RetroFed Forum
Your home away from modern life.
What is your self hosted power draw?
Post Reply
AuthorMessage
roofuskit lemmy.world roofuskit@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-11-03
Quote

Selfhosters what is the power draw of your entire setup? And have you done anything special to manage it you'd like to share?

Including all network equipment I use around 110kWh of good ol' 120V 60Hz USA juice per month. Averaging about 215 watts of power draw for my systems. Nothing amazing, but I like to think that it's a conservative setup for everything I accomplish with it. I'm paying around $25 a month for my setup. None of that includes my work PC or personal PC, just hosting infrastructure.

Other than trying to make sure all power states are available on my server I haven't done a lot of power conservation.

I'm curious what you all have.

107   Original
CameronDev programming.dev CameronDev@programming.dev
Joined: 2023-06-18
#2 · Quote Reply

NAS sits at 24w idle. Security cams are drawing 19w of poe power, but I suspect there is a bit more being used in total. I have another NUC using probably around 24w max.

I'll slap some power meters on the switches and main nuc and try get some more accurate numbers.

14
tofu lemmy.nocturnal.garden tofu@lemmy.nocturnal.garden
Joined: 2025-03-04
#3 · Quote Reply

65W for

  • two Lenovo tiny proxmox nodes, each with nvme + SATA SSD + second NIC
  • two switches (5/8 port)
  • PCengine APU running OpnSense
  • Raspi4 with Zigbee antenna
  • Mini PC + JBOD (4 SSD in total)
  • Small OpenDTU device

Keeping power consumption low was my design goal, but I eventually added the secondary NICs and additional switch for Proxmox replication and management traffic.

12
StrawberryPigtails discuss.tchncs.de StrawberryPigtails@discuss.tchncs.de
Joined: 2026-02-14
#4 · Quote Reply

Currently, 2 servers and 2 3d printers, I'm running just over 200w at idle. Depending on what my printers and servers are doing at any given moment, it could go up to 2000w, total, but I haven't seen that high a power draw since I stopped contributing to Boinc projects about a year ago. I remember finding it mildly amusing that my graphics cards had a higher power draw then my printers.

4
ShellMonkey piefed.socdojo.com ShellMonkey@piefed.socdojo.com
Joined: 2025-09-09
#5 · Quote Reply

Way too damn much, around 700w between 4 rack servers and associated gear

21
dieTasse feddit.org dieTasse@feddit.org
Joined: 2025-02-24
#6 · Quote Reply

My nas takes about 40 Wh. And my network machine (proxmox + openwrt) about 20 Wh. When I upgraded my nas a year ago it was actually drawing twice as much, I have since then switched to more efficient processor (amd from normal to E) and I took out graphic card that I didn't use.
I could have in theory merge those two, but I wanted to separate networking from nas+apps.
I don't know how much my smart devices take but I don't have many so it can be up to 50 Wh total maybe. But that is more smart home than self hosting 😀

5
patruelis lemmy.world patruelis@lemmy.world
Joined: 2025-11-06
#7 · Quote Reply

Way too damn much, around 700w between 4 rack servers and associated gear

Wow, that's quite a bit.

16
dmtalon infosec.pub dmtalon@infosec.pub
Joined: 2023-07-10
#8 · Quote Reply

NAS running ~15 docker (frigate, nextcloud, immich, plex etc), two windows VMs one is managing my NAS backups to cloud.

Couple RPIs one does Home assistant, one does pihole and weewx.

All my Network gear, and poe for APs and a few of my cameras,

2 x 12 channel whole house amps fed by 11 Chromecast audios (that's going to be a disaster one day)

That "idles" just under 300w but can obviously jump all over.

Rest of my security cameras are poe from another location (since I couldn't get the network drops back to the server room for the majority of the cameras, uses another 65w , but that's a bit misleading as it is picking up other things since it's not as isolated.

3
civ lemmy.civl.cc civ@lemmy.civl.cc
Joined: 2025-12-16
#9 · Quote Reply

Around 90 Watts for modem, server (which includes router VM), network switch and access point. It runs on solar most of the time

7
Alexica lemmy.world Alexica@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-07-13
#10 · Quote Reply

Around 300wh.

