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> Older computers almost always use more electricity than newer ones The differences are marginal; my 7 year old i5 really doesn't use that much more power tha
by arp242 3y ago
> Older computers almost always use more electricity than newer ones
The differences are marginal; my 7 year old i5 really doesn't use that much more power than a modern i5, if it even uses more power in the first place (I don't have a good way to measure this, and with sleep states and whatnot you really need to measure this to be sure).
A few years ago I calculated how much impact it would be if everyone would run a 30W server at their home 24/7; I originally started doing that because someone said that "everyone should just self-host these things at their home", and I wanted to demonstrate that this would have a horrible environmental impact. And turned out my initial thoughts were wrong, and impact was so small that actually, it didn't matter, and I didn't even both posting my comment.
And even if there would be a difference, energy of manufacture tends to outweigh energy usage of usage. There's a long chain of mining, transport, etc. etc. behind all of that I didn't calculate this, but usually the energy differences really do need to be quite substantial to justify the energy usage of manufacture.
Maybe I was horribly wrong and made a mistake; I didn't re-do the calculations for this comment out of laziness. But I do strongly encourage anyone to actually calculate or look up what the impact is, because initial "it's bad for the environment"-feelings could very well be wrong, and no one is served if attention, money, and effort is spent in the wrong places.
- znpy 3y ago> A few years ago I calculated how much impact it would be if everyone would run a 30W server at their home 24/7; I originally started doing that because someone said that "everyone should just self-host these things at their home", and I wanted to demonstrate that this would have a horrible environmental impact. This is non-sensical. Up to ten years ago most lightbulbs consumed 40-60 watts EACH and no one bat an eye. Heck, the cristmas lights on my Christmas tree absorb ~60 watts with the default pattern (i know because i measured it). I had to manually set a light pattern that consumed only 20W. And no one is crying about Christmas lighting. Consuming 30W 24/7 for home is absolutely feasible, all modern homes can do that just by replacing a single old tungsten-based lightbulb with a led one.
- amatecha 3y agoYup, seriously, people think an old 35w laptop is inefficient (???) meanwhile burning 60-100w light bulbs all over their home. Yeah, these days LED light bulbs are becoming more commonplace (8-13w or whatever), but even then, if your laptop consumed the equivalent of a few LED light bulbs I think that's pretty darn acceptable. The AC adapter for this X230 I'm using maxes out at 65w output, which I doubt it often hits due to my light usage and power-efficient configuration. A single light bulb.
- arp242 3y agoI'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say, or even what exactly you're commenting on? It's almost like you stopped reading my post half-way through.
- amatecha 3y agoI think they are agreeing with you that the power usage of running a home server is indeed unconcerning.