9 ms·

I find this really disturbing. On the one hand this looks really nerdy and cool but then I see the immense amount of hardware that also relies on power... so mu

I find this really disturbing. On the one hand this looks really nerdy and cool but then I see the immense amount of hardware that also relies on power... so much power. This is completely unnecessary but then I also see the pictures of an F150.. so yeah it makes sense. I have to categorize this as a (un)typical American person that does not care about the environment. Do like the fact that he runs a RIPE probe though.

kriops 3y ago
I find your comment to be at the absolute peak of sanctimony. Who are you to decide if it is necessary or not? Furthermore, why are you justified in negatively stereotyping Americans – a diverse group of individuals?
- snerbles 3y ago
  The satisfaction from serving up self-righteous condemnation is one hell of a drug.
  - Gibbon1 3y ago
    Giving attitude from 50 degrees north latitude.
- rimliu 3y ago
  The question was not addressed to me, but I have some tongue-in-cheek answers: > Who are you to decide if it is necessary or not? Inhabitant of the Earth. The one affected by climate change. > Why are you justified in negatively stereotyping Americans Tell me, what is the best-selling truck in US for 46 years in a row?
  - refurb 3y ago
    It’s hilarious how sanctimonious moralizing has gone from things like pornography, premarital sex and smoking marijuana to now using too much energy. The people who complained about those issues thought they were “on the right side” as well. But in the end it’s all just busybodies trying to force other to live their life the way they think it should be lived.
- rb666 3y ago
  How is it an act? Caring about the climate is clearly morally superior than not doing so.
  - drexlspivey 3y ago
    The "using electricity is bad" meme must be one of the stupidest ones in the last few years
    - maleldil 3y ago
      Why? IMO we should all avoid waste, whether that's plastic or energy.
      - drexlspivey 3y ago
        Then you must hate that almost all of sun's energy hitting earth is wasted
        maleldil 3y ago
        This is such a bad faith comment. The sun isn't causing climate change; we are. Do you disagree that humans need to minimise waste in order to fight climate change?
        drexlspivey 3y ago
        Using energy doesn't cause climate change. Producing energy from fossil fuels causes climate change. Humans don't need to minimise energy usage to fight climate change, instead they need to produce energy from non fossil sources. I wish we produced 10x energy that we do now but from renewable sources.
        globular-toast 3y ago
        You're right, in the most meaningless sense of the word. I too wish we had 10x the energy from renewable sources, but we don't and won't for the foreseeable future. What we actually can do is get maybe 1/10 of our energy from renewable sources and then, to be sustainable, we need to use 1/10 of the energy we currently use.
- checkyoursudo 3y ago
  That particular comment was "the absolute peak of sanctimony"? Like, the most sanctimonious comment you have ever read on the internet?
  - kriops 3y ago
    Yes. This is a prime example of what people refer to when they say that someone is being an "asshole". The reason being that the OP is being incredibly condescending while simultaneously lacking any trace of empathy and knowledge. I've seen stuff that or more vile etc. of course, but as far as sanctimoniousness goes, this is the worst I've seen in my several decades on the internet.
  - snoman 3y ago
    Probably more like a local maxima.
- Toutouxc 3y ago
  A diverse group of individuals who consume 12 MWh of power per capita, while it's around 6 or 7 MWh for modern European countries. It's not even a stereotype, just statistics. (got my data in two minutes from Wikipedia, so maybe not up-to-date)
  - ryan-c 3y ago
    I wonder how much of the difference is air conditioning?
    - Karrot_Kream 3y ago
      I don't really think 2x the power usage comes from AC. The US has plenty of areas that only need a bit of AC for only part of the year.
      - ryan-c 3y ago
        It's definitely not all of the difference, but it's gotta be some.
        midasuni 3y ago
        Presumably those areas don’t need heating
        ryan-c 3y ago
        That would be an incorrect assumption.
        quantumfissure 3y ago
        Please don't make assumptions on something you don't know anything about. Even many northern US states (around the same Latitude as Madrid, north), on average, are 30-35+ every day during the summer and 0C to -10C in the winter. Many Canadians have air con. So yes, heating and air con is a requirement in many areas. I live in a northern state, and we regularly have full weeks that are 38-40C.
cjdell 3y ago
I also have mixed feelings. I stopped home labing because of the energy costs. I now have everything I need (HomeAssistant / NAS / Router) running on an old Dell Precision laptop. Laptops make great servers because they are optimised for low power consumption + you get a free console and UPS built-in! I'm tempted by the new Alder Lake N100 mini PCs that are available on Chinese websites. But I need to wait until the laptop dies before I can justify it. It's not just about power consumption but the (hidden) cost of manufacturing. Make use of the stuff you already have before buying new stuff. At least he had a big solar array...
- vladvasiliu 3y ago
  My main problem with labbing is the noise (I live in an apartment). His servers are mostly small PCs, so I think the most power draw is from the disk drives. If you need the storage, say for the cameras and whatnot, I'm not sure that running a laptop instead would save that much power.
- abwizz 3y ago
  > Laptops make great servers because they are optimised for low power consumption + you get a free console and UPS built-in > Make use of the stuff you already have before buying new stuff. this is the way!
  - bliteben 3y ago
    I would have disagreed on heat, but would love to hear what laptops that isn't an issue on.
    - thfuran 3y ago
      What do you mean?
      - bliteben 3y ago
        Many laptops have bad thermals in general under load and often even worse with case closed.
miked85 3y ago
Funny, just seems like a hobby to me.
m463 3y ago
He said in another post he has 17kw of solar, so...
- irusensei 3y ago