  • router
  • sw with 4 poe cams
  • 2 minipcs as servers
  • pc used as nas with truenas
3
ShellMonkey piefed.socdojo.com ShellMonkey@piefed.socdojo.com
Joined: 2025-09-09
#11 · Quote Reply

Wow, that's quite a bit.

If I recall right off hand it's 92 cores, 64+8+8+12 between them. Been looking to merge a couple of the smaller ones into the others but it's not a small task.

8
yaroto98 lemmy.world yaroto98@lemmy.world
Joined: 2025-08-10
#12 · Quote Reply

Just checked my ups. Looks like I'm currently drawing 125W. That's a NAS, 3 laptops, router, modem, AP, bookshelf pc, and switch.

2
Err(()).unwrap() lemmy.world rtxn@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-06-24
#13 · Quote Reply

i3-4160 running Proxmox (OPNSense VM and a couple of containers) with 3 spinny drives and no GPU, TP-Link 8x GbE switch, ASUS AX1800 as a Wifi AP, ISP's own manky cable modem, plus a UPS eats about 66-72 watts at the wall socket. If I install a passively cooled GT-710 for transcoding, it adds 10-15 watts at idle.

3
litchralee sh.itjust.works litchralee@sh.itjust.works
Joined: 2023-07-02
#14 · Quote Reply

My network and server setup eat about 200 W, split right down the middle. I have plans to cut the network consumption by replacing the PoE switch, so that I can use the savings to add another server.

So it'll still be about 200 W, but more useful.

2
tychosmoose lemmy.world tychosmoose@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-06-14
#15 · Quote Reply

90w here, so 65kwh/mo. Tinyminimicro server. Three pi (5, 4, 3B), fiber gateway, Mikrotik router, switch and two APs. Plus power gear (managed PDU and UPS).

4
a1studmuffin aussie.zone a1studmuffin@aussie.zone
Joined: 2023-06-11
#16 · Quote Reply

Around 150W for UPS, Mikrotik router, Pi 4, Proxmox/TrueNAS server with 8x SAS drives. Without the SAS drives I'd be closer to 50W, but how else am I going to heat up my cupboard? I got the SAS drives at a bargain price thankfully... I estimate about AUD300/year in electricity.

3
sakphul discuss.tchncs.de sakphul@discuss.tchncs.de
Joined: 2025-06-23
#17 · Quote Reply

Just checked my UPS. It sits at 105W for:

  • HP Mini PC
  • Synology 4 Bay NAS
  • DrayTek Router
  • Mikrotik 16 Port Switch
  • PoE Switch
  • 3 AP's
  • 1 Raspberry Pi 3B
  • 2 NanoKVM
2
Azazel lemmy.ml Azazel@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2026-08-24
#18 · Quote Reply

If btop is to be believed my server pulls a tiny 1.5W on idle. Given everyone else’s numbers I’m wondering if that’s true of btop is confused. It’s an old optiplex 3050.

Regardless my main rig which is regularly running expensive simulations is often ~200W so my server and home labbing is a rounding error

1
Sammirr aussie.zone Sammirr@aussie.zone
Joined: 2024-06-03
#19 · Quote Reply

About 230w at idle with 3 servers, 2 routers, switch with PoE for umpteen devices, 16 spinning hdds.

3
cmnybo discuss.tchncs.de cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de
Joined: 2023-06-11
#20 · Quote Reply

My UPS says 116 watts right now, but it's probably not particularly accurate. That's running my pfSense box, NAS, switch, 2 access points, Starlink and a mini PC. That's with minimal disk and internet activity. My CCTV cameras and DVR use another 30 W in the day and 50 W at night.

1
LastYearsIrritant sopuli.xyz LastYearsIrritant@sopuli.xyz
Joined: 2025-02-20
#21 · Quote Reply

I can't believe I'm the lowest power draw at 50w. I thought that was pretty high.

