Energy-saving server power supply is very important

Most servers are configured as 24-hour running devices. Therefore, server energy-saving technologies are more important than personal products such as PCs and laptops. Generally, there are two kinds of energy-saving technologies on servers. One is energy-saving technologies for processors, such as the Power Islands technology used by IBM on Power5, Intel's SpeedStep and AMD's PowerNow! The other is power supply optimization and management, such as Intel's Demand Based Switching technology.
In the past, we introduced and paid much attention to energy-saving technologies on processors. Here we will mainly introduce the server power supply standards and what users should pay attention to when purchasing servers.
Two main power supply standards
Server power supply can be divided into ATX power supply and SSI Power Supply according to the standard. The ATX standard is widely used for desktops, workstations, and low-end servers. The SSI standard is developed with the development of server technology and is suitable for servers of various grades.
The ATX standard is a specification launched by Intel in. The output power is generally ~ Between. The ATX Power Supply usually uses a 20Pin (20-pin) double-row rectangular socket to power the motherboard. With Intel's Pentium4 processor, the power specification is changed from ATX to ATX12V. Compared with ATX power supply, ATX12V power supply mainly adds a 4 Pin 12 V power output end, in order to better meet P4 power supply requirements, the power consumption of P4 at 2 GHz clock speed reaches 52.4 W ).
SSIServer System Infrastructure (SSIServer System Infrastructure) specification is a new type of server power specification jointly developed by Intel and a number of major IA architecture server manufacturers. The SSI specification was introduced to standardize server power technology, reduce development costs, and prolong the service life of servers, it mainly includes server power specifications, backplane system specifications, server chassis system specifications, and heat dissipation system specifications.
Four SSI specifications
According to different environments and scales, SSI specifications can be classified into four sub-Specifications: EPS, TPS, MPS, and DPS.
Entry Power Supply Specification): it is mainly designed for low-end servers with a single Power Supply. The Design adheres to the basic specifications of ATX Power Supply, but there are some differences in electrical performance indicators. It applies to rated power between and ~ W power supply, used independently, not used in redundancy mode. Later, this specification was developed to EPS12VVersion2.0), and the applicable rated power reached ~ 650 W, the most intuitive difference between it and ATX12V power supply is that it provides 24 pin motherboard Power interface and 8 pin CPU power interface.
TPS Specification Thin Power Supply Specification): Applicable to 180W ~ 275W system, with PFC (Power Factor Correction), automatic load current distribution function. The power supply system can achieve parallel redundancy of up to four Power Supply Groups, and the system provides fan cooling. TPS power supply has high requirements on hot swapping and balanced current distribution. It can be used for N + 1 Redundancy and provides redundancy protection.
MPS Specification Midrange Power Supply Specification): This type of Power Supply is defined as a high-end server system for more than 4 CPUs. MPS power supply is suitable for power at ~ Power supply, which can be used independently or redundant. It provides PFC, automatic load current distribution, and other functions. The power supply element voltage, current specification design and semiconductor, capacitor, inductance and other devices operating temperature design margin exceeds 15%.
DPS Specification Distributed Power Supply Specification): the Power Supply is a single 48 v dc voltage output Power Supply system. The minimum Power Supply is 800 W, and the output is + 48 V and + 12VSB. DPS power supply using secondary power supply mode, input AC after AC-DC conversion circuit output 48 v dc, 48VDC and then through the DC-DC conversion circuit output load needs + 5 V, + 12 V, + 3.3V DC. The establishment of this specification mainly aims to simplify the Power Supply Mode for telecom users, facilitate the power supply of data centers, and connect the power supply of the IA server with the power supply system adopted by China Telecom.
Bright Future of SSI standards
Although the current server power supply has two standards, ATX and SSI, but with the more standardized SSI standards, SSI specifications are more suitable for the development of servers, server power will also adopt SSI specifications in the future. The SSI specification is conducive to the development of the IA server. In the future, the CPU clock speed that can be supported will become higher and higher, the power consumption will increase, the hard disk capacity and speed will also increase, and the number of high-speed devices with plug-ins will increase.
In order to reduce heating and energy saving, the SSI server power supply will develop towards low voltage, high power, high density, high efficiency and distributed power supply in the future. The server uses a considerable number of accessories, supports four or more CPUs, and supports four or more mounted hard disks ~ 10. These accessories are large energy-consuming users. For example, high-end industrial standard servers use Xeon processors, and their power consumption has reached more than 80 W, while each SCSI hard disk consumes more than 10 W, therefore, the power required by the server system is much higher than that of the PC. Generally, a 300 W power supply is enough for the PC, and a W power supply is required for the server until the power supply reaches kW. In actual selection, different applications have different requirements on server power. industries such as China Telecom, securities, and finance emphasize data security and system stability, therefore, high reliability is required for server power supply, which is also a development trend.

Intel's ACPC technology can effectively reduce system Power Consumption
Pay attention to purchasing server power　
When purchasing a server, it is very important to check its battery quality. The quality of the power supply, including the output power, efficiency, ripple noise, timing, protection circuit and other indicators are up to standard or meet the needs. Pay attention to the credibility, scale, and support of Power Supply manufacturers. manufacturers with good reputation, large scale, and timely support, such as Delta, quanhan, and xinju, generally have relatively reliable quality, it will be much better in terms of cost effectiveness. For more information, see the following indicators:
Power options: W and W are common on the market. For individual users, W is enough, while for servers, because upgrading and increasing disk arrays require more power to support them, it is appropriate to use a W power supply.
Security Certification: the current power supply must pass 3C Certification, that is, China's national mandatory product Certification, China Compulsory Certification). Only strict consideration of product quality, consumer safety, health, and other factors, strict inspection of products according to different standards can pass international certification. Safety Certification is an important indicator for us to choose power supply, which should be the most important point when we choose power supply.
Voltage retention time: for this parameter, the UPS problem is mainly considered. The general power supply can meet the needs, but if the UPS quality is not reliable, it is best to choose a power supply with a long voltage retention time.
Redundant power supply Selection: This is mainly for servers with high system stability requirements. Redundancy generally includes Dual Redundancy and triple redundancy.
Support for the motherboard: This factor does not seem important, and is rare in the home PC, but it exists in the server, so pay attention to the purchase.
Product Link
Sugon tiankuo R4280A
Sugon tiankuo R4280A Server is a super-performing server that uses the Opteron800 series processor. The overall energy consumption of the system is more than 30% lower than that of other four-way servers. It can be configured with sugon dedicated KVM + System Hardware Monitoring card for centralized management and environmental monitoring.
HP ProLiant DL145
HP ProLiant DL145 uses AMD Opteron's 1U dual-processor platform. According to the power calculator provided on the HP website, DL145 uses an 89 w amd Opteron haolong processor, which consumes 21% less energy than similar products on average. In addition, Proliant DL145 is also unique in the heat dissipation design. Its Built-in heat dissipation channels and high-power fans can better reduce the energy consumption of the heat dissipation system.
IBM eServer x366
IBM eServer X3 is a 64-bit Intel Xeon processor x Series server. The new X3 architecture can improve the performance of 4-way systems by up to 38%. Its new eServer x Series 366 server is the industry's first 4-way high-performance server supporting 64-bit Intel memory expansion technology EM64T, it is also the first product in the Intel chip Server series that supports dual-core Intel.
IBM OpenPower 720
The IBM OpenPower720 Server is a cost-effective system for Linux operating systems. These servers use high-performance POWER5 processors and IBM Virtualization alization Engine technologies to help increase utilization and reduce costs.