Power

• Did the Rebuild Actually Save Power?

  Cutting the power bill was one of the main reasons I retired the old servers — so did it work? I couldn't cleanly measure it at the panel, so this is the honest, bounded math: what the old hardware cost, what the mini PCs cost, and how that compares to the energy the AI itself used — then checked, at the last minute, against smart-plug readings on all four boxes that landed within a percent of the estimate.

• Why I’m Replacing a Homelab That Still Works

  The 2026 rebuild starts with a confession: the old setup works fine. I'm replacing it anyway — for power, noise, Windows licenses, and aging hardware.