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Estimating power consumption of a replacement server
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Henry Law
Nov 19, 2020, 10:00:43 AM11/19/20
to
I'm about to replace my 8-year-old HP N40L microserver which acts as the
principal file server on the home network, and also runs a number of
services - backup, Wifi configuration and so on. It runs continuously.
I'm keen not to increase my power consumption any more than I have to, so
I'm trying to find out how much power my various "acquisition targets"
might consume.
I have two alternatives: an HP Microserver Gen 10, new, or a
reconditioned HP ML310e from Bargain Hardware. HP have a wizzy "Power
Advisor" application which is most impressive. It gives me an estimated
idle power consumption for a suitably-configured Microserver of 82W, but
it has nothing on the ML310e.
I bought a power meter and put it on the existing N40L: at steady state
idle I'm getting readings of about 40W. For comparison I put it on my
development system, a home-brew mini-tower with a Pentium G3260
processor, the same amount of memory and three HDDs (not 4, as in the
N40L); idle power there is about 60W.
I'm tempted to equate the ML310e with the development server and "add a
bit", making it similar to the new Gen 10 Microserver. It's not far off
double the current consumption, which is regrettable but I'll have to
live with it. Does anyone have any advice to offer? Or better still,
does someone have an ML310e and some measurements of its consumption?
--
Henry Law n e w s @ l a w s h o u s e . o r g
Manchester, England
principal file server on the home network, and also runs a number of
services - backup, Wifi configuration and so on. It runs continuously.
I'm keen not to increase my power consumption any more than I have to, so
I'm trying to find out how much power my various "acquisition targets"
might consume.
I have two alternatives: an HP Microserver Gen 10, new, or a
reconditioned HP ML310e from Bargain Hardware. HP have a wizzy "Power
Advisor" application which is most impressive. It gives me an estimated
idle power consumption for a suitably-configured Microserver of 82W, but
it has nothing on the ML310e.
I bought a power meter and put it on the existing N40L: at steady state
idle I'm getting readings of about 40W. For comparison I put it on my
development system, a home-brew mini-tower with a Pentium G3260
processor, the same amount of memory and three HDDs (not 4, as in the
N40L); idle power there is about 60W.
I'm tempted to equate the ML310e with the development server and "add a
bit", making it similar to the new Gen 10 Microserver. It's not far off
double the current consumption, which is regrettable but I'll have to
live with it. Does anyone have any advice to offer? Or better still,
does someone have an ML310e and some measurements of its consumption?
--
Henry Law n e w s @ l a w s h o u s e . o r g
Manchester, England
Theo
Nov 21, 2020, 6:43:36 AM11/21/20
to
Henry Law <ne...@lawshouse.org> wrote:
> I bought a power meter and put it on the existing N40L: at steady state
> idle I'm getting readings of about 40W. For comparison I put it on my
> development system, a home-brew mini-tower with a Pentium G3260
> processor, the same amount of memory and three HDDs (not 4, as in the
> N40L); idle power there is about 60W.
I've been running my TS140 on the power meter this week:
> I bought a power meter and put it on the existing N40L: at steady state
> idle I'm getting readings of about 40W. For comparison I put it on my
> development system, a home-brew mini-tower with a Pentium G3260
> processor, the same amount of memory and three HDDs (not 4, as in the
> N40L); idle power there is about 60W.
E3-1225 v3 (pretty much the same as the E3-1226 v3 that come in some
versions of the ML310e Gen8)
13GB RAM in 4 DDR3 sticks
1x 250GB HDD (the one that came in the Microserver)
Nvidia GT210 GPU showing Linux console
LSI RAID card doing nothing
1 of 2 redundant PSUs powered
Ubuntu 20.04
I haven't done exact numbers, but just glancing at the figures from time to
time shows it ranges between 40 and 75W. 75W is probably at the upper end
while it's booting etc.
<clickety click>Here you go:
https://ibb.co/rMbnpQt
(I should probably bump the logging rate on that)
Over lunchtime was idle power.
Given it's almost the same CPU and likely similar chipset, I'd imagine power
numbers would be fairly similar with the ML310e Gen8.
