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Help keep server "shut down" as much as possible

MortenMoulder

MortenMoulder

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 20, 2017
34
2
So I am using my old Mac Pro 1,1 as a server. It serves two purposes:
  1. Keep my Amazon Alexa skill running
  2. Run a Plex server
This is not an awful lot at the moment, but after running for two months, I noticed my electric bill increased by about 80%, and I have 3 monitors and a big gaming rig as well. Wattage increase is definitely because of this server. So I have a few things I want:
  1. It should not run during the night unless I turn it on
  2. Should be possible to turn it on outside my LAN
  3. Shutting down is not a good idea, so hibernation/sleep would be prefered (to keep everything open and to save time)
  4. I should be able to say "shut down" whenever I feel like
Maybe there's a smarter solution, which is like "extreme power saving mode", which still keeps the applications running, and then it fires up when someone tries to access it?

I can hook up a small Raspberry Pi just for Wake on LAN, if that is something required. I can also purchase additional hardware to help with this. Basically do anything to keep the server off as much as possible.

Is this possible? Thanks
 
MortenMoulder said:
So I am using my old Mac Pro 1,1 as a server. It serves two purposes:
  1. Keep my Amazon Alexa skill running
  2. Run a Plex server
This is not an awful lot at the moment, but after running for two months, I noticed my electric bill increased by about 80%, and I have 3 monitors and a big gaming rig as well. Wattage increase is definitely because of this server. So I have a few things I want:
  1. It should not run during the night unless I turn it on
  2. Should be possible to turn it on outside my LAN
  3. Shutting down is not a good idea, so hibernation/sleep would be prefered (to keep everything open and to save time)
  4. I should be able to say "shut down" whenever I feel like
Maybe there's a smarter solution, which is like "extreme power saving mode", which still keeps the applications running, and then it fires up when someone tries to access it?

I can hook up a small Raspberry Pi just for Wake on LAN, if that is something required. I can also purchase additional hardware to help with this. Basically do anything to keep the server off as much as possible.

Is this possible? Thanks
Click to expand...
Yep, those things eat some juice.

My recommendations ( and what I did in the same exact order ):
1) Ran twin MacMini headless servers running linux - they are very energy efficient
2) After a couple of years, migrated to offsite servers - host gator, just host, 1&1, blue host.

The cost to effort to uptime ratio seems to be even with off site servers for low hit sites. Plus they have the bonus of being scalable, when you need it.

So, time to give away the 'box' and purchase something more energy efficient for your use case. I agree with the rasberry pi or I'd recommend a single mac mini server.
 
960design said:
Yep, those things eat some juice.

My recommendations ( and what I did in the same exact order ):
1) Ran twin MacMini headless servers running linux - they are very energy efficient
2) After a couple of years, migrated to offsite servers - host gator, just host, 1&1, blue host.

The cost to effort to uptime ratio seems to be even with off site servers for low hit sites. Plus they have the bonus of being scalable, when you need it.

So, time to give away the 'box' and purchase something more energy efficient for your use case. I agree with the rasberry pi or I'd recommend a single mac mini server.
Click to expand...

Yeah sorry, that does not work for me. I'm not looking for an alternative to my server.
 
You're probably running 500-600W on average. For a rough estimate (assuming this is running continuously),

24 hours * 30 days * cost per killowatt hour / 1000.

That should give you an idea of the actual contribution of that machine to your electrical bill.
 
thekev said:
You're probably running 500-600W on average. For a rough estimate (assuming this is running continuously),

24 hours * 30 days * cost per killowatt hour / 1000.

That should give you an idea of the actual contribution of that machine to your electrical bill.
Click to expand...

Calculated around 250-300W. Don't really care though.
 
MortenMoulder said:
Calculated around 250-300W. Don't really care though.
Click to expand...

That's probably about as low as it's going to go. I don't see how you could have a low power mode that keeps applications active. It might opt not to do meaningful work on more than 1 core, but that's about it.
 
thekev said:
You're probably running 500-600W on average. For a rough estimate (assuming this is running continuously),

24 hours * 30 days * cost per killowatt hour / 1000.

That should give you an idea of the actual contribution of that machine to your electrical bill.
Click to expand...

Seems not that much.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201796

The problem is the high idle power consumption. If fact, the 1,1's working power consumption is not that high, if you compare it to the newer model. Of course, for the same power consumption, the 1,1 deliver a lot less performance.

Even though the 6,1 is not quite the "today" standard (it's 3+ years old), but it's idle consumption is just 43W. In contrast, the 1,1 has the highest Mac Pro idle consumption - 171W.

MortenMoulder said:
So I am using my old Mac Pro 1,1 as a server. It serves two purposes:
  1. Keep my Amazon Alexa skill running
  2. Run a Plex server
This is not an awful lot at the moment, but after running for two months, I noticed my electric bill increased by about 80%, and I have 3 monitors and a big gaming rig as well. Wattage increase is definitely because of this server. So I have a few things I want:
  1. It should not run during the night unless I turn it on
  2. Should be possible to turn it on outside my LAN
  3. Shutting down is not a good idea, so hibernation/sleep would be prefered (to keep everything open and to save time)
  4. I should be able to say "shut down" whenever I feel like
Maybe there's a smarter solution, which is like "extreme power saving mode", which still keeps the applications running, and then it fires up when someone tries to access it?

