My least favourite (and only) method to cut costs is reduce my energy consumption.

I already have a super cheap setup (used Mini-PC for 50 bucks, old SSDs I had lying around, etc.), but without tweaks this setup would eat 15W (idle) and 25W (under load) electricity. At least, thats the case atm.

I just started selfhosting to be fair, and I didn’t have time to throttle the server. I use it mainly as NAS, so speed isn’t as important as for other services like webapps.

The CPU isn’t too bad, so, even when reducing the performance to 50%, it should still work.

Also, I will try to change the active cooling fan to a passive heat sink, that might reduce the bill further.

Here in Germany, especially thanks to the energy crisis, electricity is absurdly expensive, and even reducing the TDP by a few % will save me much money over a year.