The Raritan Blog

Why Deploy High Voltage to IT Equipment Racks?

Greg More
April 5, 2012

Data centers are finding that they must deploy more and more power to their racks. High-power requirements at data center racks are driven by high density such as racks filled with 1U “pizza box” servers or multiple blade server chassis in one rack. Racks of network storage devices can also drive high demand for power.

When considering power demand it is important to determine and design for peak actual demand. Designing to IT equipment nameplate ratings is excessively high. Designing for average power consumption may not be sufficient for periods of peak demand.

Many data center managers are doing a good job conserving energy – decreasing PUE, raising data center temperatures, using air-side economizers to reduce energy consumption for cooling—but average power consumption at the rack may still go up. In fact, the increased efficiency means more power is available for servers which supports data center growth.