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But a PC like what you’re suggesting would result in a much higher energy bill compared to a Pi if you leave it on 24/7 to use as a server.

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I've got a i5-7500T box running as a Proxmox Backup Server, and it idles at 6-7W. It runs at near idle most of the time (it's just running PBS and a few network services), so I'm not expecting it to cause much difference to my power bills. Even under full load, it only draws ~30W, so it's not _that_ much power.

Those Intel N100 machines sip power. Supposedly with some tweaking, people have gotten them down to idle at ~2watts.

I have an N95 mini PC (32GB DDR4, 250GB SSD, 1TB NVMe), a 4 disk USB enclosure, an access point, and a 16 port switch plugged into a UPS.

The UPS says 35W for all of it, but I’ve always been too lazy to unplug devices to see how it breaks down. I’m also not sure how accurate the measurements are, especially under a load that low.

I’d be willing to believe the mini PC draws less than the other components at this point.

I recently got a junk M2 MacBook Air (16GB/512GB) with a broken screen for $250. It idles at just 0.2W (!) when accessed via SSH. While it offers zero expandability, lacks wired LAN, and runs on a non-free OS, it's an interesting candidate for an ultra-low-power inference server.

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