3 ms·

Power supplies - regardless of quality - die pretty regularly at scale. Only disks fail more often. They are the #2 component we replace in the datacenter.

by phil21 2mo ago

account42 2mo ago
Are data-center power supplies comparable to higher-end desktop power supplies? And how much do you oversize them compared to the load they will actually handle? E.g. for a desktop buying even double the power supply capacity you need won't really affect the overall PC price that much but I somehow doubt data center operators are willing to not optimize away that cost.
- phil21 2mo ago
  They typically are made by the same OEMs and I would say at par or better quality in general. I’ve had (percentage wise) more consumer grade PSUs fail on me over the past 20 years, and I don’t buy cheap stuff. Although the sample size of failure is low single digits vs thousands on the datacenter end. I’d say on average DC PSUs are vastly overspeced for most machines. Most machines we work with are not sitting at peak load 24x7, and might be drawing half or so of their max rated power draw. Plus every server is redundant - so the modules themselves are operating at around 20-40% of full rated capacity most of their life. The only time they ever spin up past 50% is during power maintenance or a power failure of some sort that brings one of the redundant power sides down. They do probably operate in slightly hotter conditions on average, but in much more stabilized temperature environments. Plus of course 24x7x365. But that goes for all components. I’d say other than fans, failure rates in the PC world vs datacenter world are relatively comparable it terms of what fails most. Dust and temp swings are the large variables the average PC needs to contend with vs the datacenter. Storage of course is the one that stands out the most - everything else is kind of a rounding error. Here though, datacenter work really does beat on the hardware more than most consumer gear so that’s expected. For every 100 disk swaps we do, I figure we do about 2 or 3 power supply modules. And maybe 1 fan swap.

Power supplies - regardless of quality - die pretty regularly at scale. Only disks fail more often. They are the #2 component we replace in the datacenter.

by phil21 2mo ago

Power supplies - regardless of quality - die pretty regularly at scale. Only disks fail more often. They are the #2 component we replace in the datacenter.

account42 2mo ago

Are data-center power supplies comparable to higher-end desktop power supplies? And how much do you oversize them compared to the load they will actually handle? E.g. for a desktop buying even double the power supply capacity you need won't really affect the overall PC price that much but I somehow doubt data center operators are willing to not optimize away that cost.

phil21 2mo ago
They typically are made by the same OEMs and I would say at par or better quality in general. I’ve had (percentage wise) more consumer grade PSUs fail on me over the past 20 years, and I don’t buy cheap stuff. Although the sample size of failure is low single digits vs thousands on the datacenter end. I’d say on average DC PSUs are vastly overspeced for most machines. Most machines we work with are not sitting at peak load 24x7, and might be drawing half or so of their max rated power draw. Plus every server is redundant - so the modules themselves are operating at around 20-40% of full rated capacity most of their life. The only time they ever spin up past 50% is during power maintenance or a power failure of some sort that brings one of the redundant power sides down. They do probably operate in slightly hotter conditions on average, but in much more stabilized temperature environments. Plus of course 24x7x365. But that goes for all components. I’d say other than fans, failure rates in the PC world vs datacenter world are relatively comparable it terms of what fails most. Dust and temp swings are the large variables the average PC needs to contend with vs the datacenter. Storage of course is the one that stands out the most - everything else is kind of a rounding error. Here though, datacenter work really does beat on the hardware more than most consumer gear so that’s expected. For every 100 disk swaps we do, I figure we do about 2 or 3 power supply modules. And maybe 1 fan swap.