I'm building a data center and need your opinion for designing the electrical power

[kettaneh]

Hello,

We have a project to build a data center to handle 20 racks. each rack will has 12-15 servers. most of the servers are DL380 G5. As per HP website and their data sheets, each server will need around 2.4 Amp. simple calculation:
2.4 x 15 (servers rack) x 20 (racks) = 720 Amp. Please note that we are using 220v not 110v and each server will consume around 450-500 watt and around 500KVA.

Question 1:
I don't know why I have a feeling that it's little bit higher than I was expecting ! specially this is without AC.. please advice.

Question 2:
We are designing the electrical power system for the data center.I was wondering what is the best practice for the electricity.
As per the attached drawing, the main power source is raw line from government. A power generator will be redundant in case any failure in the main.
ATS will control the automatic shifting between them.
There will be around 20 racks, each rack has 2 PDU. for increasing the availability, we were thinking of having two main UPSs. PDU1 in each rack will be connected to UPS1. PDU2 in each rack will be connected to UPS2.

my concern is future expansion, it will be very expensive related to the UPSs. in the current scenario, each side of UPSs (1 or 2) should be able the handle the whole data center. Hence, I have to buy two UPSs each time for every side !! I Was thinking to combined the UPSs together as one back, ALL PDUs will be connected to the same bank.

what do you recommend me ?


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Thanks,

[raid]

1. As the current version of the HP DL380 is a G7, I will assume that these are servers that you already have and you will migrate to a new site.

The power figure for the server you are quoting is most likely the rating of the power supply, not the actual, peak or even the typical power consumption. You can measure the actual power consumption of the servers by using one of these devices.

http://www.megger.com/us/products/Pr...ils.php?ID=656

I would expect the actual power consumption to be about 0.8A per server (total of both power leads). This means that you could put 20 servers in 1 rack and still not go over the 40/80 rule load on a 32A PDU.

2. There is a lot of missing detail on your design, to much to be able to comment.

Hope this helps

[KenB]

I have two suggestions. First, use HP's power calculator to estimate the power requirements for your servers. Here's how to access the info:

To review typical system power ratings use the HP Active Answers Power
Calculator which is available via the online tool located at URL:
http://h30099.www3.hp.com/configurator/powercalcs.asp.
To drill down to calculators:
- Click on: "ProLiant Servers"
- Click on the Server of interest. Example: DL380 G5
- Click on: "Power Calculator" link. (You may need to scroll down to see it.)

My second suggestion is that you hire an engineer to help you design a safe, cost-effective and reliable electrical system for your data center.

Ken