That's true, but the problem is I have a constant 20A draw from four
computer servers running 24/7.


Consider:

20A * 120V = 2400W
2400W * 24 hr/day = 57600 watt-hours/day = 57.6 KwH/day
57.6 KwH/day * $0.08/KwH (estimated) * 30 days/month = $138.24/month

I believe you said in your original post that your electric bills are in
the
range of $200-300 monthly. Thus, the computers account for roughly half to
two-thirds of your total cost. And *that* means that to make even a twenty
percent reduction in your bill, you need to (a) reduce your electricity
demands, exclusive of the computers, by roughly forty to seventy
percent --
which is going to be very difficult -- or (b) turn off the computers.

That sounds about right for the consumption figures.
Option A is my only option right now. I would LIKE to find alternative
energy sources to run them so I can avoid option B which is
counterproductive, as I would have leave the computer age and return to the
cel animation age, which is counterproductive. The computers are doing
distributed rendering (making animation a la Pixar), and some of the renders
take up to 6 weeks to complete 150,000 frames of animation, so turning the
machines off isn't practical.
Then I have the issue of my samplers, which draw 240W each. Startup is very
complicated because it involves a labor-intensive process of loading up to
999 samples from disk and manually selecting out of tens of thousands in
sample libraries. Restoring the setup can take hours of button-pushing,
which is why I have these on a dedicated UPS in case the master UPS fails.
It's technically-complicated, but if the samples aren't loaded in the right
addresses, the works-in-progress (mainly large symphonic scores) won't play
properly or have missing parts or wrong parts (ie, an oboe playing where a
violin spiccato articulation should have been). It's a massive pain to get
samples loaded up and we recently went through that after moving the
equipment, which involved powering down.



Bottom line: you're doing this to yourself. If you're trying to run a
business
out of your home, either move to a commercial building so you get
commercial
rates, or quit complaining about paying residential rates for your
electricity.

It's not commercially-viable to justify running out of a building downtown,
and also it violates my "60-second commute" rule. We're snowed in here for a
good 2-3 months each winter. Getting down off the mountain, especially
within a week of a major snowstorm is pretty difficult, even with 4WD. Some
hills, you just don't want to chance because once you start to slide,
there's no safe place to run off the road without doing a lot of damage.

At any rate, I'm simply asking if alternative energy sources for small-scale
use are becoming viable. It would be nice if I could save that $138/month on
electric and have one, then maybe two PCs running on solar power.


If you're *not* running a business... then shut off some of the machines.
*Nobody* needs four servers 24/7 for personal use.

That depends on your ambitions and hobbies. I have a friend who builds Tesla
coils and likes to fire them often. His problems are far more than
electrical though.
As I write this, one machine is crunching animation, and another is
compressing digital video into DVD-compliant MPEG stream for a distribution
DVD of my wife's dance group, another server is streaming audio for one of
our web sites and my wife is using her computer to update her association's
web site. It's not as though the stuff is idling and can be turned off. The
only time this stuff gets turned off is when we're out of the country for a
week or more. Then we finished up or reach a stopping point on all projects,
shut the machines down, go through our checklist, and then leave for the
airport. Upon returning after one such trip, two of our servers would not
come up after being powered on. One would load the 'wallpaper' but the
desktop never appeared. Luckily, I had a Norton Ghost image of the C:
partition and was able to roll back the system to a month earlier with an
image made then. The other had some other problem that took about 30 minutes
to resolve. I'm a little paranoid about shutting them down when I go on
vacation because of those two incidents, but will probably continue to do
full shutdowns when on vacations.


--
Take care,

Mark & Mary Ann Weiss

VIDEO PRODUCTION . FILM SCANNING . AUDIO RESTORATION
Hear my Kurzweil Creations at: http://www.dv-clips.com/theater.htm
Business sites at:
www.dv-clips.com
www.mwcomms.com
www.adventuresinanimemusic.com
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