Theo
Pancho
Nov 21, 2020, 6:48:18 AM11/21/20
to
On 19/11/2020 15:00, Henry Law wrote:
> I'm about to replace my 8-year-old HP N40L microserver which acts as the
> principal file server on the home network, and also runs a number of
> services - backup, Wifi configuration and so on. It runs continuously.
> I'm keen not to increase my power consumption any more than I have to, so
> I'm trying to find out how much power my various "acquisition targets"
> might consume.
>
Not answering your question but this raises the question of a why do you
> I'm about to replace my 8-year-old HP N40L microserver which acts as the
> principal file server on the home network, and also runs a number of
> services - backup, Wifi configuration and so on. It runs continuously.
> I'm keen not to increase my power consumption any more than I have to, so
> I'm trying to find out how much power my various "acquisition targets"
> might consume.
>
want to replace your micro-server. Most of the stuff you mention can be
achieved with very low power arm based devices.
Double, 80W idle power, is a huge amount. ~£80 a year on electricity.
I'm also surprised by the number of HDD's you have. A couple, for once a
day backup and occasional use archive retrieval, but normally spun down,
is fine for me. SSDs for things that require constant use, including
network shares and frequent backup, intra day. SSDs are low power, long
life, for home.
Henry Law
Nov 21, 2020, 8:41:06 AM11/21/20
to
On Sat, 21 Nov 2020 11:48:17 +0000, Pancho wrote:
> Not answering your question but this raises the question of a why do you
> want to replace your micro-server. Most of the stuff you mention can be
> achieved with very low power arm based devices.
I looked at building a server with a RPi at the centre; the problem is
> Not answering your question but this raises the question of a why do you
> want to replace your micro-server. Most of the stuff you mention can be
> achieved with very low power arm based devices.
SATA interfaces and the hardware (case, PSUs for the disks and so on).
Otherwise I'd be right there ... I like that kind of stuff. But, since
you also think I should have fewer HDDs I can see why you suggest it.
What ARM-based unit did you have in mind? I might have missed something.
> I'm also surprised by the number of HDD's you have. A couple, for once a
> day backup and occasional use archive retrieval, but normally spun down,
> is fine for me.
on what I need mine for. But I take your point about spinning them down.
Henry Law
Nov 21, 2020, 8:43:03 AM11/21/20
to
On Sat, 21 Nov 2020 11:43:33 +0000, Theo wrote:
> Henry Law <ne...@lawshouse.org> wrote:
>> I bought a power meter and put it on the existing N40L: at steady state
>> idle I'm getting readings of about 40W. For comparison I put it on my
>> development system, a home-brew mini-tower with a Pentium G3260
>> processor, the same amount of memory and three HDDs (not 4, as in the
>> N40L); idle power there is about 60W.
>
> I've been running my TS140 on the power meter this week:
> Henry Law <ne...@lawshouse.org> wrote:
>> I bought a power meter and put it on the existing N40L: at steady state
>> idle I'm getting readings of about 40W. For comparison I put it on my
>> development system, a home-brew mini-tower with a Pentium G3260
>> processor, the same amount of memory and three HDDs (not 4, as in the
>> N40L); idle power there is about 60W.
>
> I've been running my TS140 on the power meter this week:
> Given it's almost the same CPU and likely similar chipset, I'd imagine
> power numbers would be fairly similar with the ML310e Gen8.
Theo, that's enormously helpful (not the first time I've had high-quality
> power numbers would be fairly similar with the ML310e Gen8.
support from you). I had a smile at "clickety-click" too ...
Pancho
Nov 21, 2020, 9:15:16 AM11/21/20
to
On 21/11/2020 13:41, Henry Law wrote:
> On Sat, 21 Nov 2020 11:48:17 +0000, Pancho wrote:
>
>> Not answering your question but this raises the question of a why do you
>> want to replace your micro-server. Most of the stuff you mention can be
>> achieved with very low power arm based devices.
>
> I looked at building a server with a RPi at the centre; the problem is
> SATA interfaces and the hardware (case, PSUs for the disks and so on).
> Otherwise I'd be right there ... I like that kind of stuff. But, since
> you also think I should have fewer HDDs I can see why you suggest it.
