Here are some measurements I took with Kill-A-watt on three different generations of Mac Minis.
idle monitor idle w/o Monitor hulu HD
Old 19 watt 16 watt 45 watt
New 14 watt 9 watt 34 watt
Server 13 watt 9 watt 32 watt
* The measurements were taken after 5 minutes of idle/streaming.
* First Gen Intel Mac Mini with 1.5 Intel Solo Core upgraded to 2.0 Intel Core 2 Duo (T7200)
{ 1 trackback }
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for the actual measurements. I’ve moved from multiple Dell mini tower boxes as servers to the new Mac Mini Servers. The Dell’s pull about 200 watts at idle. The Mac Mini pulls about 13 in typical server usage, peaking at about 15 watts. My router pulls about 3x that.
PG&E runs about 25 cents/watt. That means approximately $405 in savings for the year, per converted server.
If you’re doing web services, a Core 2 Duo at 2.53GHz has more than enough oomph to saturate a 100 mbit/s connection.
I thought Mac’s were supposed to be expensive! Just in terms of power usage, the typical 1U/2U server would be best replaced by a Mac Mini Server.
You are exactly right.
Whenever I looked at client’s server utilizations, they are not even using 30% of their cpu/memory. There is the problem of single point failure when using a mini but in a server rack environments, hardware failure rates are lower compared to a laptop and home PC.
I currently have a half dozen of Minis in my server rack for exact reason. My friends and clients love the quality and simplicity. For the same reason, I will be starting Mac Mini targeted service provider.(hopefully soon)
Hi,
very interesting stories
new I wonder how did you measure the power consumption in kill-A-watt? I personally want to check my computer too. Since I’m not a techno-engineer, I don’t even know if there is a tool to check it.
Hi Bryan,
Kill-a-watt is a small appliance that works between the power cords and the power outlet. It can measure the Amps, Volts, Watts and more. It is real time measurement, so as I crank up the CPU usages, it will show the Amps going up on the stop.
I definitely recommend you get one from amazon or other place to measure your electronics. When you see the numbers, you will be more encourage to save up the energy. I used to leave all my computers on before, now I turn off everything when not using.