"Home" Lab - Is it Cost-Effective to Run at Home?
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@wrx7m said in "Home" Lab - Is it Cost-Effective to Run at Home?:
@fuznutz04 said in "Home" Lab - Is it Cost-Effective to Run at Home?:
I have a 2 u Dell r710 that I set up about a year ago. Runs 24x7 with Plex , various other VMs, and general storage. I can’t say I’ve noticed any difference on my electric bill at all. How expensive is electricity in CA?!
For Tier 1, which is a very small tier, it is a little over 8 cents per kWh for delivery and 7.5 cents for generation. The next tier is 16.8 cents per kWh for delivery and 7.5 cents per kWh for generation.
Yikes!
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@scottalanmiller said in "Home" Lab - Is it Cost-Effective to Run at Home?:
If you can limit your home to just a Raspberry Pi or even an Intel NUC you might be better off keeping it at home. But once you get to anything hard core or extensive, the power savings along generally make it all worth it.
I have 4 pi's. One is setup with the official display running a web server, streaming my dog cams. Another running a portable kodi player with a 1TB hdd. Other two are doing nothing.
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Yeah we try to stay in the lowest tier. Some months are discounted and only a few bucks for some reason. Sometimes we're over, but what can ya do.
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Having my laptop makes a difference over the big desktop I used to have. It was running a bunch of spinners, dvdrom, etc. Got rid of that and use one drive for storage synced to a USB drive, and use a laptop. I noticed a difference even from that.
Edit: my new phone hasn't learned my IT typing habits yet lol. It's typo-ing a lot of stuff for me. My Windows phone was good about it.
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I was talking to a So Cal colo sales guy...datacenter power in So Cal is the among the most expensive in the country at over 9 cents per kWh.
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@tim_g said in "Home" Lab - Is it Cost-Effective to Run at Home?:
Having my laptop makes a difference over the big desktop I used to have. It was running a bunch of spinners, dvdrom, etc. Got rid of that and use one drive for storage synced to a USB drive, and use a laptop. I noticed a difference even from that.
Edit: my new phone hasn't learned my IT typing habits yet lol. It's typo-ing a lot of stuff for me. My Windows phone was good about it.
We notice different computers being used in the house for sure.
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@aaronstuder said in "Home" Lab - Is it Cost-Effective to Run at Home?:
I feel like this missed the chance to be wholesaleinter.net
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@fateknollogee said in "Home" Lab - Is it Cost-Effective to Run at Home?:
I was talking to a So Cal colo sales guy...datacenter power in So Cal is the among the most expensive in the country at over 9 cents per kWh.
That's still less than half what I pay.
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@aaronstuder said in "Home" Lab - Is it Cost-Effective to Run at Home?:
I'm currently running my home lab with one of their servers, was not impressed with a bunch of weird hardware issues and a bad drive right out the gate with my first one. The one I'm currently on hasn't been nearly so bad.
TLDNR: Great for a home lab, don't put any production stuff on it.
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@aaronstuder said in "Home" Lab - Is it Cost-Effective to Run at Home?:
At first, I was thinking why would I want a colo in KC? The cost of getting my server setup would be more than a couple years of power bills. Then I realized you meant using a dedicated server lol
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@wrx7m said in "Home" Lab - Is it Cost-Effective to Run at Home?:
@fateknollogee said in "Home" Lab - Is it Cost-Effective to Run at Home?:
I was talking to a So Cal colo sales guy...datacenter power in So Cal is the among the most expensive in the country at over 9 cents per kWh.
That's still less than half what I pay.
That rate was their cost before markup!!
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Which hypervisor should I run?
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@wrx7m said in "Home" Lab - Is it Cost-Effective to Run at Home?:
Which hypervisor should I run?
KVM: Good Choice
Hyper-V 2016: Good ChoiceUnless you are doing something either of those won't do, or you aren't familiar with one and want to learn, flip a coin and pick.
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@wrx7m said in "Home" Lab - Is it Cost-Effective to Run at Home?:
Which hypervisor should I run?
It’s best to try them all. Hyper-V, KVM, XenServer and maybe ESXi if you will be using the 60 day trail license.
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I use esxi at work, so probably not that one.
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Here is a nice review https://www.starwindsoftware.com/blog/choosing-ideal-mini-server-for-a-home-lab I found once I was planning my own home lab. The part with LEGO-based rack is just incredible
As for hypervisor I would recommend you to go with Hyper-V first just because it's the simplest and fastest start and after having enough of it to proceed to KVM. -
I have Intel NUC at home, and custom built server for Plex, I didn't notice much difference in electricity bill. Running AC is much bigger issue that running server 24/7.
I don't know how well Plex would run from colo, you'd need really decent connection to data center, unless you mostly stream to mobile. -
@marcinozga said in "Home" Lab - Is it Cost-Effective to Run at Home?:
I have Intel NUC at home, and custom built server for Plex, I didn't notice much difference in electricity bill. Running AC is much bigger issue that running server 24/7.
I don't know how well Plex would run from colo, you'd need really decent connection to data center, unless you mostly stream to mobile.My home lab wouldn't be running Plex, I already have a system for that. I want something that I would run a hypervisor on and I can build and tear down whenever.
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@wrx7m said in "Home" Lab - Is it Cost-Effective to Run at Home?:
@marcinozga said in "Home" Lab - Is it Cost-Effective to Run at Home?:
I have Intel NUC at home, and custom built server for Plex, I didn't notice much difference in electricity bill. Running AC is much bigger issue that running server 24/7.
I don't know how well Plex would run from colo, you'd need really decent connection to data center, unless you mostly stream to mobile.My home lab wouldn't be running Plex, I already have a system for that. I want something that I would run a hypervisor on and I can build and tear down whenever.
Why? You can use Vultr and only pay you you've got them going.
