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  1. #1
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    Who's lost a power supply?

    Should have included this in the other post:

    Who's lost a power supply (had one burn out on an active hosting server)? I'm leaning heavily toward boxes with dual power supplies in an upcoming purchase but in some cases it is pushing me toward 2U when I might now have to. I know there are 1U w/redundant but I'm trying to weigh benefits.

    Do you have a relationship with your DC where you can place a space PS there and have it swapped for fee as insurance?

    Again, just trying to get a sense for the security the 2nd PS will provide and how much premium to pay for that...

    Thanks, any postings from experience will help -

    d.

  2. #2
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    Loss of power supplies is extremely common with 1U's. I have had *very* good luck with Sparkle (which come with Chenbro chassis) if you are looking for a replacement.

    Moving to a 2U might not be a bad idea either.

  3. #3
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    Re: Who's lost a power supply?

    Originally posted by dgoss

    Who's lost a power supply (had one burn out on an active hosting server)?
    I have. Probably most on the forums have at one time or another. I lost 2 in the same Compaq DL360 (G1) in less than a month. It happens.

    If the servers are mission-critical--e.g., not scores of load-balanced commodity boxes--go redundant. Just remember that one of the biggest mistakes people make (ahem--I've been one of them) with redundant is take a "fire and forget it" attitude and they don't actually watch the server when one of the redundant power supplies fails--thereby, of course, leaving the server with no redundancy.

  4. #4
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    Who hasn't had a power supply blow :/ One thing you might consider is how much the DC will charge you for the priority remote hands to swap the spare power supply at 2am if it blows. It might be cheaper just to get the redundant psu rather than pay the tech time in event of failure.

  5. #5
    Originally posted by ServerDave
    Who hasn't had a power supply blow :/ One thing you might consider is how much the DC will charge you for the priority remote hands to swap the spare power supply at 2am if it blows. It might be cheaper just to get the redundant psu rather than pay the tech time in event of failure.
    I havent I have been running 1 1u and 2 2u servers for about a year and a half no problems.
    • Max Wilson •

  6. #6
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    Originally posted by WebDogPro
    I havent I have been running 1 1u and 2 2u servers for about a year and a half no problems.
    Oh, don't worry, it'll happen. Power supplies WILL fail... it's just a matter of time. Obviously, the more servers you have, the more often you'll see it happen.

    We just installed a server with triple-redundant power supplies... we'll see how that works out
    Scott Burns, President
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  7. #7
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    We have had a handful of power supplies fail in the past few years. One thing to note, is that the power supply that comes with your case may not be a standard size, if you have case with only 1 PS. In this case, make sure that the "spare" you buy is of the proper form factor.
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  8. #8
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    Who's lost a power supply?
    I did! The datacenter claims my power supply got up and walked away! If you see him, let me know!

  9. #9
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    i have these MSI computers i was using for dedicated servers before, i've had about 30 power supplies fail now, i have the computers in a pile i am going to throw them out, the power supplies are non-standard and very difficult to replace. Problem is, they don't fail during operation, but if you cycle the power they will never turn back on.

    However, other then these MSI's i've never had a power supply fail, knock on wood, but most my servers have 2 or 3 hot swap power supplies in them.
    Kevin

  10. #10
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    Apr 2005
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    Thanks for all the replies. I think I have my answer - I was leaning to redundant but it is obviously cheaper and easier to buy without, esp. keeping a 1U form factor.

    A bit of a side note but isn't there some sort of daemon that will notify you of the hardward failure or does there need to be a physical check of the server periodically? I'd have to think the server would know but there was an earlier post that made me wonder. I also suppose it depends on the hardware, I'm speaking about either Dell 24xx or Compaq DL380 - but slightly older equipment, no current line.

    Thanks -
    d.

  11. #11
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    Originally posted by bqinternet
    Oh, don't worry, it'll happen. Power supplies WILL fail... it's just a matter of time.
    That is not an accurate statement. Your server will is more likely to become obsolete before you need to replace your power supply.

    Tripple redudendent power is only useful for the corporate world where millions of dollars are at stake and you cannot under afford for a transactional DB server to take a dump on you AND you have money to burn.

    Power supplies, motherobards, RAID controllers, backplanes, and memory all have the same failure rate. Sure, you can reduce your exposure to failure from 1:1000 to 1:2000 with two power supplies, or 1:3000 with three power supplies.

    I'd like to meet the paranoid dude that is trying to use to mobo's in his server; that's not going to ever happen .
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  12. #12
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    Servers normally beep if a PSU fails

    And PSU's have a much higher failiure rate than motherboards, mainly because they deal with high heat levels, and a varying incoming power supply, whereas motherboards aren't subjected to such varying conditions.

