Hi,
i have built my first Diy home server It is a quad core processor, with 5 drives and a 650 watt
power supply. I its main purpose is to stream movies to my PCH. Also I am thinking of running
Mcontrol off it as well, right now it runs 24x7 if I decide not to go with the home automation
would I be better off shutting it down at night. This toy set my back $1600 and I want to right by it.

Regards,

Don

I've always left all of my computers on 24/7. I personally believe there's less wear and tear on the moving parts if they don't have to stop and re-start every day.

Hi Don, you don't know me, how much money do you have to send me each month? You appear to be suggesting you have too much money on your hands....

You've got a 650 watt power supply, running most likely 12 or more hours each day when you are not using it, costing you real money. If you like paying your power company then sure keep it on 24/7 they will appreciate it, I believe. It is one thing to keep it on because you are using it, and another just to do it. That power supply is almost the equivalent of running eleven light bulbs 24 hours a day... There is an environmental cost to doing that, perhaps your children will pay. Perhaps not.

Don't you enjoy the concept of less wear by running it longer, more... Just how long ago was it that you experience having a computer wear out on you, as opposed to becoming "old'? Being hooked to the power lines 24/7 simply increases the chances of a power surge in my experience. It does nothing to lessen it. Personally I've yet to have a computer fail because of a power surge while sitting in it's box. Nor has it been hacked into while setting in the box. No virus infestations occur there either. Want to put your computer at risk? Turn it on and connect it to the Internet.

Opinions will vary widely on this discussion!

First, a 650 watt PS does NOT mean it actually draws 650 watts if the power requirements of all the components are less than that. Granted, there is probably more residual power consumed by a larger supply but not to the full 650.

Spin up/down and thermal cycling do contribute to aging of components. Power costs money. Computers cost money. 24/7 operation provides convenience for many applications; it is generally a necessity for home security. Whether it is required for home automation is a function of what is being automated. We all have budgets (but they vary widely). We all care about the environment. I could go on...

The point is that this is an individual decision.

My EX475 operates 24/7 as it provides security and home automation. Unless we are traveling my (wife's) laptop is on 24/7 because it is a royal PITA to wait for it to boot up. (This is a very basic machine !) I shut down the sound and displays on my desktop machine but it is generally on 24/7 EXCEPT when we know we will not be accessing it remotely when traveling. (I generally access this remotely from the laptop when traveling rather than running applications on the laptop. I find I get MUCH better performance and useability with this configuration.) My DIY WHS (test) unit only runs when I want it for something. Ditto a Linux PC that I "play" with. No kids machines to worry about. When/if I go the HTPC route I expect to power it off when not in use.

I balance MY PERCEPTION of need and convenience against both MY short and long term financial considerations.

You need to do the same.

_________________
....JBick

EX475, 2 GB, LE-1640
PC1: Vista-->W7 Ultimate/32, (D-Drive RAID-5 Array)
PC2: Lenovo Laptop, Win XP Home SP3
2xLinksys WRT54G v1.1 and 2xNetGear GS105 Gbit switch

I have considered the various options as well

I in the end decided to leave it on. HP475. I checked via a meter and The server along with my router and a switch consume around 60W

I also have my main quad pc and 22 inch monitor connected to the same outlet
As of now all of this including the server is consuming 158W. or 111 KWH
(I am running a 650W corsair power supply in the quad core PC)
No doubt this goes up when I use the PC hard

ern

_________________
[size=65]HP X510 5TB
HP MicroServer N36L
HP EX470 v3.0 Software. 2x500gb HD and 1x1tb HD, LE-1640 2.7Ghz
Macbook Air, Mac Mini
Viewbook Win8.1 Laptop
Acer Revo W7 PC for recording TV

I usually suggest the following:
If you won't be using your PC for at least 3-4 hours or so, you better turn it off. I think the wearing of stop/start is less than wearing while it's working non-stop for 4 hours or more.
My drives are set to spin down after 6 hours of inactivity on my NAS. When I go out for at least 5 days, I shutdown my NAS box completely.
My laptop (busy machine) is going to sleep after 2 hours of inactivity (if it's 2 hours idle, that means I felt asleep).

Not mentioning saving on my electricity bill.

