[HECnet] Apparently good news from VSI

[Fred]

On Wed, 22 Apr 2020, Robert Armstrong wrote:

>  Define "too" and "bad" :)   I have a DS20E (a really nice system BTW) and
> it uses about 300W on a good day.  Of course, it has two CPUs, 4GB of RAM
> and four SCSI drives.

My DS10 costs approximately $10/month to run 24/7, and most likely less. 
I could get a more accurate measurement with a wattmeter.  (Around here in 
Ohio, I pay around 6.5cents per kWh)  My usual electric bill, unless it is 
a very hot summer when the AC is on, is around $130 a month, give or take.

I do have lots of 220 availble in my new addition in case I land something 
that requires it.  I had to turn down (before the addition) a big piece of 
IBM gear because it wanted 220, and I had none, other than the dryer plug, 
and no room for adding it in the panel.  The new addition has its own 
100-amp panel and lots of empty slots.

>   OTOH, I have an Intel Atom fanless server with an SSD thingie that runs
> Ubuntu and several simh instances.  It can simulate a MicroVAX, a KS10 and a
> PDP-11, all probably faster than the original hardware, and uses only about
> 15W.

I've done this with my router (fan less, with SSD) and Asterisk (PBX) 
systems to reduce their power consumption - SSD and the less fans and 
spinning things, the better.  My new server has NVMe for the OS drive, 
regular hard drives for data (more total space, but less physical drives 
for the RAID).

I daydream about solar being more affordable.  I'd cover every inch of my 
roof(s) with them so I could run more gear.

Fred