5 ms·

> It still makes sense to use a decade-old computer. I don't really think it does, at least not some of them. A lot of those older machines are just running r

> It still makes sense to use a decade-old computer. I don't really think it does, at least not some of them. A lot of those older machines are just running really, really high idle power draw. Ex: Pentium 4/5, Core 2 Duo, Athlon64, etc. Running from 40 to 100 watts idle. For comparison, a new RPI will go as low as ~1-3 watt idle, tops out at ~5-7 watts under full load, and will generally have better performance characteristics. I run a lot of old machines in my basement because it can make sense (I throw them in a k8s farm), but I also generally have them spend a week on an electricity meter first (honestly, just a function of the UPS I run down there) and anything drawing more than 20 watts idle gets sent to the recycling instead. The bad ones tend to run high + hot + loud, and they absolutely aren't worth it.

pdimitar 4y ago
Can you link to your UPS? I'm on the lookout for a good one that doesn't make a lot of noise and has a built-in watt-meter for each of its sockets.
- horsawlarway 4y ago
  Sadly mine is not per-socket. I have an old APC that shows load in watts for the sockets under battery backup, and also load in watts for the entire load (it's split and offers overdraw protection to everything, but battery backup only to half the sockets on the back). Usually I just leave the new machine as the only thing idling on the sockets without battery backup and compare the two. I also have one of these (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08LD53F3P/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08LD53F3P/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...) floating around, but you have to be careful with it since it's not a surge protector. That said, it's cheap and will monitor each socket individually.
rakoo 4y ago
Yep, I was talking about the environmental argument, where drawing 40W idle might not be that bad compared to what happened at construction. Especially when you can source electricity from low-impact sources.
primis 4y ago
A decade ago was 2013, the pentium 4 is at least 13 years old now, but entered production 23 years ago. There's still a lot of utility to be had from a 10 year old machine. My daily driver laptop os a lenovo t420 which came out in 2011. Sure it can't play games but it'll do fine with youtube, programming, etc. My server box is also a 2012 era machine, it's a 3770k build. It's perfectly fine for what I use it for. Yeah it takes a bit more power than a modern intel chip, but it sure beats the alternative of throwing it in a landfill to save a few watts at idle.
- horsawlarway 4y ago
  If you have a need and you already own it - knock yourself out. But comparing spending 40 bucks on craigslist or ebay for an old pentium/core 2 duo, vs getting an rpi... You're probably better off with the Pi (assuming you can source it, which is not a given atm). I don't even buy most of mine used, I just get hand-me-downs from friends/family because they want to get rid of the machine and ask me to wipe the drive in exchange for the hardware, but even at an upfront cost of free, a machine using 100 watts over a year is 80 bucks in my region, and my power is right around the US average. Plus power in my region is tiered, so the first 650kwh per month are cheap, the next 350 are avg, and the rest are expensive. So adding machines at this point is actually closer to ~$130 a year at 100 watts idle (paying for t3 rates). Personally, it's just not worth it to me to take a freebie that runs me $100+ in costs a year. Not even accounting for the knock-on costs, like the extra AC needed because 100 watts is a small heater. ---- So sure - lots of older machines do just fine (the end of the core 2 duo line is quite reasonable, and most laptops are actually fine) but it's really probably worth measuring the power draw. The five year cost of operating that rpi is ~$30, the five year cost of operating a 100 watt machine are ~$450. And I can run a LOT more low power machines and stay in my t1/t2 pricing for power.
  - jkepler 4y ago
    Helpful thought process, as I've defaulted for a while to older machines I have around, but now I question how much power they're drawing. I've never really considered power more than how long do my laptop batteries last. Do you have any pointers what sort of equipment to use to measure the power draw? Are you simply measuring it from a UPS?
lelag 4y ago
Replacing really obsolete machines used as servers by RPI does certainly makes sense power-wise (as long as you don't need storage), so not arguing with the point you make about that. However, I agree with with the OP comment that computer should not be replaced simply because newer, more energy efficient alternatives exist: at least not for anything made after 2010. When comparing whether it is worse it or not to extend the life of a device that still does the job its intended to do, it's almost always worth it to extend the device's life. As an exemple, if we go by Apple's data: a 2016 13' Intel MacBook Pro create a yearly impact of 18 kg of CO2eq through usage (electricity). The 2021 13' MacBook M1 is a better machine environmentally by all account: manufacturing it polluted less than the 2016 machine (168kg CO2 vs 386kg), and it is more energy efficient (13 kg / CO2 per year). Still, you would need a whooping 33.6 years for the use of the more energy efficient laptop to cover the CO2 from manufacturing it. And that's using global carbon data, if you live in a low carbon grid country, it could take a century to recover the greenhouse gas emitted during manufacturing of the new laptop. (Not saying I would not still buy a M1 over keeping the slow Mac Intel but please don't claim your are helping the environment when doing so). Source: https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/notebooks/13inchMBP_wRetinaDisplay_PER_Oct2016.pdf https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/notebooks/13i... https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/notebooks/13-inch_MacBookPro_PER_Nov2020.pdf https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/notebooks/13-...
- horsawlarway 4y ago
  > Replacing really obsolete machines used as servers by RPI does certainly makes sense power-wise (as long as you don't need storage) You do need storage, but you need it for all of them anyways. I certainly won't trust the original spinning disk HDD that comes with hand me down machines with anything more than an OS image. Everything else goes on the NAS. > However, I agree with with the OP comment that computer should not be replaced simply because newer, more energy efficient alternatives exist: at least not for anything made after 2010. This - this is where the answer is to measure it. Sometimes the result will surprise you quite a bit. Most machines made after 2010 will be fine, but trust me, it's really worth plugging it into a watt meter and making sure. Turns out all sorts of things adjust power draw, and one of the least maintained parts of old machines is the PSU - usually it's filled with dust/dirt, and as long as the machine still runs no one has paid it any mind in the last 10 years. > Not saying I would not still buy a M1 over keeping the slow Mac Intel but please don't claim your are helping the environment when doing so Who the fuck is talking about replacing an intel macbook with an m1? I'm talking about getting old tower machines from office/school closeouts or as hand-me-downs and repurposing them. An intel mac (even a 2010-2013 era one) is still worth WAY more than an RPI (~$200 vs $40), and laptops in general use a very different power curve (batteries matter - who knew...?). Not to mention you can't even run a decent OS on the modern intel macs after 2016... (although at least Asahi is making progress these days) so trust me - I'm hardly suggesting a macbook update (I would strongly suggest purchasing from a different company, though - but that's a different conversation related to a different set of morals).