  It's never about how green is the source of energy. It's about people doing things with their energy in which they don't approve. I mean... just read their xenophobic remarks about a giant country of diverse people. Don't bother appeasing climate hystericals.
  - pietro72ohboy 3y ago
    There’s nothing hysterical about the OP’s argument that the setup is overkill and power hungry. It’s important to note here that OP is merely criticising the setup. It’s their right to speak freely about it just as you have the right to call them a climate hysterical. Stop shaming people for speaking their minds. And my opinion is that the setup is indeed overkill. The author(s) literally admit so themselves.
    - imiric 3y ago
      If all this is running on renewable energy sources, what's the environmental harm exactly? The point that this is overkill and power hungry is completely irrelevant. OP's comment is coming from their high horse.
kristjank 3y ago
I hope you're trolling. Power can be generated without an environmental impact. There are companies (and F150s) dumping kgbjillions more CO2 than this person's homelab is. Let people learn something and have some fun.
- ptman 3y ago
  It cannot be generated without an environmental impact. Equipment has an impact and a limited life.
- maeln 3y ago
  Power cannot be generated without an environmental impact. Even solar panel and wind turbine generate a non negligible amount of pollution when produced, and a non negligible amount of waste when they have to be decommissioned. Also, it is highly unlikely that he is using his own grid, he probably pulling most of his power from the U.S grid, which (like most grid to be fair) contains a fair amount of CO2 heavy sources. And that is not even talking about the amount of pollution and waste used to produced all that hardware he is running. I get it, it looks cool and damn fun. I dream of this kinds of setup. but brushing off the environmental impact is also wrong. Now admittedly, he is but a drop in vast ocean when it come to pollution and waste, and there is definitely far worse offender. But keeping our environmental impact in mind should be a necessity in this era.
  - Cthulhu_ 3y ago
    There, it's in mind; what can we do now to stop the big companies from making things worse? Individual accountability is important, but self-flagellation or (vicarious) shame because forces bigger than us are causing problems is a waste of energy (ha!).
    - maeln 3y ago
      Big companies don't produce pollution in a vacuum. Almost all of their pollution is a indirect consequence of our own consumption. Buying a ford F-150 and having a oversized server rack full of expensive hardware that generate a lot of pollution to be produces is a sure way not to stop big companies. Responsible consumption is the first important step to stop big companies from making thing worse.
ur-whale 3y ago
> I have to categorize this as a (un)typical American person Holier-than-thou much?
- maleldil 3y ago
  Americans tend to drive larger cars than other nationalities. These cars use more fuel. Most of these people do not need large cars and would be fine with smaller ones that use less fuel. Therefore, by choosing larger cars, they're using more fuel than necessary. An explanation is that only care about their own comfort, not the environment.
  - abwizz 3y ago
    tbf a lot of murricans live in rural environments where a truck does indeed make sense because of the lots of unpaved roads. city dwellers not so much
    - patmorgan23 3y ago
      Not really, American is pretty urbanized. Less than 20% of the population lives in rural areas. Yet the most popular vehicle for the past few years has been the ford F150. It's not being bought by rural or working class people, it's a luxury status symbol now.
      - abwizz 3y ago
        > American is pretty urbanized. Less than 20% of the population lives in rural areas i'd like that number put into perspective, but it does not feel like on the low end. > Yet the most popular vehicle for the past few years has been the ford F150. It's not being bought by rural or working class people, it's a luxury status symbol now. thanks for the insight! but i struggle with the combination of "most popular" and "luxury status symbol"
        sigilis 3y ago
        On that last statement, see iPhone for an example of a ubiquitous luxury status symbol with it occupying the top three slots for smartphone sales by model. However, it is not accurate to say that rural people are not buying F150s, they like status symbols as much as the next person and it does fit the requirements if someone wants a truck. Sometimes people who live in urban areas like to pretend that no one lives outside of cities except cows and guns. 20% is still quite a few people at about 60 million. Not a exactly a rounding error.
pprotas 3y ago
Snide categorizations aside, there is a point somewhere in your comment. It is a running joke in the /r/homelab community that their servers use an unreasonable amount of power that they have to hide from their wives. It really IS unnecessary, as you can tell by the author of the article referring to their home network as "overkill".
- fjfuvucucuc 3y ago
  This is why we buy server racks. It turns 5-6 servers into one computer.
SanderNL 3y ago
I find it very interesting how awareness of climate change (and let’s not forget: the price of energy) has had so much impact on my and others’ judgement in a relatively short time. 5-10 years ago I would think this is perfectly fine. I believe I was not alone in this, but maybe I was. The energy would have cost pennies too and why whine about it? Now I think it’s exorbitant as well, for me. The F150 etc, it’s telling a different story now. I do think it’s kind of below the belt to snipe any single culture for this. It’s too easy to target Americans. I don’t know about this guy’s life. Maybe he has a ranch with 20 square miles of renewables and I don’t care actually. It’s just personal reflection.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- alex3305 3y ago
