How much does software effect power consumption?

[Mateo]

I ask because I am considering setting up an always-on file server in my apartment. I'm not sure whether I should purchase a new system for this or take one of my existing computers and simply upgrading the harddrive. If I install a server edition of Ubuntu (or some other distro) will it make a big difference in terms of power consumption? Or is hardware what really matters for power? Thanks for any information.

[boast]

as long as it is not doing intensive work, it won't matter what distro you run. to reduce power consumption, you will have to underclock the cpu.

[sethvath]

Personally I would go with an old laptop with raid for use as a home media server. It uses less power than a normal desktop (lower rpm hdd, freq scaling cpu etc)

[ssam]

they only way to find something out is to measure is. get yourself something like one of these http://www.p3international.com/products/special/P4400/P4400-CE.html

from my experience, the difference betyween full load and idle on a computer is maybe 10-20%. the best software can do is try to put the hardware into its low power modes.

the difference in consumption between different computers can be big.
120-140 W for a 2GHz dual core xeon.
about 40 W for an old celeron laptop
20-30 W for a G4 powerbook
around 20 W for a Via Epia

2000 W for a kettle