I’ll just come out and say it: 50W. I know, I know an order of magnitude above what’s actually needed to host websites, media center and image gallery.
But it is a computer I had on-hand and which would be turned on a quarter of the day anyway. And these 50W also warm my home, although this is less efficient than the heat pump, of course.
What’s your usage? What do you host?
Ok, so most of you also use normal PC processors for your setups. So my power usage is not that high in comparison.
But still, a RaspberryPI would use much less and would still be performant enough.
5W vs 50W is an annual difference of 400 kWh. Or 150 kG CO2e, if that’s your metric. Either way, it’s not a huge cost for most people capable of running a 24/7 home lab.
If you start thinking about the costs - either cash or ghg - of creating an RPi or other dedicated low power server; the energy to run HDDs, at 5-10W each, or other accessories, well, the picture gets pretty complicated. Power is one aspect, and it’s really easy to measure objectively, but that also makes it easy to fetishize.
At $0.13/kwh 100 watts 24/7/365 will cost you $113.88 a year, or roughly $10 a month. Little things add up.