  > 5-10 years ago I would think this is perfectly fine. I believe I was not alone in this, but maybe I was. The energy would have cost pennies too and why whine about it? When I moved into my own home (8 years ago) I brought my 'homeserver' with me. Which was just a simple i5-2600 build with some shucked drives in it. I never thought about electricity prices when I lived with my parents. But that changed rather fast. With the server gobbling up a constant 90W, I quickly realized that, even back than, it would cost me 15 euro's a month on electricity alone. I than proceeded to put a Pi next to it, that would listen to incoming Plex requests and would start up and shut down the server with WoL. That only reduced costs by about a third. The next couple of years I would move on to a NUC with a NAS that would only consume about 29W/h on average. Which was decent, but not great considering the poor performance of both machines (J4105 and J1800). Last month I have gone back to the DIY route. Now with a i5-13500. I'm still in the process of optimizing it for power efficiency. Although much more stressful than the prebuilts, I love the hunt for the last watt. Anyway, what I wanted to say is that I notice that family and friends don't really care about saving power in general. They mostly just pay for it and there's that. While my house runs 100% on electricity and I'm really proud if I can get 9kWh/day on average. Even when I see that (for example) the 8-bit guy uses 100kWh/day on average [1]. Which seems out of this world for me. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXd-aP06lug&t=45s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXd-aP06lug&t=45s
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
I dunno, a lot of people on here use more power without noticing it, because it's on whatever cloud provider they use. Every time I push some commits, an array of servers spins up in an AWS datacenter somewhere to run all of my verifications and do a build. Second, this person seems to have a very large house anyway. My house manages with a modem, a wifi router and two IP cameras, but that can just scale up linearly. When I grow up I want a switch rack like this in a basement or closet, wired network everywhere and PoE security cameras. Bigger house also means I can get an array of solar panels and become net positive.
- Karrot_Kream 3y ago
  > I dunno, a lot of people on here use more power without noticing it, because it's on whatever cloud provider they use. Every time I push some commits, an array of servers spins up in an AWS datacenter somewhere to run all of my verifications and do a build. Most AWS (and generally cloud) instances are already virtualized from bigger machines. Power, heating, and cooling in these large racks is running much more efficiently than running these things in your home on dedicated compute that is only being used for your purposes. Even more efficient is using something like serverless compute or something like Cloudflare workers. While cloud compute probably is not running at low idle power, it's probably maximizing it's power utilization as much as possible. > Bigger house also means I can get an array of solar panels and become net positive. There's a lot of hidden costs associated with becoming "net positive", everything from adding more peak load during inclement events to issues associated with grid fragility. Look I don't think it's good form to roast OP on what's really standard behavior on the internet: showing off your cool digs. But I also think we should be intentional about what it is: showing off your cool digs.
Karrot_Kream 3y ago
I do a lot of similar stuff in my home network with a lot less equipment. I have a trunk switch that sits behind my router, Ethernet running into each of my rooms (came with the house), and small point switches that sit in front of each patch. I have 3 APs in my house. I have a UPS which connects to our router, trunk switch, and a single AP that uses PoE which is good enough if we need Wifi when the power goes down. To much shock and horror, I just bought discount Cat6 cabling and didn't bother buying a roll and crimping and making my cabling look nice (but I did test every point in my network exhaustively to make sure I don't have high amounts of latency or jitter anywhere.) The rest of the services that OP runs I run on a combination of a 12 year old SBC and a Raspberry Pi. Modern computers (read < 15 years old) when used as server appliances are very capable and can packet switch very quickly, even while running a kernel and a usermode. Doubt me? Run your own iperf tests and check where things are bottlenecking. My IP cameras are all Raspberry Pis that use the camera module and stream using RTSP back to the SBC. Instead of managing VLANs (I do offer a guest VLAN but my partner and friends found it a pain so it doesn't get much use shrug), I run Zerotier through the house. My IP cameras sit on a single Zerotier network. All other services I run internally use Zerotier and if I do accept external traffic, I expose a port on a VPS (like OP) and have some nftables rules which NAT the traffic through Zerotier. I've thought about getting a failover ISP (our area has 2), but our primary ISP offers us fantastic peering (I've exhaustively tested the bandwidth and jitter to the VPS I proxy traffic through) and good enough uptime for me to not bother. Like a lot of other hobbies, people can get very consumeristic. This is what a consumeristic version of homelabbing looks like. This shouldn't stop you or anyone else from building a humble homelab that can do almost all of what OPs home network does. The key is to test where your network has bottlenecks. I've iperf tested my network exhaustively and frequently look at kernel counters and other things to make sure that my network is performing up to spec, but that's a lot less fun than buying lots of cool networking gear. Much like you don't need an F-150 to get around day-to-day, maybe even just a bike :)
- adrian_b 3y ago
  > I do a lot of similar stuff in my home network with a lot less equipment. This is also my case. For Internet access, I use a router which has 4 2.5 GbE ports for the internal LAN, which was made several years ago with an Intel NUC and 4 USB Ethernet dongles, but which could be done today with a small and cheap fanless router using an "Alder Lake N" Intel N100 or N200 CPU. There are also such small routers with more 2.5 GbE ports for the internal LAN, e.g. 6 or 8. That router implements a lot of network services, including DNS servers for my domain and my own e-mail server. I also have 5 servers that are interconnected by a 10 GbE subnetwork, but that is done without external switches. Each server has a dual-port 10 Gb/s NIC and they are interconnected directly, in a ring. The servers are normally powered off. Whenever needed, I power on the first of them through Wake-on-Ethernet. Through it, I can power on, also using Wake-on-Ethernet, as many of the others as needed.
ryan-c 3y ago
