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I'm planing to place a rack server into a colocation, but given that I'm on a tight budget, I try to estimate the total cost of ownership of the server. The data center where I will rent the colocation from will charge me for the power usage, so I am interested in how many wattage the system might draw under normal usage. However, since I didn't buy the system yet, I can't just measure it.

Is there any way to roughly estimate what such a setup would require? Or, does somebody has some rough experience of the power draw of such (or a similar) system?

The setup would be (a refurbished system of the following components):

  • HP ProLiant DL360 Gen9 (with seven built-in fans)
  • 2x Intel Xeon E5-2630L V4 (55W TDP)
  • 4x 16GB DDR4
  • RAID Controller (H240)
  • 4x 240GB SATA-3 SSD
  • HP Hot-Swap 'Platinum' PSU 500W

I guess under full load the system would draw ~150W (2x 55W for the CPUs + 40W for the other hardware), but how much would such a system draw while idling or just running at 25% load (a more real usage scenario). Any rule of dump or experience is appreciated.

miho
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    Your numbers look too little. THe 55W CPU may use more under peak - but more important the CPU uses 55W does not mean the SYSTEM uses 55W for that beause power supplies are not 100% efficient. You may end up with the 55W CPU using 75W from the socket, which is what you need to budget. – TomTom Jun 07 '20 at 10:46
  • @TomTom Thanks, you‘re right. I just thought about how much additional power the motherboard, the RAM, the SSDs and so on might use, but totally forget about the conversion loss of the PSU. But, I guess my numbers are way to low anyhow. Maybe I should reconsider whether a smaller system such as a Dell R320 with a single CPU could also fullfill my requirements. My goal would be to keep me at ~110W to keep my regular cost low. Any recommendations for that? – miho Jun 07 '20 at 11:22
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    Nope. I live in a world where we use dual socket EPIC and everything smaller is virtualized. Just if you look at regular cost - MODERN CPU are WAY more efficient, and SSD are too (comapred to HDD). – TomTom Jun 07 '20 at 12:57

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You're more likely looking at that ~130-150W power consumption at idle, and ~230-280W under full load. An average usage would be per month about 170W*730h/1000 = 124kWh. So depending on your load, it's somewhere between 100kWh(idle)-160kWh(bigger load) per month.

Here's a more detailed answer

Chris
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