Check out my first post here: My First home lab: 2023 HP z440 Edition.
Many people have asked how much power my homelab setup has been using, so I took some time to do some quick math to help answer some of these questions.
Let’s find the total power draw…
To figure out my total power draw (in a more accurate manner than taking a random peak at the power usage from the front displays of my UPSes 😅), I ended up attaching some BN-LINK smart plugs in front of each of my UPS systems.
Here’s a view of the BN-Link smart plugs.
I like that these smart plugs provide a very easy way to measure and track power consumption over time. BN-Link has a pretty decent iOS app that easily tracks this data.
Here’s a sample view from one of these plugs.
Let’s crunch the numbers.
After tallying each of these plugs’ usage, it turns out my homelab draws an average of ~21 kWh / day.
When I first started my #homelab journey… the math would have been…
My Average cost for kWH is ~ 0.10 USD, which equates to ~ 2.10 USD per day / ~ 766 USD per year at the current usage trend.
HOWEVER– just last month, my energy provider tacked on a new delivery rider, and my cost per kWH is now more in the range of ~0.16 USD.
So my current spend is actually…~ 3.36 USD per day / ~ 1226 USD per year
I may have to look into ways to enhance my cost per kWH. I know you can shop at different energy providers in my area, but I never really looked into it all that much.
Regardless, I am really enjoying my homelab 😎
Missed my first update on my homelab?
Check out my first post here: My First home lab: 2023 HP z440 Edition.
Thank you Nick for posting this really handful information !
I was looking for buying one to be used as hardware for my NAS (UNRAID or OMV) transferring there all my KVM machines and docker applications ,but looking on the power consumption you posted here I’m afraid that this option with Z440 is going to be out of discussion.
I’m wondering if your home lab is always loaded and never going idle ,so I’d appreciate if you could list the OS and the list of apps you are running, because that amount of power consumption is really high.
Thanks !
Antoneta
I run alot of things for my job on my homelab 24/7 – Mostly multiple deployments of Cloud Foundry and other VMware items. Keep in my this total power draw (~ 21 KWh/day) is for 7 HP z440s, my network stack, and a few other devices/appliances.
A single HP z440 is about 80-100w draw.
Hope this helps.