1u server power ??

[Elspuddy]

hi
i just got a dell power edge 1950 (2 x Intel Dual Core Xeon 2.0 Ghz (5130) , 4 gig ram) from ebay , the plan is to put it in to a data center and run the odd game server every now and again, now iv looked every where for this info and i cant find how meany amps this server will use, all i can see is, its runs a 670w psu, how meany amps dose this run ?

[gss03]

Good old physics has it's uses - Power = Volts x Amps

640W / 230v = 2.91 Amps. But I doubt that your server will ever peak using that amount of power.

[DDY]

It's certainly going to consume less than 640W, check what that thing draws from the wall yourself because buying a 2.91A slot colo is not going to be cheap!

Get yourself a watt meter to find out how much juice the machine pulls. Make sure you stress load it though!

[alsenior]

i wouldn't use a Poweredge 1950 in a dc. they drink power ~1a that why they are so cheap. i fact that why so many fbdimm based machines are going cheap on eBay

[spoon_]

Colo for that is going to be like ~£75/month. Few months down the line (not many though!) and you will spend as much you have paid for the server... Totally not worth it unless you can host websites etc and charge people.

[Butuz]

If your only running the server ad hoc colocation will be a waste of money (unless you have money to burn).

You'd be much better off flogging the server on ebay and using something like Amazon EC2 compute cloud IMHO.

Butuz

[peterb]

Good old physics has it's uses - Power = Volts x Amps

640W / 230v = 2.91 Amps. But I doubt that your server will ever peak using that amount of power.

Except the quoted power is the DC output power, and dowes not take into account efficiency and power factor.

Assuming 70% conversion efficiency, the input power will be around 900 watts (rough figures) and allowing for .8 power factor, at maximum load, power = V x I x pf

900=230 x I x .8

I = 900/230/.8

= 4.9A

In practice it will be less than that, because the server is unlikely to be operating the psu at full load and the power factor should be better than .8, but for planning purposes for the supply, I'd round it up to to 5 Amps.

[kingpotnoodle]

If it has a DRAC card there should be somewhere in the out-of-band console that tells you current power stats, run it at usual load and see what it consumes or just plug it in to a power meter at the wall. Older rack servers really aren't made efficient, they suck down a lot of juice, you'd have been better off in the long run with a low-end new server as it would be cheaper to Co-lo. Can't remember if the Windows management software gives power stats on the 1950, it may well do so install Windows and the tools from the wesbite - Dell's software/driver finder is idiot-proof, all you need is the Service Tag from the stickers on the server.

peterb's maths is right though, worst case is ~5A but that is very rare to happen, 1-2A is more likely in general use, remember many co-lo facilities can only power/cool 8-16A per full height rack, so you'd have a lot of empty space if every server was using 5A!!

[Elspuddy]

it did not come with a DRAC card, but i did buy a Plug-In Mains Power and Energy Monitor for maplins for £20, 1.4amps on boot , 0.94 amps idle and 1.1 amps under folding at home