pdimitar 4y ago

Can you link to your UPS? I'm on the lookout for a good one that doesn't make a lot of noise and has a built-in watt-meter for each of its sockets.

horsawlarway 4y ago
Sadly mine is not per-socket. I have an old APC that shows load in watts for the sockets under battery backup, and also load in watts for the entire load (it's split and offers overdraw protection to everything, but battery backup only to half the sockets on the back). Usually I just leave the new machine as the only thing idling on the sockets without battery backup and compare the two. I also have one of these (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08LD53F3P/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08LD53F3P/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...) floating around, but you have to be careful with it since it's not a surge protector. That said, it's cheap and will monitor each socket individually.

rakoo 4y ago

Yep, I was talking about the environmental argument, where drawing 40W idle might not be that bad compared to what happened at construction. Especially when you can source electricity from low-impact sources.

primis 4y ago

A decade ago was 2013, the pentium 4 is at least 13 years old now, but entered production 23 years ago. There's still a lot of utility to be had from a 10 year old machine. My daily driver laptop os a lenovo t420 which came out in 2011. Sure it can't play games but it'll do fine with youtube, programming, etc. My server box is also a 2012 era machine, it's a 3770k build. It's perfectly fine for what I use it for. Yeah it takes a bit more power than a modern intel chip, but it sure beats the alternative of throwing it in a landfill to save a few watts at idle.