That includes all my network hardware, my NAS, and my server. Basically everything that is "always on"

22
LastYearsIrritant sopuli.xyz LastYearsIrritant@sopuli.xyz
Joined: 2025-02-20
#22 · Quote Reply

If btop is to be believed my server pulls a tiny 1.5W on idle. Given everyone else’s numbers I’m wondering if that’s true of btop is confused. It’s an old optiplex 3050. Regardless my main rig which is regularly running expensive simulations is often ~200W so my server and home labbing is a rounding error

Unlikely, as it isn't being measured from the outlet. That being said, an idle server technically could be that low, but literally every part would have to be the most efficient version of what it is, and almost nothing happening on the server.

There are USB chargers that use more than that sitting at idle.

3
neidu4 piefed.social neidu4@piefed.social
Joined: 2026-09-10
#23 · (edited) Quote Reply

Around 700W on low load, almost idle. Haven't had the chance to test it at full load yet.

It sits in my basement, so the waste heat is actually useful this time of year. Even more so when my basement would otherwise be freezing.

I plan on implementing scheduling where the two most power hungry servers are powered down and up as needed. The other two take almost nothing.

Also, the UPS supports a green mode that is a lot more efficient but with a downside of output side dropping out a few ms during switchover. This removes any conversion loss. I haven't tested whether my hardware can tolerate it yet, so for now I'm living with the conversion loss.

My house is powered by cheap hydroelectric supply, generated in a mountain roughly 5km from my house, so I'm not worried.

5
Azazel lemmy.ml Azazel@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2026-08-24
#24 · Quote Reply

Unlikely, as it isn't being measured from the outlet. That being said, an idle server technically could be that low, but literally every part would have to be the most efficient version of what it is, and almost nothing happening on the server. There are USB chargers that use more than that sitting at idle.

Yeah that was my feeling. It seemed unrealistically low.

2
Creat discuss.tchncs.de Creat@discuss.tchncs.de
Joined: 2023-06-16
#25 · (edited) Quote Reply

My various servers, firewall and nas are relatively power optimized. Everything including switches (most with some 10g ports) and access points is 160 W or so combined. I can't give you monthly usage, as I've got solar+battery so it's frequently just 0 kWh for some days. It's also rather hard to separate from the other power usage in the house when solar doesn't fit cover it.

1
InEnduringGrowStrong sh.itjust.works InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works
Joined: 2023-06-22
#26 · Quote Reply

I can't believe I'm the lowest power draw at 50w. I thought that was pretty high. That includes all my network hardware, my NAS, and my server. Basically everything that is "always on"

I mean, my phone charges at 60W. Granted, it's not charging 24/7 but 50W is pretty good indeed.

8
ParlimentOfDoom piefed.zip ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip
Joined: 2025-09-26
#27 · Quote Reply

Server PC has a mean draw of ~46W

2
Decronym Bot Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyz
Joined: 2026-01-05
#28 · (edited) Quote Reply

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters More Letters
AP WiFi Access Point
ISP Internet Service Provider
NAS Network-Attached Storage
NUC Next Unit of Computing brand of Intel small computers
NVR Network Video Recorder (generally for CCTV)
Plex Brand of media server package
PoE Power over Ethernet
RAID Redundant Array of Independent Disks for mass storage
RPi Raspberry Pi brand of SBC
SATA Serial AT Attachment interface for mass storage
SBC Single-Board Computer
SSD Solid State Drive mass storage
ZFS Solaris/Linux filesystem focusing on data integrity
Zigbee Wireless mesh network for low-power devices
nginx Popular HTTP server

14 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 17 acronyms.

[Thread #128 for this comm, first seen 13th Oct 2026, 23:00]
[FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

2
bolapara lemmy.ml bolapara@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2023-06-03
#29 · Quote Reply

~500W continuous, ~625W peak. To reduce this further I'd really need to start consolidating hardware. I do have one system that could be replaced with something more modern and would probably drop 20-30W. And my fileserver is a bit overkill as well so there could be improvements there.

3
Arda piefed.social Arda@piefed.social
Joined: 2026-09-10
#30 · (edited) Quote Reply

homelab running linux mint with about 60 docker containers about 45w, meassured at the socket (2HDD)

6
Joelk111 lemmy.world Joelk111@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-07-01
#31 · (edited) Quote Reply

About 300-400 watts. I should put it on a smart plug to track it over time. I have a NAS with 16 HDDs, an outdated super overkill switch that I should replace to save some power, and a few old laptops.

