WHS and power savings re-visited

[Bolty]

Hi again VVulture

I agree with everything that you have said!

To me it is a ridiculous concept to expect a home server to be on 24/7. The fact that it is based on Server 2003 simply means to me that Microsoft should have adapted 2003 to allow better power management features into the development a la Vista. If they were unable to achieve this power modification, it should not have been called HOME server, but Server 2003 adapted to home but minus power saving.

I was attempting to reply to an earlier thread by VVulture, but it is now too old to allow a reply.

As you know VVulture, like yourself, I have been trying for many months to get a better power system working. I have given up on S3 standby, and have adopted the system that you used months ago....ie. total shutdown using the AT command. Then my BIOS wakes the computer each night for automatic backup. I have had no problems with this technique, except that I have been unable to get WHS to restart via an external internet connection. It is fine locally, as i either just press the power button, or use WOL through my local network.

Like you Vvulture, I cannot understand why other people do not understand the need to have WHS NOT 24/7. Perhaps they do not appreciate the massive power-savings that can be had by a decent standby mode.

I still maintain that it is grossly irresponsible of Microsoft to NOT include this feature in Windows HOME server. To keep others happy, perhaps it could be renamed Windows HOME storage when and if it ever allows proper power savings.

[Bolty]

I am surprised that people do not have an opinion on WHS power savings. Perhaps it is because I was responding to an earlier post from VVulture. I welcome other opinions on this issue, as my current solution is only of limited value.....even though it does save considerable greenhouse gases from being released!

Am I being unrealistic in thinking that Microsoft should have substantially modified Server 2003 power savings to make them more appropriate for a Home situation.

[dgaust]

Missed it myself, but I don't necessarily agree.

The purpose of my server is 24/7 usage, that's why it exists. It serves media to the computers around my home, runs backups of the systems while running other services related to HTPC use in the background.

All my other systems use S3 sleep, but my opinion it should run 24/7 and in my case it does because of the things I require.

Personally, I don't believe the power savings are that great as my power bill certainly hasn't increased a noticeable amount since I've been running WHS, but in any event I purchase my electricity from renewable sources.

[woohoo]

I agree with Bolty. I would want a better power saving arrangement from WHS, because every little bit from every appliance counts. Still, I can see why more intensive users might see 24/7 as acceptable.

[Bolty]

I agree with what you say when you need 24/7 access. I guess that since you are an MCE Guru, your needs are probably different than what may become the typical home backup user. (I have avoided using the name "server" here) My WHS is certainly used as a no-sweat backup device that looks after itself. I also use it as a repository for video files that I wish to keep....ie golf training video etc. Because I only look at these occasionally, it it no drama at all to just use WOL to wake my WHS. It takes no more than about 1 minute.

On the power used by WHS I respectfully disagree with the fact that it does not take much power running 24/7! Because I have a large amount of data that I backup, my WHS is 2TB. This consists of 4 500GB drives. I have used a lower power AMD processor, and of course it is headless. I have accurately measured the power consumption to be 140 watts. Some people have suggested that I should have bought a dedicated low power commercial WHS. Of course these were not available when I first started building the Beta WHS, so I bought the best hardware that I could at the time. Extrapolating my hourly consumption, it equates to 1226 kilowatts hours per year. This is an annual generation of over 1 tonne of greenhouse gas and cost approx $240. This is certainly not insignificant! My current at settings with WHS keep it on for 3 hours per day....ie. a reduction of 8 times ie. 125 kg greenhouse gas and only $30 per year.

Perhaps my power consumption is higher than normal at 140 watts, but I believe the best low-power server would still consume around 50 watts with a compact low power drive. Of course one would not get 2 TB with such a low power system.

So my feelings are that whilst some WHS users want and need 24/7, there are many others who do not! It is for these (who I think may become the majority, if WHS takes off as a very easy home back-up device) that Microsoft need to address the very large power savings and greenhouse gases that can be made!

[dgaust]

MCE Guru is just an automatic title given to me because I've been bored and made too many posts

You see, you and I obviously have a different opinion on what a WHS is to be used for. You call it a backup device whereas I see it as it's meant to, a server.

If I was going for a simple backup device and that was the main reason for purchasing a WHS system, I would seriously reconsider. There are easier and cheaper options. For most, an external HDD and backup software will suffice.

I used to have a PCLinux box that ran 24/7 that was a media server/nas but thought I would try the evaluation version of WHS. I do like it, so far it think it's one of MS's best products, certainly recently.

[Bolty]

You are right dgaust. WHS is an excellent product and it is obvious from our discussion that it is good for many people with different needs.

I would still maintain that there would be few other ways where non-technical people could more easily set-up a backup device. I know of many people who have removable backup drives attached to their computer, yet do not regularly back up. The problem is that human nature does not always look ahead and rate the priority of regular backups until it is too late.

The really great thing about WHS from a backup point of view is that everything is automatic, and can be in a separated location through a network. This of course gives backup protection from fire and theft, that is not so easily done with a removable system, as clearly there is a manual need to re-insert the backup device regularly.

At present I am away from home for about 3 weeks. Whilst backups are not needed during this time, it is still very useful having the remote access to my files etc through the internet.

Hence with different needs, I would rate highly the improved power saving operation.