I can hook up a small Raspberry Pi just for Wake on LAN, if that is something required. I can also purchase additional hardware to help with this. Basically do anything to keep the server off as much as possible.

Is this possible? Thanks
Click to expand...

I don't know there is any reliable way to achieve that. Sleep / wake is far from flawless in OSX. It may work well for some users, but totally a nightmare for others.

I know that you are not looking for another server solution. However, if you can hook up a Raspberry Pi, then why don't make it the Plex server?

I don't know how much you actually have to pay for the electricity. However, if that's really expensive, I think it's better to buy a HDD enclosure, tool that up to the Raspberry Pi. So that you can now have a high energy efficiency Plex media server.
 
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MortenMoulder said:
Is this possible? Thanks
Click to expand...
To use an always popular automotive analogy - you want to keep driving your 7 litre 2005 Yukon XL but get the fuel economy of a 2017 Volt.

Not.Possible.

Sell the Yukon XL, get a system designed to use less power. Anything you pay for the new server will soon be recovered in savings on electricity - and doubly so if you have air conditioning.
 
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MortenMoulder said:
So I am using my old Mac Pro 1,1 as a server. It serves two purposes:
  1. Keep my Amazon Alexa skill running
  2. Run a Plex server
This is not an awful lot at the moment, but after running for two months, I noticed my electric bill increased by about 80%, and I have 3 monitors and a big gaming rig as well. Wattage increase is definitely because of this server. So I have a few things I want:
  1. It should not run during the night unless I turn it on
  2. Should be possible to turn it on outside my LAN
  3. Shutting down is not a good idea, so hibernation/sleep would be prefered (to keep everything open and to save time)
  4. I should be able to say "shut down" whenever I feel like
Maybe there's a smarter solution, which is like "extreme power saving mode", which still keeps the applications running, and then it fires up when someone tries to access it?

I can hook up a small Raspberry Pi just for Wake on LAN, if that is something required. I can also purchase additional hardware to help with this. Basically do anything to keep the server off as much as possible.

Is this possible? Thanks
Click to expand...

Sounds like what you want could be achieved by setting a schedule within System Preferences > Energy Saver.

As for turning it on outside your LAN, potentially you could configure LOM and port-forward the relevant ports from your router. Or VPN to another box on your network and turn it on via LOM.
 
Draeconis said:
Sounds like what you want could be achieved by setting a schedule within System Preferences > Energy Saver.

As for turning it on outside your LAN, potentially you could configure LOM and port-forward the relevant ports from your router. Or VPN to another box on your network and turn it on via LOM.
Click to expand...
As the post above mine says, Mac Pros do not have LOM capability.
 
chrfr said:
As the post above mine says, Mac Pros do not have LOM capability.
Click to expand...

Sorry, assumed you were talking about an Xserve lol. No, Mac Pros don't have LOM. Unfortunately, Macs don't have Wake-on-LAN (some you can wake from sleep on LAN, but not all).
 
MortenMoulder said:
definitely because of this server. So I have a few things I want:
  1. It should not run during the night unless I turn it on
  2. Should be possible to turn it on outside my LAN
  3. Shutting down is not a good idea, so hibernation/sleep would be prefered (to keep everything open and to save time)
  4. I should be able to say "shut down" whenever I feel like
Click to expand...
  1. You can set the sleep schedule in the Energy Saver preference pane.
  2. Wake-on-LAN works for my 5,1. I don't know why someone said Macs don't have that. I don't have experience with a 1,1 though. To do this remotely instead of LAN is much more difficult, but still possible. You'll need to set up port forwarding correctly, and you'll either need a static external IP from your ISP, or a dynamic DNS service, so that you can always contact your external IP even if it changes. Using TeamViewer is probably the easier way around this.
  3. OK.
  4. Some options:
    • You could just set the Energy Saver extra aggressive (sleep very quickly if there is no activity) so you don't have to manually sleep it.
    • You could remote desktop and sleep the computer manually via GUI.
    • You could SSH and use the shutdown -s now terminal command.
    • I know literally nothing about Alexa, but perhaps you could create an Alexa command to trigger the sleep command or a sleep script?
Other power saving tips:
  • Look at the CPUs in the CPU upgrade guide in my signature. User Neodym updated the table with idle power consumption figures for 1,1/2,1 which seems very relevant to your interests. There are huge differences in idle power consumption between the different models--from 8W at the low end to 50W at the high end. That's a more than six-fold increase in power consumption just to sit there and do nothing.
  • Pull out all unnecessary hardware, internal and external. In other words, don't power things you don't need.
  • Replace HDDs with SDDs or at least set spin-down times in Energy Saver.
Granted some of those probably don't amount to much, but every little bit helps if you have very expensive electricity. It's sort of like backpacking...cutting your toothbrush handle in half or removing the lanyard from your flashlight removes less than an ounce; but do that to dozens of things and you've shaved off a pound or two. It really adds up.
 
if you have a high power GPU swamping it for a low power GPU might be a big power saving.
 
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