It also might use some more power while transcoding for my PeerTube Instance or Jellyfin, and I have my desktop set up as a remote runner for the PeerTube Instance, so that uses some additional power.

6
achsonaja lemmy.world achsonaja@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-07-01
#32 · Quote Reply

About 100w on average for a nuc, 4 bay nas (only 3 in use), 4 poe cameras, AP, 2 switches, IP kvm, and the ups. Pretty happy with how little that seems to be for the amount there.

1
michaelharley infosec.pub michaelharley@infosec.pub
Joined: 2026-04-01
#33 · (edited) Quote Reply

About 113 kWh (155w) for me. I have 2 Intel NUC type devices, with two drive enclosures. Plus my networking equipment which include POE cameras.

2
Brkdncr lemmy.world Brkdncr@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-11-21
#34 · Quote Reply

I’m drawing 4.474kWh per day on average, and drew 139 kWh over the last month.

I have EcoFlow batteries on both A and B PDUs.

Stuff that can be powered off (mining, redundant power supplies) gets the wall outlet feeding ups b and pdu B turned off at 4pm and turned back on at 9pm to align with my time of use rate plan.

7
Maroon lemmy.world Maroon@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-11-15
#35 · Quote Reply

My server is a OnePlus5T running Post marketOS. It runs AdGuardHime, a Static Website, nginx, and Anubis.

8
mesa piefed.social mesamunefire@piefed.social
Joined: 2024-12-27
#36 · Quote Reply

5 w for the machine. I think the router is 20w.

6
mlg lemmy.world mlg@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-07-29
#37 · (edited) Quote Reply

I can trip the measly 15 amp breaker by drawing 1.5kW on two servers + turning on an amplifier that is somehow on the same circuit despite being in a different room quite far from where my servers are lol.

On average though I only draw like 350W. The huge spike only happens if I run a miner/llm on both of my servers or the during the startup spike.

The 1kW chunk comes from some RTX Quadro 6000s which each eat 250W each when maxxed out.

EDIT: Want to mention that most machines report their power draw (from mobo) without IPMI, so you can use your favorite stats collector use it to form a rough estimate of kWh total in case you don't have a proper meter that records usage.

2
AustralianSimon lemmy.world AustralianSimon@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-06-08
#38 · (edited) Quote Reply

When nothing (no a/c, washer, work PCs off, etc) is running my house power draw is about 500-800w. So my battery keeps things going until the next day.

Edit: just checked and whole house is 350W this evening.

3
jaschen306 sh.itjust.works jaschen306@sh.itjust.works
Joined: 2025-06-09
#39 · Quote Reply

Too much.

38watts and spikes to 65watts from my Synology. My gaming laptop turn proxmox can spike to 350watts but normally sits at 50-75watts.

5
aurion piefed.aurionblack.com aurion@piefed.aurionblack.com
Joined: 2026-10-13
#40 · Quote Reply

Normally my power sensor connected to my server rack hovers around 150 watts.

I’ve got mini hp pc, 2 HDD bay UGREEN NAS, ubiquity cloud Max router, home assistant green, 2 switches with Poe (2 WiFi AP, raspberry pi, and a mesh radio), and a dell r340.

I also have a dell t310 I’m using as a proxmox backup server that powers on every day around 2am to do backups. The power shoots up to 360 watts when that happens 😅

1
airgapped piefed.social airgapped@piefed.social
Joined: 2025-03-29
#41 · Quote Reply

If btop is to be believed my server pulls a tiny 1.5W on idle. Given everyone else’s numbers I’m wondering if that’s true of btop is confused. It’s an old optiplex 3050. Regardless my main rig which is regularly running expensive simulations is often ~200W so my server and home labbing is a rounding error

That is showing just CPU power draw. I have a minipc that sips 2W idle according to onboard stats but wall meter shows 18W.