>
Yes, on an RPi 4 you can use USB 3 to run an SSD or 2.5 HDD (+extra USB
> On Sat, 21 Nov 2020 11:48:17 +0000, Pancho wrote:
>
>> Not answering your question but this raises the question of a why do you
>> want to replace your micro-server. Most of the stuff you mention can be
>> achieved with very low power arm based devices.
>
> I looked at building a server with a RPi at the centre; the problem is
> SATA interfaces and the hardware (case, PSUs for the disks and so on).
> Otherwise I'd be right there ... I like that kind of stuff. But, since
> you also think I should have fewer HDDs I can see why you suggest it.
>
power) at speeds approaching gigabit ethernet. But as you suggest you
need more power for a lot of 3.5 HDDs.
> What ARM-based unit did you have in mind? I might have missed something.
>
>> I'm also surprised by the number of HDD's you have. A couple, for once a
>> day backup and occasional use archive retrieval, but normally spun down,
>> is fine for me.
>
> Well it might be fine for you; what your server does has little bearing
> on what I need mine for. But I take your point about spinning them down.
>
many reasons, I wasn't meaning to be critical, just nosy. If I don't
understand why someone is doing something it is often due to my
ignorance, which hopefully can be corrected.
There are also reasons why you might want an always on server with more
compute power than an Arm based server, CCTV motion detection being one.
Theo
Nov 21, 2020, 6:21:51 PM11/21/20
to
Henry Law <ne...@lawshouse.org> wrote:
> Theo, that's enormously helpful (not the first time I've had high-quality
> support from you). I had a smile at "clickety-click" too ...
You're welcome - it just so happens I was doing a similar thing.
> Theo, that's enormously helpful (not the first time I've had high-quality
> support from you). I had a smile at "clickety-click" too ...
Those £10 wifi power meter sockets are really quite neat (when you replace
the firmware with something decent) - I wasn't intentionally logging them,
but that comes for free with Home Assistant. Mostly not my instructions,
but I've hacked them around for a different project:
https://github.com/tmarkettos/sensor_smartplug
Should probably get some more to scatter around the house...
Theo
Henry Law
Dec 18, 2020, 2:25:03 PM12/18/20
to
On Thu, 19 Nov 2020 09:00:42 -0600, Henry Law wrote:
> I'm tempted to equate the ML310e with the development server and "add a
> bit", making it similar to the new Gen 10 Microserver. It's not far off
> double the current consumption
I've received the ML310e Gen8 v2 from Bargain Hardware (I rate them
> I'm tempted to equate the ML310e with the development server and "add a
> bit", making it similar to the new Gen 10 Microserver. It's not far off
> double the current consumption
pretty highly) and, in case anyone is searching for the same information,
the power consumption is less than HP estimate for the Microserver Gen
10. I measure it at about 60W, whereas the N40L that it's going to
replace is about 40. That's with four drives on board.
I had a nasty moment when I turned it on -- vacuum cleaner noises -- but
it quietens right down as soon as it boots. I had another HP server like
that once; everyone in the house knew if I was rebooting it!
Jaimie Vandenbergh
Dec 18, 2020, 7:53:14 PM12/18/20
to
network switch does that too.
One thing you should do if you haven't already is update its various
firmwares.
If the fans spin up inappropriately at a later date, it's usually the
smart array controller being dim and misreading temps of drives. It's
bemusingly good at deciding to do that. You can stop it by disabling the
smartarray controller and configuring it as straight SATA AHCI only. Of
course, if you've configured a RAID array that'll break it... swings and
roundabouts.
Cheers - Jaimie
--
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is
dressed in overalls and looks like work."
-- Thomas A. Edison
Theo
Dec 21, 2020, 1:05:52 PM12/21/20
to
Henry Law <ne...@lawshouse.org> wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Nov 2020 09:00:42 -0600, Henry Law wrote:
>
> > I'm tempted to equate the ML310e with the development server and "add a
> > bit", making it similar to the new Gen 10 Microserver. It's not far off
> > double the current consumption
>
> I've received the ML310e Gen8 v2 from Bargain Hardware (I rate them
> pretty highly) and, in case anyone is searching for the same information,
> the power consumption is less than HP estimate for the Microserver Gen
> 10. I measure it at about 60W, whereas the N40L that it's going to
> replace is about 40. That's with four drives on board.
That's interesting. What's the spec?