I am not running serious network gear right now due to power, which is ruinously expensive in the UK to the extent that I find myself longing for PG&E's rates in California. Currently having a house remodeled, which I'm putting as much solar (and battery) on as possible, and the gas is being removed entirely. Going to try not to use more than the system can generate, though I am not sure I'll be successful.
Gareth321 3y ago
In many U.S. states, their primary energy generation is nuclear. This is extremely environmentally friendly, meaning no issues with OP using a bunch of power. We really need to stop demonising the use of energy. Energy is amazing. It is the reason we have seen to much prosperity in so little time. It's the backbone of our economies. Of medicine and the internet and EVs and well insulated homes. We should be doing everything we can to make energy cheaper, enabling more people to use more energy. Few things have been as damaging for climate activism than the war on energy. It's unnecessary and misses the point of the entire movement: saving the environment. Focus on cleaner sources of energy rather than demonising people using energy.
- Karrot_Kream 3y ago
  It's not about the energy for me. A lot of these posts make networking and homelabs seem like a dark art that only folks with tons of space, capital, and time can get into. Networking is anything but, it's about sending a packet of data over a wire! But when we glorify these elaborate, expensive setups, we not only lose focus on what the goal of a network should be (to satisfy needs for its users), we also discourage newcomers from tinkering with networks which to me is the bigger crime.
  - gwbrooks 3y ago
    Or -- hear me out -- you entice newcomers who want a big ol' rack of boxes and wires. Like me.
    - Karrot_Kream 3y ago
      I guess that wouldn't have enticed me at all. The minimalism of networking is what interested me in it in the first place decades ago as a kid.
- b3orn 3y ago
  I looked it up, 5 US states get the majority of their electricity from nuclear power, 4 from wind, 3 from hydro. The other states use coal, natural gas and petroleum. Source: https://www.nei.org/resources/statistics/state-electricity-generation-fuel-shares https://www.nei.org/resources/statistics/state-electricity-g...
amadsen 3y ago
Sigh. This is a guy who is clearly passionate about his hobby and was excited to share it with us. Leave it to hn to shit all over it. Some people fly to Africa and shoot elephants for fun - as far as hobbies go, this is fairly benign. If you care about the environment, I mean actually care, then you should recognize that policing how many computers someone have in their closet is counterproductive. I don't buy the "every little bit helps" argument because there is always an opportunity cost. Attention spans are limited and focusing on this non-issue does nothing but draw attention away from things that actually matter like meat consumption and fossil fuels.
true_religion 3y ago
My entire region runs on hydro, so even if I had a home lab x10 the size of this it wouldn't have the same environmental impact as someone who ran a laptop with power from a coal plant. You can't tell from a blog post if what he's doing is good or bad for the environment. And further more, its unfair to tell people that they shouldn't improve their niche skills when those same skills are what they use for employment.
bliteben 3y ago
Yeah pics did make it look like he could use a smaller truck
matheusmoreira 3y ago
You do realize you're posting this self-righteous comment from a computer that was in all likelihood manufactured in China, right? I wonder how many tons of coal were burned to manufacture it. I wonder how many western developed nation comforts you're unwilling to give up while you "categorize" people on the internet based on the constructive activities they choose to engage in with their own time and money.
vagab0nd 3y ago
Yes, we should care about the environment. No, we should not be using less energy, but more. The way we use energy is the reason why it hurts the environment, not the amount of energy. I think this mindset is hurting our ability to innovate.
monstermunch 3y ago
Its really disturbing how whiney Europeans (I assume you are) are with their superiority complexes. I don't even know why I'm replying to you, but here we go So I should ditch all this and rely on cloud services I guess. Cloud services are hosted in magic land where they don't use any power, right? If you use any cloud services, you are just as bad as me. I have 17kw of solar on the roof. As we type this, I'm exporting 10kw of power back to the grid. I generate enough solar to completely cover all of my electricity usage, and during the night when I'm pulling from the grid, my power plan is sourced 100% from wind or solar. All of this is my hobby, but also helps me learn skills for my job. That job is 100% work from home, which means I don't drive pretty much at all. I'm sorry my F150 offends you, which has less than 10,000 miles on the clock despite being 5 years old. That same F150 also gets better miles per gallon than a lot of regular cars on the road. My wifes Ford Escape (A compact "SUV" if you can call it that" gets worse milage than my truck. But I'm sure if you saw a Ford Escape, you'd be fine with it right? Where in the post did I say how much power all this uses? You said "power... so much power" yet you don't even know how much power it uses... I won't even go into detail how I've removed over 1000sqft of concrete on my property, how I've planted an 800sqft native wildflower meadow, have a bat house, use rainwater for plants, etc etc. But no I'm just such a terrible American. Grow up.
- archon810 3y ago
  I'm 100% with you. Would love to see photos of those meadow and bat house, they sound lovely.
  - monstermunch 3y ago
    Here are some images of the meadow: https://files.networkprofile.org/s/86FzBHYfNwHyXTY https://files.networkprofile.org/s/86FzBHYfNwHyXTY Its not quite as green as that right now, since we have a pretty bad drought here in Houston, but it will come back. I had to make the small fence as it just kept trying to spread out. The fence is made from scrap 2x4's ripped down the middle to make 2x2's, and the rails are old scrap cedar pickets pressure washed and ripped down This is the seed mix: https://www.dkseeds.com/shop/flkbee-website-king-s-feed-the-b-s-mix-1286#attr=205 https://www.dkseeds.com/shop/flkbee-website-king-s-feed-the-... I'll have to take some pictures of the bat house, maybe I should just make a post on all this, maybe that will please them