First, All my measurements indicate a peak wattage load is acheived at startup and it is usually higher than running the machine with a heavy processor load. Second, most cases I have experienced says components usually fail at startup rather than running. That said, if you can handle the small out of pocket expense of 24/7 running, do it. Some variations on that depend on the components used. If you use server caliber components then there is less risk of short term failure on a 24/7 regiment. Many retail components are not designed for 24/7 operation. If you are using retail components then some variation of shutdown for long term idle combined with putting components to sleep for periods of low usage is appropriate.

_________________
HP EX470, 4 GIG, 4200+ EE SFF, WHS V1, Production
HP EX485, 4 GIG, E5800, WHS 2011, Stablebit Drive Pool, Transfer Server, Backup Server
HP EX490, 4 GIG, Q9400S, WHS 2011, Stablebit Drive Pool, Mediaserver
HP EX485, 4 GIG, Q8200S, WHS 2011, ITUNES Server

I normally shut down the three computers in my house, but I've always left on my NAS (NSLU2). I will keep my newly purchased EX470 on 24hrs too. I put a Kill-O-Watt on it and it was using 56w at idle and less than 80 with the CPU at 100% util. Less than 50 with one drive at idle.

What surprised me most was that a Dell PowerEdge T110 with two drives was only using ~60w at idle. I figured it would be well over 100w.

Lake_rat,
When you say "idle".. do you mean idle when hard drives are spun down, or idle when everything is spinning?

When I'm too lazy to turn off my NAS when I'm gone for the weekend, my drives don't spin and that's what I usually call "idle".
I think should've measure it at some point just for curiosity, but I mostly do it to minimize wearing when I'm off for several days.

Thing is that WHS checks the balance every hour. That starts up the disks. At one time I considered setting the power options up to spin them down after 10 minutes of inactivity but found that then there were delays when I wanted something. Put it all back at the default.

By definition, "idle" woutd be with the disks at rest. In reality that rarely happens.

_________________
....JBick

EX475, 2 GB, LE-1640
PC1: Vista-->W7 Ultimate/32, (D-Drive RAID-5 Array)
PC2: Lenovo Laptop, Win XP Home SP3
2xLinksys WRT54G v1.1 and 2xNetGear GS105 Gbit switch

I did not know that. I have FreeNAS and don't use WHS at all.
Can you turn off that feature or make it less often?

Demigrator.exe can be turned off, but must be turned back on manually, but there is no way to schedule it at different times other than the once every hour run. It's one of the main features of WHS and the Drive Extender / duplication feature. The only time it's a problem for some is during video streaming. Sometimes, demigrator.exe will kick in while watching a movie and the movie will start stuttering or stop. All goes back to normal when balancing is finished.

Seems like a hardware RAID controller is the only way to have drives redundant. Although, that may be too expensive and kill the whole idea of WHS.
Or your own software solution something similar to rsync.. Still not a pretty way to work around it.

Not so sue I would agree with that RAID comment. Yes, DEMIGRATOR.EXE does get scheduled, it does run and it cannot be scheduled to the user parameters or easily paused. But it IS automatic, it DOES work and it has MANY advantages over RAID. I'm not going to repeat all those here, but a little time with SEARCH will get you to several of the places we've discussed this before.

"Sync" solutions are fine -- but they need to be set up AND maintained. WHS DE is automatic.

_________________
....JBick

EX475, 2 GB, LE-1640
PC1: Vista-->W7 Ultimate/32, (D-Drive RAID-5 Array)
PC2: Lenovo Laptop, Win XP Home SP3
2xLinksys WRT54G v1.1 and 2xNetGear GS105 Gbit switch

CaveDiver When you say DE can be killed, please ellaborate.
Is this a service or an EXE.
I have a good deal of experience stopping and starting services on need.
And don't really see much dificulty in EXE's either.
Should be easy enough to script the starts and stops, and use Task Scheduler to do the rest.
Perhaps that would allow a power hungry system to sleep a little longer, and also not Balance at prime viewing times.

My concern is if the MSS is in the middle of a balance and you stop the service.
Will it cause corruption.
I can put this together and post it tomorrow if someone wants to test it.

This also begs the question why there not a Scheduled DE addon.

_________________
Current DIY server DL380 G6 2xquad core 2.8ghz 32GB rdimm ram 512mb 2xHP 410 raid with 2x sas expanders (2 X norco RPC-4220) 48 slots stacked with room to grow.
30TB (Movie/File/Music)Win 2012 essentials 64bit Storage spaces
Ex490 E6400 4gb ram