> On Thu, 19 Nov 2020 09:00:42 -0600, Henry Law wrote:
>
> > I'm tempted to equate the ML310e with the development server and "add a
> > bit", making it similar to the new Gen 10 Microserver. It's not far off
> > double the current consumption
>
> I've received the ML310e Gen8 v2 from Bargain Hardware (I rate them
> pretty highly) and, in case anyone is searching for the same information,
> the power consumption is less than HP estimate for the Microserver Gen
> 10. I measure it at about 60W, whereas the N40L that it's going to
> replace is about 40. That's with four drives on board.
I'm (still) on my quest for an 6/8-drive microserver replacement. Taking a
lead from Jaimie's suggestion of the Dell R510, I've been looking at
slightly newer models - mostly Xeon E5 versions 1-4.
https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/wiki/hardware
is a good summary of the options. Haven't quite found anything that ticks
all the boxes via Bargain Hardware or ebay.
Currently hovering around an E5-26xx v2 or v3. The v3 (Haswell) is lower
power, but uses DDR4 RAM which is more expensive. OTOH there's more scope
to upgrade to a v4 (Broadwell) which as a 14nm part might be better for
power.
(I was fiddling with my dual E5-2670 v1 / 128GB DDR3 / 2x SSDs /
1x HDD build box earlier - pulled the GPU because it prevents getting at
BIOS. It's now idling at 80W which is actually pretty good for a
dual-socket 16-core Xeon from 2012)
Theo
Henry Law
Dec 24, 2020, 8:10:28 AM12/24/20
to
On Mon, 21 Dec 2020 18:05:49 +0000, Theo wrote:
>> the power consumption is less than HP estimate for the Microserver Gen
>> 10. I measure it at about 60W, whereas the N40L that it's going to
>> replace is about 40. That's with four drives on board.
>
> That's interesting. What's the spec?
The relevant bits of the spec are (copied from the BH order)
>> the power consumption is less than HP estimate for the Microserver Gen
>> 10. I measure it at about 60W, whereas the N40L that it's going to
>> replace is about 40. That's with four drives on board.
>
> That's interesting. What's the spec?
HP ProLiant ML310E Gen8 V2 4x 3.5" (LFF) Tower Server
Intel Pentium G3240 (SR1K6) 3.1GHz Dual (2) Core CPU
1 x 8GB - DDR3 1600MHz (PC3-12800E, 2Rx8)
Power Supply
1 x HP Common Slot HS PSU 750W Gold
There's a 256GB Kingston SSD in slot 1, with WD 2TB spinners in the other
three. No add-in cards.
Nicely made; a professional-looking piece of kit. I've no idea where BH
source them from, but this one looks unused, inside and out.
Theo
Dec 25, 2020, 4:08:25 PM12/25/20
to
Henry Law <ne...@lawshouse.org> wrote:
> The relevant bits of the spec are (copied from the BH order)
> HP ProLiant ML310E Gen8 V2 4x 3.5" (LFF) Tower Server
> Intel Pentium G3240 (SR1K6) 3.1GHz Dual (2) Core CPU
> 1 x 8GB - DDR3 1600MHz (PC3-12800E, 2Rx8)
> Power Supply
> 1 x HP Common Slot HS PSU 750W Gold
Ah, I see. That's a dual-core desktop-class Haswell Pentium, a bit lower
> The relevant bits of the spec are (copied from the BH order)
> HP ProLiant ML310E Gen8 V2 4x 3.5" (LFF) Tower Server
> Intel Pentium G3240 (SR1K6) 3.1GHz Dual (2) Core CPU
> 1 x 8GB - DDR3 1600MHz (PC3-12800E, 2Rx8)
> Power Supply
> 1 x HP Common Slot HS PSU 750W Gold
specced than an i3-4xxx, with TDP of 53W. It's not really a server part as
such, although on these (compared to the i3s) they don't disable ECC RAM so
it's not bad for a low-end server.
They were actually quite good for price/performance when released, since you
could buy them for about £40 and they clocked over 3GHz - although lacking
in cache compared with an i5.
It's not going to be super quick, but if your task is lightweight that
should be fine. You can presumably upgrade to another Haswell part
(i3/i5/i7-4xxx or E3-12xx v3) in future if needed.
Theo
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