of households, yea (should be the private household average).

Anyhow, what's the point here? You start with the assertion it's probably 12ct / W in the USA, but then I guess you go check your bills and if you find out it's 8ct / W or whatever "really cheap" thing instead, then you just pay $0.7 per watt per year rather than $1-ish.

And then you just think about what that means for the viability of running a 150W or 680W server 24/7 vs buying a sub-$100 or sub-$200 one that consumes 5-20W-ish.

Literally go to Reddit or Facebook if you want to complain how you're too dumb to stay out of generals even when you don't like them.

Many of those servers actually use very little electricity at idle, many are in 30-50W range.

tell me more about this user-class bill please

Quite many new servers will be under 100W or so when idle, sure. [Smaller NAS boxes regularly do like 5-25W, too.]

But that's not how it looks for OP's machine (main point here). And it's also generally not the case for older machines that are on the market for dirt cheap.

I'm looking for either colocation or a good dedicated host in the sf bay area with good pricing on bandwidth. Does anyone know any providers like this?

It's only expensive because of regulation, politics, and inefficient handling of waste. If the federal government were to bitch slap states and lay down a plan for these things to be built without opposition, we'd have it done in a few decades.

But the Obama administration got behind solar, and this administration behind natural gas and coal.

Like everyone else is saying OP, this thing is not meant for 24/7 use because of its power draw. You'll want to be running Nehalems or newer if you want that as they tend to draw a bit less on average while having more grunt.

Now if you actually want to use it you can probably install a server distro to dick around with. Do you have specs of the machine or at least the service tag?

>ssh box
sorry, noob question: what use is there for an "ssh box"? speaking as someone who's rarely used SSH

People, I'm the original OP who made the numbered generals (that's it, the previous to #1, and all of them untill #5)

Would you like me to dive into the archive and redo the general?