horsawlarway 4y ago
If you have a need and you already own it - knock yourself out. But comparing spending 40 bucks on craigslist or ebay for an old pentium/core 2 duo, vs getting an rpi... You're probably better off with the Pi (assuming you can source it, which is not a given atm). I don't even buy most of mine used, I just get hand-me-downs from friends/family because they want to get rid of the machine and ask me to wipe the drive in exchange for the hardware, but even at an upfront cost of free, a machine using 100 watts over a year is 80 bucks in my region, and my power is right around the US average. Plus power in my region is tiered, so the first 650kwh per month are cheap, the next 350 are avg, and the rest are expensive. So adding machines at this point is actually closer to ~$130 a year at 100 watts idle (paying for t3 rates). Personally, it's just not worth it to me to take a freebie that runs me $100+ in costs a year. Not even accounting for the knock-on costs, like the extra AC needed because 100 watts is a small heater. ---- So sure - lots of older machines do just fine (the end of the core 2 duo line is quite reasonable, and most laptops are actually fine) but it's really probably worth measuring the power draw. The five year cost of operating that rpi is ~$30, the five year cost of operating a 100 watt machine are ~$450. And I can run a LOT more low power machines and stay in my t1/t2 pricing for power.
- jkepler 4y ago
  Helpful thought process, as I've defaulted for a while to older machines I have around, but now I question how much power they're drawing. I've never really considered power more than how long do my laptop batteries last. Do you have any pointers what sort of equipment to use to measure the power draw? Are you simply measuring it from a UPS?

lelag 4y ago

Replacing really obsolete machines used as servers by RPI does certainly makes sense power-wise (as long as you don't need storage), so not arguing with the point you make about that. However, I agree with with the OP comment that computer should not be replaced simply because newer, more energy efficient alternatives exist: at least not for anything made after 2010. When comparing whether it is worse it or not to extend the life of a device that still does the job its intended to do, it's almost always worth it to extend the device's life. As an exemple, if we go by Apple's data: a 2016 13' Intel MacBook Pro create a yearly impact of 18 kg of CO2eq through usage (electricity). The 2021 13' MacBook M1 is a better machine environmentally by all account: manufacturing it polluted less than the 2016 machine (168kg CO2 vs 386kg), and it is more energy efficient (13 kg / CO2 per year). Still, you would need a whooping 33.6 years for the use of the more energy efficient laptop to cover the CO2 from manufacturing it. And that's using global carbon data, if you live in a low carbon grid country, it could take a century to recover the greenhouse gas emitted during manufacturing of the new laptop. (Not saying I would not still buy a M1 over keeping the slow Mac Intel but please don't claim your are helping the environment when doing so). Source: https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/notebooks/13inchMBP_wRetinaDisplay_PER_Oct2016.pdf https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/notebooks/13i... https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/notebooks/13-inch_MacBookPro_PER_Nov2020.pdf https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/notebooks/13-...

horsawlarway 4y ago
> Replacing really obsolete machines used as servers by RPI does certainly makes sense power-wise (as long as you don't need storage) You do need storage, but you need it for all of them anyways. I certainly won't trust the original spinning disk HDD that comes with hand me down machines with anything more than an OS image. Everything else goes on the NAS. > However, I agree with with the OP comment that computer should not be replaced simply because newer, more energy efficient alternatives exist: at least not for anything made after 2010. This - this is where the answer is to measure it. Sometimes the result will surprise you quite a bit. Most machines made after 2010 will be fine, but trust me, it's really worth plugging it into a watt meter and making sure. Turns out all sorts of things adjust power draw, and one of the least maintained parts of old machines is the PSU - usually it's filled with dust/dirt, and as long as the machine still runs no one has paid it any mind in the last 10 years. > Not saying I would not still buy a M1 over keeping the slow Mac Intel but please don't claim your are helping the environment when doing so Who the fuck is talking about replacing an intel macbook with an m1? I'm talking about getting old tower machines from office/school closeouts or as hand-me-downs and repurposing them. An intel mac (even a 2010-2013 era one) is still worth WAY more than an RPI (~$200 vs $40), and laptops in general use a very different power curve (batteries matter - who knew...?). Not to mention you can't even run a decent OS on the modern intel macs after 2016... (although at least Asahi is making progress these days) so trust me - I'm hardly suggesting a macbook update (I would strongly suggest purchasing from a different company, though - but that's a different conversation related to a different set of morals).