kriops 3y ago

I find your comment to be at the absolute peak of sanctimony. Who are you to decide if it is necessary or not? Furthermore, why are you justified in negatively stereotyping Americans – a diverse group of individuals?

snerbles 3y ago
The satisfaction from serving up self-righteous condemnation is one hell of a drug.
- Gibbon1 3y ago
  Giving attitude from 50 degrees north latitude.
rimliu 3y ago
The question was not addressed to me, but I have some tongue-in-cheek answers: > Who are you to decide if it is necessary or not? Inhabitant of the Earth. The one affected by climate change. > Why are you justified in negatively stereotyping Americans Tell me, what is the best-selling truck in US for 46 years in a row?
- refurb 3y ago
  It’s hilarious how sanctimonious moralizing has gone from things like pornography, premarital sex and smoking marijuana to now using too much energy. The people who complained about those issues thought they were “on the right side” as well. But in the end it’s all just busybodies trying to force other to live their life the way they think it should be lived.
rb666 3y ago
How is it an act? Caring about the climate is clearly morally superior than not doing so.
- drexlspivey 3y ago
  The "using electricity is bad" meme must be one of the stupidest ones in the last few years
  - maleldil 3y ago
    Why? IMO we should all avoid waste, whether that's plastic or energy.
    - drexlspivey 3y ago
      Then you must hate that almost all of sun's energy hitting earth is wasted
      - maleldil 3y ago
        This is such a bad faith comment. The sun isn't causing climate change; we are. Do you disagree that humans need to minimise waste in order to fight climate change?
        drexlspivey 3y ago
        Using energy doesn't cause climate change. Producing energy from fossil fuels causes climate change. Humans don't need to minimise energy usage to fight climate change, instead they need to produce energy from non fossil sources. I wish we produced 10x energy that we do now but from renewable sources.
        globular-toast 3y ago
        You're right, in the most meaningless sense of the word. I too wish we had 10x the energy from renewable sources, but we don't and won't for the foreseeable future. What we actually can do is get maybe 1/10 of our energy from renewable sources and then, to be sustainable, we need to use 1/10 of the energy we currently use.
checkyoursudo 3y ago
That particular comment was "the absolute peak of sanctimony"? Like, the most sanctimonious comment you have ever read on the internet?
- kriops 3y ago
  Yes. This is a prime example of what people refer to when they say that someone is being an "asshole". The reason being that the OP is being incredibly condescending while simultaneously lacking any trace of empathy and knowledge. I've seen stuff that or more vile etc. of course, but as far as sanctimoniousness goes, this is the worst I've seen in my several decades on the internet.
- snoman 3y ago
  Probably more like a local maxima.
Toutouxc 3y ago
A diverse group of individuals who consume 12 MWh of power per capita, while it's around 6 or 7 MWh for modern European countries. It's not even a stereotype, just statistics. (got my data in two minutes from Wikipedia, so maybe not up-to-date)
- ryan-c 3y ago
  I wonder how much of the difference is air conditioning?
  - Karrot_Kream 3y ago
    I don't really think 2x the power usage comes from AC. The US has plenty of areas that only need a bit of AC for only part of the year.
    - ryan-c 3y ago
      It's definitely not all of the difference, but it's gotta be some.
      - midasuni 3y ago
        Presumably those areas don’t need heating
        ryan-c 3y ago
        That would be an incorrect assumption.
        quantumfissure 3y ago
        Please don't make assumptions on something you don't know anything about. Even many northern US states (around the same Latitude as Madrid, north), on average, are 30-35+ every day during the summer and 0C to -10C in the winter. Many Canadians have air con. So yes, heating and air con is a requirement in many areas. I live in a northern state, and we regularly have full weeks that are 38-40C.

cjdell 3y ago

I also have mixed feelings. I stopped home labing because of the energy costs. I now have everything I need (HomeAssistant / NAS / Router) running on an old Dell Precision laptop. Laptops make great servers because they are optimised for low power consumption + you get a free console and UPS built-in! I'm tempted by the new Alder Lake N100 mini PCs that are available on Chinese websites. But I need to wait until the laptop dies before I can justify it. It's not just about power consumption but the (hidden) cost of manufacturing. Make use of the stuff you already have before buying new stuff. At least he had a big solar array...

vladvasiliu 3y ago
My main problem with labbing is the noise (I live in an apartment). His servers are mostly small PCs, so I think the most power draw is from the disk drives. If you need the storage, say for the cameras and whatnot, I'm not sure that running a laptop instead would save that much power.
abwizz 3y ago
> Laptops make great servers because they are optimised for low power consumption + you get a free console and UPS built-in > Make use of the stuff you already have before buying new stuff. this is the way!
- bliteben 3y ago
  I would have disagreed on heat, but would love to hear what laptops that isn't an issue on.
  - thfuran 3y ago
    What do you mean?
    - bliteben 3y ago
      Many laptops have bad thermals in general under load and often even worse with case closed.

miked85 3y ago

Funny, just seems like a hobby to me.

m463 3y ago

He said in another post he has 17kw of solar, so...