[andrewpc]

Hi Bolty,

My WHS also has approx 2.25 TB of space available through a number of different sized drives between 200GB and 1TB. I have enabled power down of all drives after 30 mins when not being used. I have also enabled AMD cool 'n quiet which clocks my CPU back to 1Ghz when not being used and I also run fully headless. This seems to work very well, although sometimes there is a small delay when first accessing a file on a spun-down drive. While I dont have something to measure the power....this is about as much as I can do, and to me seems an OK compromise. The other thing I guess I could do would be to have it shutdown between 9-5 monday to friday when Im at work, but Im not sure what would be the best way to achieve this....

Andrew

[Mike]

Hi guys - runtime360 (of transcode360 fame) has been trying to solve this issue and after his initial attempt was scrapped due to issues caused by WHS not wanting to remain quiet, he's now working on a wake-up-on-lan idea.

I believe we would all benefit from this as it would enable WHS to be able to serve media and perform backups on demand from any of the home clients and drop back into power saving mode when no requests are being made.

Details of his rationale and first attempt are here - his current WUOL project can be found here

I don't think he's there yet but he is looking for beta testers, either way I think it'd be worth keeping an eye on his progress.

Assuming a break through at some point - would anybody who spots it be kind enough to post it here so we can all share in the goodness?

Mike

[Bolty]

Re AndrewPC

Hi Andrew
I tried powering down the hard drives, but it was not that successful. This was due to the fact that WHS does all sorts of background tasks, and is entirely unpredictable when it does it. The issue of S3 sleep was looked at by myself and VVulture over quite a period of time. We also spent quite a lot of time on MicrosOft's connect Windows Home Server site, searching for a solution. Most people were of the opinion that WHS is a server and should not be made to sleep. I am now more ware of the different needs that many people have with WHS and can understand their position, but I would also hope that they can understand the needs of someone like VVulture,myself, and I suspect, many others who do not use WHS as a full time server. As runtime360 has found out, the system would wake up all the time when S3 sleep was implemented, often at periods of less than 10 minutes. Much effort was spent in trying different solutions but proper S3 sleep remined elusive. I have not tried cool 'n quiet, but it would probably be a good way of saving a bit more power.
As for your switching your machine off automatically from 9 to 5 that is quite easy, provided that your BIOs enables auto power on as specified by the BIOS power settings. Most computers have that these days. It is simply a matter of entering the BIOS at startup (usually by pressing the delete key) and then setting the auto turn-on-time in power settings.
The switching off at a specified time and day can be done using a DOS command called AT. This is a very old MS command that has been around for at least 10 years. WHS has this already in its list of inbuilt commands, as does Vista. To implement the required turn off time use the following line from the DOS prompt.

at 9:00 /every:m,tu,we,th,fr shutdown -f

The above example will force a shutdown of WHS every day at 9 am. If you need help on the syntax of the AT command, just type AT /? at the DOS prompt. The above example is from my memory, and I hope that it is syntactically perfect. I am pretty sure about the AT part, but I am a little less certain of the parameter for shutdown. Again if you go shutdown /? the syntax and parameters will be given to you. My WHS is currently off and I am away from home for a few weeks. I have my WHS set to turn on at 12:55 am through the BIOS and turn off automatically every day at 4 am. This gives enough time for the backups to occur. I have also set these time limits in the settings of WHS. Normally I can access my WHS and have a remote connection from any point on the internet. Unfortunately the router that I am now using does not allow WOL packets to get through to my turned off WHS, so I cannot now remotely wake it. I have to wait until 1 am, or phone my neighbour and ask him to turn my power off at the switchboard for 10 secs. This then does a cold start on WHS and leaves it on until the next 4am. However when I am at home, WOL works very well anywhere on my internal network. All it takes is about 90 secs before WHS is up and running. My point about mentioning the above explains why I cannot (at present) remotely read the AT command syntax from my home WHS.By the way if you need to remotely access all of the operations of your WHS remotely, you need to apply a registry fix to the WHS to allow full desktop access, rather than just the WHS connect interface. I can't remember wher I found this registry fix, but it was probably on this forum.

Anyway I hope that the above helps in your particular situation. If you need any more help let me know, and I will phone my neighbour and get him to reset the power so that I can get the accuarate information from my WHS. AS a little aside, I have found WHS remote access extremely helpful with my home VOIP system. When I am away, I divert incoming home calls to my temporary destination through my VOIP ATA. When I change locations and which to divert to a different number, I am able to do this remotely through WHS by modifying my ATA dial plan settings.

Re Mike
Thanks for the info re runtime360. I will most definitely keep my eye on this link. As explained above to Andrew we have been down that path to a degree, albeit with a different approach. At present I am reasonably happy about the way my WHS works, except for the remote access. I am expecting that I will soon replace my router with one which enables WOL packets to pass through. This will solve nearly all of my problems. Clearly however, it would be much better to have an integrated MS solution where the option is clearly built into the WHS interface so that it is much easier to use than my current switch off approach. S3 would also give me much better reponse times after the WOL packet was sent.


I cannot imagine how non-technical home users would ever be able to implement power savings in the current environment. I also strongly believe that many home users would not be prepared to operate 24/7. It is for these reasons that I feel there is (or soon will be) a large core of users who need better power management control built into the system. Hence, creating interest in the need for this is my motivation in the hope that something better will come from Microsoft. One of the moderators of the MS connect WHS forum is of the opinion that it cannot be done independant of integrated routines from MS. I hope that runtime360 can show him to be wrong!

[hugh]

Originally Posted by Bolty

Perhaps my power consumption is higher than normal at 140 watts, but I believe the best low-power server would still consume around 50 watts with a compact low power drive. Of course one would not get 2 TB with such a low power system.

my whs consumes on average 55w. atom 330 processor with 2 x 1tb wd gp sata drives.