[ubuntu-uk] downloading slow torrents & energy consumption

[Lucy]

2009/4/9 Alan Pope <alan at popey.com>:
> 2009/4/9 alan c <aeclist at candt.waitrose.com>:
>> I have a machine  on 24/7 gently seeding various torrents and my
>> pragmatic solution is to choose the oldest slowest machine that can
>> cope, in my case a PII 350MHz. I have not done any measurements but my
>> guess is that such a machine will consume relatively low power,
>> obviously I turn the monitor off.
>
> You might be surprised if you check it. I have an old Dell optiplex
> desktop PC which currently functions as my firewall - running IPcop. I
> checked the power consumption and it's ~90W. I also have a viglen
> which I will use to replace the Dell, and that consumes 8W.

Far from scientific I know, but I used to use a 486 Elonex as a
firewall. It was passively cooled (i.e no fans), no monitor and hardly
any load. My Dad worked out that it cost 50 quid a year in electricity
to run and that was 7-8 years ago!

So buying a new low power machine (the Viglen sounds good), can
sometimes save money in the long run.