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Efficient Multi-Server Power Supply for Datacenter?

  • Thread starter michael [multnomah]
  • Start date
M

michael [multnomah]

Jan 1, 1970
0
I am designing a rack-mount server Datacenter that will house 50+
identical ATX motherboard Servers. Rather than the ineffiency of having
50 individual ATX 12V power supplies, I would like to have a central
power supply that can power all the servers. I would also need to have
a redundant/backup power supply, and battery backup for this system.
Each server consumes only about 50W @ 12VDC, since there is no monitor
and only a single hard drive. Anyone know of how I could
design/purchase an efficient power supply system for these servers?
 
V

Vaughn

Jan 1, 1970
0
michael said:
I am designing a rack-mount server Datacenter that will house 50+
identical ATX motherboard Servers. Rather than the ineffiency of having
50 individual ATX 12V power supplies, I would like to have a central
power supply that can power all the servers. I would also need to have
a redundant/backup power supply, and battery backup for this system.
Each server consumes only about 50W @ 12VDC, since there is no monitor
and only a single hard drive. Anyone know of how I could
design/purchase an efficient power supply system for these servers?

Several thoughts here:
1) Do you really want to introduce one massive single point of failure?

2) Don't ATX supplies make several voltages that are needed by the
motherboard?

3) Wow! You will need a 208 amp supply! I would recommend several fairly
heavy switching supplies that add up to about 300 amps. This will give you
N+ redundancy so you can hot-swap bad units. There are several
manufacturers out there. You will want metering so you can what is going on
and especially so you can find bad units.

4) One advantage of this setup is that you will not need a UPS for the
servers. A (very large) wet-cell battery backup will be more efficient and
far cheaper.

Vaughn
 
W

William P.N. Smith

Jan 1, 1970
0
michael said:
I am designing a rack-mount server Datacenter that will house 50+
identical ATX motherboard Servers. Rather than the ineffiency of having
50 individual ATX 12V power supplies, I would like to have a central
power supply that can power all the servers. I would also need to have
a redundant/backup power supply, and battery backup for this system.
Each server consumes only about 50W @ 12VDC, since there is no monitor
and only a single hard drive. Anyone know of how I could
design/purchase an efficient power supply system for these servers?

What's the input spec on the 12V supply? If it's not too tight, it
ought to be pretty easy to do. if you can handle 13.8 or 14.4 volts
or so, I'd have a couple of battery chargers floating a set of
batteries, and run the servers directly off the batteries. Depending
on the voltage margins you can stand, you might do some balancing with
diodes...

Rather than have a single (even if redundant) point of failure, why
not have 10 servers per power supply or something?
 
T

Tim Shoppa

Jan 1, 1970
0
michael said:
I am designing a rack-mount server Datacenter that will house 50+
identical ATX motherboard Servers. Rather than the ineffiency of having
50 individual ATX 12V power supplies, I would like to have a central
power supply that can power all the servers. I would also need to have
a redundant/backup power supply, and battery backup for this system.
Each server consumes only about 50W @ 12VDC, since there is no monitor
and only a single hard drive. Anyone know of how I could
design/purchase an efficient power supply system for these servers?

I would suggest a 48V telco-style battery bank followed by switching
converters to whatever is appropriate for each piece of equipment.
(The 48V is really more like 44 to 56V). This eliminates the "inverter"
style of UPS. I put "inverter" in quotes because switching converters
are similar to inverters, but without all the artificial requirements
that don't matter to you.

If your uptime requirements are high enough, you can probably easily
justify two 48V battery banks and diode-feeding the individual PS's.

ATX power supplies with 48V in show up on E-bay rather commonly.

I got some very good answers (especially with regard to Meanwell
48V to 12V converters) here last week on some similar requirements.

Tim.
 
K

Ken Taylor

Jan 1, 1970
0
Tim Shoppa said:
I would suggest a 48V telco-style battery bank followed by switching
converters to whatever is appropriate for each piece of equipment.
(The 48V is really more like 44 to 56V). This eliminates the "inverter"
style of UPS. I put "inverter" in quotes because switching converters
are similar to inverters, but without all the artificial requirements
that don't matter to you.

If your uptime requirements are high enough, you can probably easily
justify two 48V battery banks and diode-feeding the individual PS's.

ATX power supplies with 48V in show up on E-bay rather commonly.

I got some very good answers (especially with regard to Meanwell
48V to 12V converters) here last week on some similar requirements.

Tim.

This is the 48V supply we use for exactly that application (PC's off 48V
telco supply):
http://www.portwell.com/bps-250rddx.htm

Ken
 
R

R.Legg

Jan 1, 1970
0
michael said:
I am designing a rack-mount server Datacenter that will house 50+
identical ATX motherboard Servers. Rather than the ineffiency of having
50 individual ATX 12V power supplies, I would like to have a central
power supply that can power all the servers. I would also need to have
a redundant/backup power supply, and battery backup for this system.
Each server consumes only about 50W @ 12VDC, since there is no monitor
and only a single hard drive. Anyone know of how I could
design/purchase an efficient power supply system for these servers?

As others have pointed out, 12V doesn't make much sense as a single
distribution bus unless board input tolerance includes the full range
of a battery rectifier configuration - meaning point-of-load
converters are used on your boards($).

24, 36 or 48V may make more sense, and would use more commonly
available hardware - but only if you are opting out of ATX mains-input
converter or other lower-powered hardware-partitioned formats. If this
is supposed to be low cost, the commercial ATX (~250W)format might
offer flexibility; the next cost plateau is around 1KW for commercial
regulated closed-frame 12V supplies.

Normally you'd expect a certain amount of redundancy and hot-swapping
capability in a system this size; also some concentration towards
design efficiency and power conservation at the card level, to reduce
the actual heat generated in the installation, and keep it's physical
size within bounds.

Regardless of the distribution format, it's a hefty load on a utility
branch circuit, unless a 208-240VAC supply is intended, particularly
if power factor is uncorrected.

RL
 
M

michael [multnomah]

Jan 1, 1970
0
Thank you all for the excellent suggestions. I will research the 48V
battery bank option with DC/DC ATX power supplies.

Michael
 
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