irusensei 3y ago
It's never about how green is the source of energy. It's about people doing things with their energy in which they don't approve. I mean... just read their xenophobic remarks about a giant country of diverse people. Don't bother appeasing climate hystericals.
- pietro72ohboy 3y ago
  There’s nothing hysterical about the OP’s argument that the setup is overkill and power hungry. It’s important to note here that OP is merely criticising the setup. It’s their right to speak freely about it just as you have the right to call them a climate hysterical. Stop shaming people for speaking their minds. And my opinion is that the setup is indeed overkill. The author(s) literally admit so themselves.
  - imiric 3y ago
    If all this is running on renewable energy sources, what's the environmental harm exactly? The point that this is overkill and power hungry is completely irrelevant. OP's comment is coming from their high horse.

kristjank 3y ago

I hope you're trolling. Power can be generated without an environmental impact. There are companies (and F150s) dumping kgbjillions more CO2 than this person's homelab is. Let people learn something and have some fun.

ptman 3y ago
It cannot be generated without an environmental impact. Equipment has an impact and a limited life.
maeln 3y ago
Power cannot be generated without an environmental impact. Even solar panel and wind turbine generate a non negligible amount of pollution when produced, and a non negligible amount of waste when they have to be decommissioned. Also, it is highly unlikely that he is using his own grid, he probably pulling most of his power from the U.S grid, which (like most grid to be fair) contains a fair amount of CO2 heavy sources. And that is not even talking about the amount of pollution and waste used to produced all that hardware he is running. I get it, it looks cool and damn fun. I dream of this kinds of setup. but brushing off the environmental impact is also wrong. Now admittedly, he is but a drop in vast ocean when it come to pollution and waste, and there is definitely far worse offender. But keeping our environmental impact in mind should be a necessity in this era.
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  There, it's in mind; what can we do now to stop the big companies from making things worse? Individual accountability is important, but self-flagellation or (vicarious) shame because forces bigger than us are causing problems is a waste of energy (ha!).
  - maeln 3y ago
    Big companies don't produce pollution in a vacuum. Almost all of their pollution is a indirect consequence of our own consumption. Buying a ford F-150 and having a oversized server rack full of expensive hardware that generate a lot of pollution to be produces is a sure way not to stop big companies. Responsible consumption is the first important step to stop big companies from making thing worse.

ur-whale 3y ago

> I have to categorize this as a (un)typical American person Holier-than-thou much?

maleldil 3y ago
Americans tend to drive larger cars than other nationalities. These cars use more fuel. Most of these people do not need large cars and would be fine with smaller ones that use less fuel. Therefore, by choosing larger cars, they're using more fuel than necessary. An explanation is that only care about their own comfort, not the environment.
- abwizz 3y ago
  tbf a lot of murricans live in rural environments where a truck does indeed make sense because of the lots of unpaved roads. city dwellers not so much
  - patmorgan23 3y ago
    Not really, American is pretty urbanized. Less than 20% of the population lives in rural areas. Yet the most popular vehicle for the past few years has been the ford F150. It's not being bought by rural or working class people, it's a luxury status symbol now.
    - abwizz 3y ago
      > American is pretty urbanized. Less than 20% of the population lives in rural areas i'd like that number put into perspective, but it does not feel like on the low end. > Yet the most popular vehicle for the past few years has been the ford F150. It's not being bought by rural or working class people, it's a luxury status symbol now. thanks for the insight! but i struggle with the combination of "most popular" and "luxury status symbol"
      - sigilis 3y ago
        On that last statement, see iPhone for an example of a ubiquitous luxury status symbol with it occupying the top three slots for smartphone sales by model. However, it is not accurate to say that rural people are not buying F150s, they like status symbols as much as the next person and it does fit the requirements if someone wants a truck. Sometimes people who live in urban areas like to pretend that no one lives outside of cities except cows and guns. 20% is still quite a few people at about 60 million. Not a exactly a rounding error.

pprotas 3y ago

Snide categorizations aside, there is a point somewhere in your comment. It is a running joke in the /r/homelab community that their servers use an unreasonable amount of power that they have to hide from their wives. It really IS unnecessary, as you can tell by the author of the article referring to their home network as "overkill".

fjfuvucucuc 3y ago
This is why we buy server racks. It turns 5-6 servers into one computer.

SanderNL 3y ago

I find it very interesting how awareness of climate change (and let’s not forget: the price of energy) has had so much impact on my and others’ judgement in a relatively short time. 5-10 years ago I would think this is perfectly fine. I believe I was not alone in this, but maybe I was. The energy would have cost pennies too and why whine about it? Now I think it’s exorbitant as well, for me. The F150 etc, it’s telling a different story now. I do think it’s kind of below the belt to snipe any single culture for this. It’s too easy to target Americans. I don’t know about this guy’s life. Maybe he has a ranch with 20 square miles of renewables and I don’t care actually. It’s just personal reflection.

