Selfhosted

40329 readers

565 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.
No spam posting.
Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.
Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.
Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).
No trolling.

Resources:

selfh.st Newsletter and index of selfhosted software and apps
awesome-selfhosted software
awesome-sysadmin resources
Self-Hosted Podcast from Jupiter Broadcasting

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

HybridSarcasm@lemmy.world

HybridSarcasm@lemmy.hybridsarcasm.xyz

Are those Pico PSUs worth it? (feddit.de)

submitted 1 year ago by agressivelyPassive@feddit.de to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

36 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I have an HP g3 mini and a Dell Optiplex flying around, both similarly specced. The HP has an i5 6500t and 16gb DDR4 RAM, the Dell has 8gb DDR3l, so nothing too different.

However, the Dell draws around 15W while idle, the HP one 5W.

The only difference I could think of (and that is in my power to change) is the PSU. The Dell has one of those SFF PSU for up to 180W while the HP has an external 65W power brick with a barrel jack.

So my question is: Does anyone have experience with one of those Pico PSUs? I guess they should be more efficient? I'm not planning to put anything power hungry into the optiplex.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] psmt@lemmy.pcft.eu 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

10w is +- 87kwh/year. Depending on your electricity cost, it would take 1 to 5 years to gain anything from switching to a picopsu, that's it if you even manage to gain 10w, which is not a certainty.

If you really care about those 10w watts, selling the optiplex and getting a second G3 would be a better option I think.

[–] maiskanzler@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

At current power costs in Germany (~0.3€/kWh) that 10W becomes 26€ per year. If you are still on a contract from a few months ago (~0.4€/kWh), you'll be paying ~35€ per year. Over a span of around 3 to 5 years of continued use, the cheap Aliexpress knockoffs definitely become reasonable at that price point. You'd still need a proper 230V to 12V PSU though, which costs <20€. I first tried one of the industrial ones with metal cage, but they have horrible efficiency especially at low loads. I would always suggest getting a consumer PSU with ErP rating and other certifications. Adding all the cost up, a good regular ATX PSU with 80PLUS certification might be competitive to such a combo too.

I am not too sure this problem is entirely about the PSU though. Maybe the mainboard is simply designed very cheaply and inefficiently. There's no way of testing a new PSU combo without trying it though.