The Beast unveiled: inside a Google server

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 10:35 am

http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/20 ... server.ars

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 4:46 pm

Yeah, I saw this a few days ago. The funny thing to me is that they just run everything inside shipping containers.

Well that & the fact that their power supplies only use 12v.

Executioner · Post by **Executioner** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 5:37 pm

Interesting. What do the shipping containers look like?

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 7:22 pm

Google has since pioneered (and patented) the concept of a data center in a shipping container. You can drop it in front of a warehouse or office building, connect power and water (water is used for cooling) and you have a huge datacenter in a very small space.

The servers they use don't surprise me. They use a lot of reliable off-the shelf stuff. Doesn't have to be pretty or fancy.

Here's a video showing what they look like:

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/bs3Et540-_s&hl ... ram><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/bs3Et540-_s&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

canton_kid · Post by **canton_kid** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 1:15 am

normalicy wrote:Yeah, I saw this a few days ago. The funny thing to me is that they just run everything inside shipping containers.

Well that & the fact that their power supplies only use 12v.

I really want to know about that 12V P/S stuff!
I have so many 12V batteries around here, and some solar panels and build wind gennies etc.. it would be a dream come true to run on 12V for me!

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 3:58 am

Well, they still take 110v input at the power supply, but the power supply only puts out 12v instead of 12, 5, & 3.3. All voltage changing is done on the board (which oddly IMO would be less efficient, because it probably requires resisters which waste energy) which according to what I've read is proprietary. However, yes, if you got a hold of one of those boards, you could theoretically run it off of a 12v system.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 11:07 am

It's like a laptop. If you look at the photo the battery wires go straight back to the PSU. PSU charges the battery and the mobo runs off the 12 volt from the battery.

Not hard to implement. Most modern mobos primarily only use the 12 volt bus. The 3.3 volt and 5 volt buses are there only for legacy compatibility. Most modern mobos have onboard voltage regulators for the 3.3 volts and don't bother with the line provided by the PSU.

canton_kid · Post by **canton_kid** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 12:05 pm

FlyingPenguin wrote:It's like a laptop. If you look at the photo the battery wires go straight back to the PSU. PSU charges the battery and the mobo runs off the 12 volt from the battery.

Not hard to implement. Most modern mobos primarily only use the 12 volt bus. The 3.3 volt and 5 volt buses are there only for legacy compatibility. Most modern mobos have onboard voltage regulators for the 3.3 volts and don't bother with the line provided by the PSU.

Hmm, I have wondered a little about that. Expense of frying a New Board, Drives, and Cpu are what have stopped me from trying anything though!

I have seen a little P/S for 12V use but it was low watts and expensive and its been a long time ago since I looked.

This would be a great idea to stir up the old Modding thread maybe if someone starts building a 12V battery operated PC

Just think of the advantages for at home, direct battery connection means no surges, no spikes, no power outages,no storm worries (other than external lines like net connections etc.) and you could go green direct with solar panels or a wind gennie for a good bit of cheap PC power! No power waste converting batteries to 120V with inverter then back to 12V again which most people need to do that use panels and wind gennies

Also could get rid of those expensive UPS units that waste power, direct battery power means no UPS needed, save money up front and power also!
Just watch you don't drain the battery dead LOL
For back power any cheap 12V charger for the battery or jumper cables to your car?
Would have been handy when I was without power for about 2 weeks in that ice storm! I had lots of options and mostly had limited power, but UPS wastes lots of power when running on batteries to power a PC.

Large high amp Deep cycle batteries are often cheap used from golf cart shops, perfectly good batteries for normal use but maybe a bit weak for high drain golf cart use and they get replaced often while still near new. Last I looked I could get 200amp Hr 6V for $10 each, 2 makes 12V 200amphr for just $20

That's about 2400watts roughly per charged set and my new PC is still running about 68watts and less, transfering files to it now over Lan.
At this rate I could run nearly 34.3hrs on one set of batteries on one charge, and it looks like XP is going to take about that long to transfer all those gigs of files LOL

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 6:51 pm

Most modern mobos primarily only use the 12 volt bus. The 3.3 volt and 5 volt buses are there only for legacy compatibility.

I was unaware of this. I knew some voltage regulation happened, but didn't know that the 5 & 3.3 were ignored. I may experiment with that.

Just think of the advantages for at home, direct battery connection means no surges, no spikes, no power outages,no storm worries (other than external lines like net connections etc.) and you could go green direct with solar panels or a wind gennie for a good bit of cheap PC power! No power waste converting batteries to 120V with inverter then back to 12V again which most people need to do that use panels and wind gennies

Unfortunately, direct to battery still would likely not be possible. Batteries usually run at closer to 13v & when charging, closer to 14.5v. That would be way over what a motherboard could compensate for. So some sort of regulator would be needed in the end. But don't stop me from letting you try. I could be wrong.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 8:46 pm

A lot of info here:
http://www.playtool.com/pages/psurailhistory/rails.html

canton_kid · Post by **canton_kid** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 2:50 am

Thanks.

I read the link about about the power supplies. That is interesting stuff I didn't know much of it about older and newer volt and rail usage.

I'll have to think about that voltage variation in batteries. I guess that can swing from low 11v to 14v.
Probably not that hard to hold the 14V down to a steady 12V. I wonder how low the PC could go without damage or lost data though.
I wonder how laptops handle this?

Now about those LCD monitors and power