A quick post today, since I worked way to late yesterday.
I those days where we're ramping up our electrical bills with all that air conditioning, I did a quick check about the maximum power consumption of my computers. Of course my laptop, a mid-2010 17" MacBook Pro consumes far less energy than a full-sized tower, at maximum 85W compared to nearly 600W for a typical gaming tower (my brother's).
Surprisingly, the Mac Mini also has a maximum 85W usage. Its components are similar to a MacBook, so that would explain it, but still as a server it would consume roughly 5 times less than a tower. At it makes so little noise that you can leave it running all day in a open room rather than a closet. True, a decent tower would run faster, but as a media and VM server for a few small VMs it's quite decent.
So, yes, it's a good idea to factor in the electricity usage of your devices.
Published on July 4, 2012 at 22:01 EDT
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