deleted 3y ago
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alex3305 3y ago
> 5-10 years ago I would think this is perfectly fine. I believe I was not alone in this, but maybe I was. The energy would have cost pennies too and why whine about it? When I moved into my own home (8 years ago) I brought my 'homeserver' with me. Which was just a simple i5-2600 build with some shucked drives in it. I never thought about electricity prices when I lived with my parents. But that changed rather fast. With the server gobbling up a constant 90W, I quickly realized that, even back than, it would cost me 15 euro's a month on electricity alone. I than proceeded to put a Pi next to it, that would listen to incoming Plex requests and would start up and shut down the server with WoL. That only reduced costs by about a third. The next couple of years I would move on to a NUC with a NAS that would only consume about 29W/h on average. Which was decent, but not great considering the poor performance of both machines (J4105 and J1800). Last month I have gone back to the DIY route. Now with a i5-13500. I'm still in the process of optimizing it for power efficiency. Although much more stressful than the prebuilts, I love the hunt for the last watt. Anyway, what I wanted to say is that I notice that family and friends don't really care about saving power in general. They mostly just pay for it and there's that. While my house runs 100% on electricity and I'm really proud if I can get 9kWh/day on average. Even when I see that (for example) the 8-bit guy uses 100kWh/day on average [1]. Which seems out of this world for me. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXd-aP06lug&t=45s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXd-aP06lug&t=45s

Cthulhu_ 3y ago

I dunno, a lot of people on here use more power without noticing it, because it's on whatever cloud provider they use. Every time I push some commits, an array of servers spins up in an AWS datacenter somewhere to run all of my verifications and do a build. Second, this person seems to have a very large house anyway. My house manages with a modem, a wifi router and two IP cameras, but that can just scale up linearly. When I grow up I want a switch rack like this in a basement or closet, wired network everywhere and PoE security cameras. Bigger house also means I can get an array of solar panels and become net positive.

Karrot_Kream 3y ago
> I dunno, a lot of people on here use more power without noticing it, because it's on whatever cloud provider they use. Every time I push some commits, an array of servers spins up in an AWS datacenter somewhere to run all of my verifications and do a build. Most AWS (and generally cloud) instances are already virtualized from bigger machines. Power, heating, and cooling in these large racks is running much more efficiently than running these things in your home on dedicated compute that is only being used for your purposes. Even more efficient is using something like serverless compute or something like Cloudflare workers. While cloud compute probably is not running at low idle power, it's probably maximizing it's power utilization as much as possible. > Bigger house also means I can get an array of solar panels and become net positive. There's a lot of hidden costs associated with becoming "net positive", everything from adding more peak load during inclement events to issues associated with grid fragility. Look I don't think it's good form to roast OP on what's really standard behavior on the internet: showing off your cool digs. But I also think we should be intentional about what it is: showing off your cool digs.

Karrot_Kream 3y ago

I do a lot of similar stuff in my home network with a lot less equipment. I have a trunk switch that sits behind my router, Ethernet running into each of my rooms (came with the house), and small point switches that sit in front of each patch. I have 3 APs in my house. I have a UPS which connects to our router, trunk switch, and a single AP that uses PoE which is good enough if we need Wifi when the power goes down. To much shock and horror, I just bought discount Cat6 cabling and didn't bother buying a roll and crimping and making my cabling look nice (but I did test every point in my network exhaustively to make sure I don't have high amounts of latency or jitter anywhere.) The rest of the services that OP runs I run on a combination of a 12 year old SBC and a Raspberry Pi. Modern computers (read < 15 years old) when used as server appliances are very capable and can packet switch very quickly, even while running a kernel and a usermode. Doubt me? Run your own iperf tests and check where things are bottlenecking. My IP cameras are all Raspberry Pis that use the camera module and stream using RTSP back to the SBC. Instead of managing VLANs (I do offer a guest VLAN but my partner and friends found it a pain so it doesn't get much use shrug), I run Zerotier through the house. My IP cameras sit on a single Zerotier network. All other services I run internally use Zerotier and if I do accept external traffic, I expose a port on a VPS (like OP) and have some nftables rules which NAT the traffic through Zerotier. I've thought about getting a failover ISP (our area has 2), but our primary ISP offers us fantastic peering (I've exhaustively tested the bandwidth and jitter to the VPS I proxy traffic through) and good enough uptime for me to not bother. Like a lot of other hobbies, people can get very consumeristic. This is what a consumeristic version of homelabbing looks like. This shouldn't stop you or anyone else from building a humble homelab that can do almost all of what OPs home network does. The key is to test where your network has bottlenecks. I've iperf tested my network exhaustively and frequently look at kernel counters and other things to make sure that my network is performing up to spec, but that's a lot less fun than buying lots of cool networking gear. Much like you don't need an F-150 to get around day-to-day, maybe even just a bike :)

adrian_b 3y ago
> I do a lot of similar stuff in my home network with a lot less equipment. This is also my case. For Internet access, I use a router which has 4 2.5 GbE ports for the internal LAN, which was made several years ago with an Intel NUC and 4 USB Ethernet dongles, but which could be done today with a small and cheap fanless router using an "Alder Lake N" Intel N100 or N200 CPU. There are also such small routers with more 2.5 GbE ports for the internal LAN, e.g. 6 or 8. That router implements a lot of network services, including DNS servers for my domain and my own e-mail server. I also have 5 servers that are interconnected by a 10 GbE subnetwork, but that is done without external switches. Each server has a dual-port 10 Gb/s NIC and they are interconnected directly, in a ring. The servers are normally powered off. Whenever needed, I power on the first of them through Wake-on-Ethernet. Through it, I can power on, also using Wake-on-Ethernet, as many of the others as needed.

ryan-c 3y ago

I am not running serious network gear right now due to power, which is ruinously expensive in the UK to the extent that I find myself longing for PG&E's rates in California. Currently having a house remodeled, which I'm putting as much solar (and battery) on as possible, and the gas is being removed entirely. Going to try not to use more than the system can generate, though I am not sure I'll be successful.

