Comment on Server as heating device - how do I do this?
ironhydroxide@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
As far as heating efficiency goes, servers aren’t really that good. 100% efficiency as all the electricity they use ends up as heat. Compare with heat pumps that can get 300+% efficiency.
What I do is have my server in the same “room” as my water heater (share airspace), and use a heat pump electric water heater.
At least then all the heat my server makes is used for something good, instead of extra AC usage in summer (winter is a wash, as I need the heat in the house anyways)
schmorpel@slrpnk.net 6 months ago
I wonder how to take on the efficiency question when considering waste heat. Would and older model generating more heat be the better choice? Has anybody started to dig into the complexities of calculating efficiency for circular systems?
TheChurn@kbin.social 6 months ago
There's no real complexity. Computers are first and foremost electric space heaters, a negligible amount of energy is used to perform computation.
If you would be heating a room with resistive electric heating, a computer drawing the same wattage can do the same job while also, in theory, doing some useful work.
If you are just evaluating heating options, heat pumps use less energy to output the same heat.