1st gen G4 Mac mini vs PogoPlug Classic

I took out a G4 Mac mini out of the storage and thought about junking it. It has been in storage for over 5 years now. I googled, "What to do with an old G4 Mac mini" and found some surprising results. People are retiring them into low-powered servers.

Before throwing it out, I figure I find a way to recycle it into my current tech lifestyle.
I have the very first gen G4 with 1GB DDR RAM, 100 GB PATA drive. I also have a GPower USB/Firewire external matching enclosure hub.

The original 1.25 GHz PowerPC G4 first generation Mac mini consumes about 32-85W (Max). At idle, 32W is decent but not what I call low-power.

I found some people debating whether or not an ARM based lightweight device like a PogoPlug would compare. PogoPlugs run at 4-5W and can be hacked into full Linux servers running mySQL, web,FTP,rsync, miniDLNA, torrent boxes, Squeezebox music server,  you name it.
They are often discounted at $15-20.

I personally have 8 of these Pogos running various things. However, I also have a whole closet full of Firewire drives that could be put to good use and shared over the network. Hence, I thought of re-using the Mac Mini.

P3 KILL A WATT Load Meter and Monitor

I've been using a Kill-A-Watt meter these past few weeks. This is one gadget everyone needs to get.

You basically plug it in between the outlet (or strip) and to the device you want to measure. It measures the load and gives you good metering options. For example, you can plug it in and run it a few hours to days to see the average kWH consumption of a particular device. Multiply that by your energy rates and you can pretty much sum up how much a device would cost you to run monthly. With tons of gadgets and electronics, the electricity bill can get pretty high so this device helps you reign in on those costs.

You can get one at Amazon (here) or NewEgg (here). The hundreds of 4.5-5 stars from users is enough to tell you this is a decently good product.

I was pleasantly surprise to find out which gadgets were consuming too much or too little power. For example, leaving my  various AirPlay speakers had little to negligible power consumption at 2-4 watts on standby. Leaving a few RAID and external drive enclosures plugged into the power strip while being unused by a powered down computer yield 25-30 watt of power.

I definitely changed some of my usage habits after using a few of these Kill-A-Watt meters around the house. For example, I had an older AMD Athlon machine running as a ESXi server running a DVR for my cameras. It was also serving iTunes and Plex Media server. At idle, it was still running at 85 watts and easily ramp up to 110-130 watts on load. This was a bit costly to run trivial things 24x7. Hence, I  switched to running to an older unused core i5 laptop and my average use is now 20 watts for those same services.

I highly recommend a device like this. Just read the hundreds of customer reviews. Sure, there will be a few lemons here and there but the general consensus is that these pretty much pay for themselves.