Gareth321 3y ago

In many U.S. states, their primary energy generation is nuclear. This is extremely environmentally friendly, meaning no issues with OP using a bunch of power. We really need to stop demonising the use of energy. Energy is amazing. It is the reason we have seen to much prosperity in so little time. It's the backbone of our economies. Of medicine and the internet and EVs and well insulated homes. We should be doing everything we can to make energy cheaper, enabling more people to use more energy. Few things have been as damaging for climate activism than the war on energy. It's unnecessary and misses the point of the entire movement: saving the environment. Focus on cleaner sources of energy rather than demonising people using energy.

Karrot_Kream 3y ago
It's not about the energy for me. A lot of these posts make networking and homelabs seem like a dark art that only folks with tons of space, capital, and time can get into. Networking is anything but, it's about sending a packet of data over a wire! But when we glorify these elaborate, expensive setups, we not only lose focus on what the goal of a network should be (to satisfy needs for its users), we also discourage newcomers from tinkering with networks which to me is the bigger crime.
- gwbrooks 3y ago
  Or -- hear me out -- you entice newcomers who want a big ol' rack of boxes and wires. Like me.
  - Karrot_Kream 3y ago
    I guess that wouldn't have enticed me at all. The minimalism of networking is what interested me in it in the first place decades ago as a kid.
b3orn 3y ago
I looked it up, 5 US states get the majority of their electricity from nuclear power, 4 from wind, 3 from hydro. The other states use coal, natural gas and petroleum. Source: https://www.nei.org/resources/statistics/state-electricity-generation-fuel-shares https://www.nei.org/resources/statistics/state-electricity-g...

amadsen 3y ago

Sigh. This is a guy who is clearly passionate about his hobby and was excited to share it with us. Leave it to hn to shit all over it. Some people fly to Africa and shoot elephants for fun - as far as hobbies go, this is fairly benign. If you care about the environment, I mean actually care, then you should recognize that policing how many computers someone have in their closet is counterproductive. I don't buy the "every little bit helps" argument because there is always an opportunity cost. Attention spans are limited and focusing on this non-issue does nothing but draw attention away from things that actually matter like meat consumption and fossil fuels.

true_religion 3y ago

My entire region runs on hydro, so even if I had a home lab x10 the size of this it wouldn't have the same environmental impact as someone who ran a laptop with power from a coal plant. You can't tell from a blog post if what he's doing is good or bad for the environment. And further more, its unfair to tell people that they shouldn't improve their niche skills when those same skills are what they use for employment.

bliteben 3y ago

Yeah pics did make it look like he could use a smaller truck

matheusmoreira 3y ago

You do realize you're posting this self-righteous comment from a computer that was in all likelihood manufactured in China, right? I wonder how many tons of coal were burned to manufacture it. I wonder how many western developed nation comforts you're unwilling to give up while you "categorize" people on the internet based on the constructive activities they choose to engage in with their own time and money.

vagab0nd 3y ago

Yes, we should care about the environment. No, we should not be using less energy, but more. The way we use energy is the reason why it hurts the environment, not the amount of energy. I think this mindset is hurting our ability to innovate.

monstermunch 3y ago

Its really disturbing how whiney Europeans (I assume you are) are with their superiority complexes. I don't even know why I'm replying to you, but here we go So I should ditch all this and rely on cloud services I guess. Cloud services are hosted in magic land where they don't use any power, right? If you use any cloud services, you are just as bad as me. I have 17kw of solar on the roof. As we type this, I'm exporting 10kw of power back to the grid. I generate enough solar to completely cover all of my electricity usage, and during the night when I'm pulling from the grid, my power plan is sourced 100% from wind or solar. All of this is my hobby, but also helps me learn skills for my job. That job is 100% work from home, which means I don't drive pretty much at all. I'm sorry my F150 offends you, which has less than 10,000 miles on the clock despite being 5 years old. That same F150 also gets better miles per gallon than a lot of regular cars on the road. My wifes Ford Escape (A compact "SUV" if you can call it that" gets worse milage than my truck. But I'm sure if you saw a Ford Escape, you'd be fine with it right? Where in the post did I say how much power all this uses? You said "power... so much power" yet you don't even know how much power it uses... I won't even go into detail how I've removed over 1000sqft of concrete on my property, how I've planted an 800sqft native wildflower meadow, have a bat house, use rainwater for plants, etc etc. But no I'm just such a terrible American. Grow up.

archon810 3y ago
I'm 100% with you. Would love to see photos of those meadow and bat house, they sound lovely.
- monstermunch 3y ago
  Here are some images of the meadow: https://files.networkprofile.org/s/86FzBHYfNwHyXTY https://files.networkprofile.org/s/86FzBHYfNwHyXTY Its not quite as green as that right now, since we have a pretty bad drought here in Houston, but it will come back. I had to make the small fence as it just kept trying to spread out. The fence is made from scrap 2x4's ripped down the middle to make 2x2's, and the rails are old scrap cedar pickets pressure washed and ripped down This is the seed mix: https://www.dkseeds.com/shop/flkbee-website-king-s-feed-the-b-s-mix-1286#attr=205 https://www.dkseeds.com/shop/flkbee-website-king-s-feed-the-... I'll have to take some pictures of the bat house, maybe I should just make a post on all this, maybe that will please them