    Dan
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  13. #13
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    So I would hope the DC would notice the beeping? It seems odd to me that it is not typical that it could trigger the system to email an alert to an admin.

  14. #14
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    Originally posted by dgoss
    So I would hope the DC would notice the beeping? It seems odd to me that it is not typical that it could trigger the system to email an alert to an admin.
    Who would ever be suckered into a tripple redudent system, if they did ????
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  15. #15
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    We've had 2 or 3 PSUs blow in 5 years, admitedly, looking back they weren't top quality PSUs, they were bought back when we were still a bit wet behind the ears so to speak, but they did last 2-4 years still. We use Zippy PSUs now in all of our new servers, not cheap, but well worth it.
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  16. #16
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    Originally posted by PSFServers
    That is not an accurate statement. Your server will is more likely to become obsolete before you need to replace your power supply.
    It may be true that your server may be more likely to become obsolete before the power supply fails when you're talking about an individual server. However, if you have a rack full of servers, you're going to see power supply failures on live systems. Also, even on a small number of servers, over time you will still see a failure.

    Originally posted by PSFServers
    Power supplies, motherobards, RAID controllers, backplanes, and memory all have the same failure rate.
    That is not an accurate statement. Power supplies have a significantly higher failure rate on average.

    Originally posted by PSFServers
    Sure, you can reduce your exposure to failure from 1:1000 to 1:2000 with two power supplies, or 1:3000 with three power supplies.
    Actually, the increase is exponential, not linear. It would only be linear if you let your power supply modules fail and don't do anything about it. If you have a 1:10 chance of a failure with a single supply, dual supplies will reduce that to 1:100.
    Scott Burns, President
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  17. #17
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    Who would ever be suckered into a tripple redudent system, if they did ????
    What I wrote does not mandate a triple (correct spelling) power supply setup. I only mean that after one of the TWO power supplies has failed you would want to replace it so it would be good to know that it's blown if your server is located in a remote data center. Why rely on someone hearing the beep when the server could signal a remote alert, like an email, as it could with a drive failure for example.

    d.

  18. #18
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    Almost all things in a server that fail involve moving parts:

    CPU Fans
    Disks
    Power Supplies

    Boards/CPU's/Memory don't typically fail unless the environment is too hot to start, or there was a bad chip to begin with.
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  19. #19
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    I'm glad this post came up, I just lost a power supply. I've looked for it everywhere for it and still can't find it. Can anyone help? I haven't seen anything in this thread so far that helps my situation...

    Sorry, I just couldn't resist... :-)

    As far as redundant power supplies, unless your system is uniquely critical I really wouldn't worry about it. So far, we have only needed to replace two power supplies. One was in a colo box which used a low-end power supply and the other was in a box we received from the vendor, but it didn't boot as soon as we got it. As long as you get a brand name power supply and it works at the start I highly doubt you'll see any issues. If you can't afford to risk an hour of downtime to replace a power supply though, then I would imagine you'd have the resources and reason to get redundant power supplies.
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  20. #20
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    our servers with three power supplies, I believe this is because the load is too great for one power supply to handle everything, I do not believe it is for redundancy alone, they need two power supplies minimum to operate, so having three allows one to fail and be swapped out.


    and another comment, regardless the size of your company, if you have equipment where downtime would have a very big impact on your company, you should use the best stuff you can to avoid that, it doesn't need to be millions of dollars at stake to justify high end equipment.
    Kevin

  21. #21
    Unpacked a brand new Dell 1850 last night, plugged it in, came on, and went off. Power Supply is DOA, (smells burned) straight out of the box.

    This just reaffirms that our dual/triple PS policy is correct. You never know what will happen.
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  22. #22
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    DOA is one thing. failure during operation is another.
    Kevin

  23. #23
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    If you can prevent it ahead of time with a few extra dollars - why would anyone operate without hotswap, raid, redundant power supplies (although I think three is overboard kevin - but if it requires two to operate I do see the point).. etc

  24. #24
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    It all comes down to money really, of course everyone wants the most redundant system they can get, but if they can't afford it, well that's that ...

    And unfortunately, hot swap systems with hot swap RAID arrays, and dual PSU's do come at a pretty high price.

    Dan
    █ Dan Kitchen | Technical Director | Razorblue
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  25. #25
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    Dan,

    The price is worth it.
    Data is basically priceless - it would be silly to put anything on the net that is invaluable to you without multiple backups, RAID and all of the other goodies mentioned above.

    After all failure is imminent - the only question is when.

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