At this point we already know that one of the advantages of having a Mini PC is its very low consumption. We can use them sporadically and we will hardly notice their incidence on the electricity bill, but what happens if we have it connected 24 hours a day?
Our colleagues at Hardzone have configured an old Mini PC as a server and have carried out measurements to calculate what the approximate monthly consumption would be and its impact on the electricity bill if we left it on 24/7.
Advantages of creating your server
Most of the users purchase a Mini PC with the intention of making a desktop PC with low power consumption and cheaper initial cost. However, they also have an immediate utility, especially on devices with already old hardware: turning them into a server. Turning the Mini PC into a file server is like having our own personal mini cloud to store all our digital files and sync them.
Mini PCs are really comfortable to use due to their small size and have some advantages such as low consumption compared to a normal desktop computer.
Setting one up as a server is a possibility, so when you need a device connected 24 hours a day, you might think that this is going to be a fairly high supplement to your electricity bill, but nothing is further from the truth.
Monthly cost on the electricity bill
Taking as an example a Mini PC with a TDP (thermal design power) of 35 watts, we are going to calculate an average of how much extra would be paid on the electricity bill to have this hardware acting as a server.
With the Mini PC running, but with nothing more connected than the necessary network cable (without peripherals or monitor), a wall measurement can give us a result of 14 watts in these conditions.
With the measurement of 14 watts, we can start to do the math. These assume a consumption of 0.014 kWh, which, being permanently on, translates into 0.336 kWh. Therefore, per month we would have to multiply by 30 and this would be 10.08 kWh per month.
Obviously, the price of energy varies a lot and there is a wide variety of rates, so we are going to take as a reference a rate without hourly discrimination in which you pay 0.174 euros/kWh with VAT included. Making the final calculation, having this Mini PC as a server on 24/7 costs us approximately 1.75 euros per month while the average consumption of 14 watts is maintained.