2
GreenKnight23 lemmy.world GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
Joined: 2024-09-21
#42 · Quote Reply

last I checked it was at 2.5kwh so now it's probably around 3.5kwh

1
Faceman🇦🇺 discuss.tchncs.de Faceman2K23@discuss.tchncs.de
Joined: 2023-06-11
#43 · Quote Reply

On average it's about 4kwh per day. I'm effectively off grid most of the time so the cost of electricity is irrelevant unless I go way overboard during a week of rain or something and I have to draw from the grid.

I am about to move from an 18ru rack to 45.. So.. Might be some expansion in the future.

4
iocase lemmy.zip iocase@lemmy.zip
Joined: 2026-05-11
#44 · (edited) Quote Reply

I can trip the measly 15 amp breaker by drawing 1.5kW on two servers + turning on an amplifier that is somehow on the same circuit despite being in a different room quite far from where my servers are lol. On average though I only draw like 350W. The huge spike only happens if I run a miner/llm on both of my servers or the during the startup spike. The 1kW chunk comes from some RTX Quadro 6000s...

I'm in the same boat and i rent the place. Both bedrooms are on the same breaker and I'm upgrading my GPU (215W to 415W) and might get a Mi50 as a second card in my desktop for local LLMs.

At full power on both machines i'm already close to tripping the breaker. Witj these new card(s) i don't think it'll fly. My server uses around 700W at max, 450W idle if it's nice and cool in the spare room. Mostly due to loooots of spinning rust. I'm a datahoarder and have a full 18 disk 3.5" JBOD, and 24/25 drives in my 2.5" JBOD.

I'll figure something out I guess...

2
potustheplant feddit.nl potustheplant@feddit.nl
Joined: 2023-08-29
#45 · (edited) Quote Reply

Too much. 38watts and spikes to 65watts from my Synology. My gaming laptop turn proxmox can spike to 350watts but normally sits at 50-75watts.

Kinda pointless to conpare power draw without saying what hw you're running. There's a big difference between a system with 1 ssd and another one with 12 hdds.

1
nibbs lemmy.zip nibbs@lemmy.zip
Joined: 2026-07-29
#46 · Quote Reply

Usually around 205 W from the wall to UPS and 155 W used by devices connected to the UPS.

2
antsu discuss.tchncs.de antsu@discuss.tchncs.de
Joined: 2025-09-05
#47 · Quote Reply

Around 400W, including switches and access points.

2
Onomatopoeia lemmy.cafe Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe
Joined: 2025-01-02
#48 · Quote Reply

On average it's about 4kwh per day. I'm effectively off grid most of the time so the cost of electricity is irrelevant unless I go way overboard during a week of rain or something and I have to draw from the grid. I am about to move from an 18ru rack to 45.. So.. Might be some expansion in the future.

Wow, off grid and you pull that much.

Impressive.

1
eleitl lemmy.zip eleitl@lemmy.zip
Joined: 2025-06-05
#49 · Quote Reply

If I fire up everything in the rack it's several kilowatts. Probably more than a 230 V wall socket can handle.

Usually it's way less, though right now it's just a switch and the router/firewall, mere 57 W.

I make most of my own net power with solar PV, soon 4 kWp in total.

3
tburkhol slrpnk.net tburkhol@slrpnk.net
Joined: 2026-05-01
#50 · Quote Reply

I can't believe I'm the lowest power draw at 50w. I thought that was pretty high. That includes all my network hardware, my NAS, and my server. Basically everything that is "always on"

All these people saying 500, 600, 700+ watts - it's almost hard to believe. My "gaming" computer, with two monitors, peaks around 400W on graphics-heavy games, and the monitors are like 120 of that. I suppose, though, if you're running a server-class CPU, a half dozen HDDs, and a GPU for continuous transcoding or mining, the it wouldn't be too hard to get there.

I run a dozen containers on an N100 with a couple of HDDs, VOIP device, router & cable modem on 63W, and I've considered that a pretty fair deal for a home lab. Of course, that only serves the household - nothing really offered to the public.

8
czardestructo lemmy.world czardestructo@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-06-10
#51 · Quote Reply

My budget is under 100w for 3 servers with a combined 18tb of ssd and 28tb of spinning rust that stays spun down unless I need to so a cold backup.

4
Post Reply Page 1 of 3   Goto page 1, 2, 3 Last »
Back to top