B2 + B3

[Cheeseboy]

Any projects in hand? Aspirations?

Sadly, no. I've had to spend far too much time working lately.
Only the occasional tinkering with the B3, some new script or such things.
You?

[theWebalyst]

Lots of possibilities... including an Android app as mentioned, but the carpentry is going to win out for a while as I need to create a workspace in my new home, and will enjoy it immensely.

Mark

[Cheeseboy]

Look: There are just more and more of them!
I'll have to find a new place for that scanner if this continues...

New setup

new_infrastructure_small.png (342.42 KiB) Viewed 32928 times

[Ubi]

Soooo... How much power does all of this eat ( i assume theres quite a few power supplies there as well)? Is it more economicl than a dedicated 4bay nas?

And why is there a switch with just two cables in it?

[Cheeseboy]

Interesting that you should ask just that!
I've just the last couple of days had a long correspondence with my father about this, and he had to consult one of his even nerdier friends.

According to the UPS that everything is hooked up to: 15% of its nominal capacity, which is 350 VA.
Now I have very recently learned that VAs are not and cannot be compared with Watts.

Now, there is a cheap amp-meter between the wall-socket and the UPS that drives all of this, and it says 18-22W.
As it also reports a tension/Voltage of 230 V and a current of 0.34 A, what the real consumption is: anyone's guess.

My guess is this:
1. The UPS itself and all the transformers consumes more power than all of the rest of the units put together:
The UPS has to transform the line tension to something the battery can handle, it has to be able to convert the 13.5 V DC to 230 V AC/50hz. Then all it powers are transformers that converts it back to 12 V DC! Idiotic...

2. Neither the cheap meter between the wall socket and the UPS, nor the sensor in the UPS itself are very accurate.

What I do know is how it performs:
Configured with very safe margins, the B3 and the disks (and all the other rubbish) runs for about an hour on that 4 year old 350 VA UPS.

As to question #2:
I don't know - but please point me to a 4 bay NAS with no fans in it (and debian), and I might go and have a look.

And question #3:
That is the dangerous switch. It is what comes straight in from my ISP, before the B3 or any other firewall, etc.
It can sometimes be useful because my ISP will give me up to 4 (dynamic) IP addresses. At the time of the photo there was no need for any such activity - so just the fibre-converter and the B3 are connected to it.

[Gordon]

I wonder if you couldn't benefit from using a common 12V rail to feed all these appliances...

Obviously you already own a UPS, but for anyone else considering this little thingy could be very interesting.

[Ubi]

I was contemplating this just now. This looks very interesting indeed. How much more energy-efficient is it compared to separate PSUs?

[Gordon]

I was contemplating this just now. This looks very interesting indeed. How much more energy-efficient is it compared to separate PSUs?

Likely less efficient, as it still requires a DC input and some loss should be expected in that step as well. On the other hand, that input does not have to be regulated so in terms of efficiency that would be as high as you could possibly get (and at low price as well).

The UPS changes this however. A normal UPS will also clean its output power, meaning that every bit of power you consume will go from ~230V AC to 12V DC, back to 230V AC and then on to your PSUs that make it a regulated 12V DC again. Suppose that a non regulated conversion could have an efficiency as high as 98% and a regulated conversion at 95%, then the regular setup would have a total efficiency of 88% (98% * 95% * 95%) and the 12V DC UPS system would have 93% (98% * 95%). Whether that's worth the additional cost over a regular UPS (which will go at about the same price but includes batteries)?

[Cheeseboy]

Thanks for your feedback guys!
That OpenUPS thing really looks interesting.
But what Gordon wrote in his last post made me a bit dizzy in the head for a while there.

My conclusion is:
- My set-up is not the most energy-efficient, even if it is the most silent one I have ever managed (and I've never had so much disk-space).
- When a power-outage really occurs (and this is very rarely indeed), I really like the sounds the two UPSes makes when they kick in (oh yeah, there is another 650 VA one for the desktop computer): "CLICK!" (some very heavy duty relays I guess) then "MMMBRRRMMMMMM!" (which must be the transformers and inverters making the 13.5 V DC of the batteries into 230 V AC again).
The noise is of course extra noticeable in this situation, because all the other ambient shit you never think about (like the fridge, freezer, the little hum from your PC speaker system that you never quite managed to get rid of even after spending weeks on properly grounding everything, the hum from every other transformer in your building, etcetera) all goes away instantly.

...And is replaced with this sound which resembles something you would have expected from a nuclear power plant built by British Leyland. It is awesome!

This is of course only if you have disabled the acoustic alarms in the UPSes... If you haven't you would just go deaf.
Or at least shut everything down yourself manually just to avoid the noise, rather than just sit and wait with great anticipation in mind, stop-watch in one hand and flash-light in the other...

[Gordon]

Thanks for your feedback guys!
That OpenUPS thing really looks interesting.
But what Gordon wrote in his last post made me a bit dizzy in the head for a while there.

I'm truly sorry about that. Point being that what you can calculate using theory may in fact be completely different in practice. Savings might be better or they may in fact turn out to be a loss. All 'n all it is $100 plus a battery for something that does what you already got. Assuming you could save 5% on your electricity bill that would count up to about €2 per year where I live and unless you're some kind of green fanatic that just doesn't cut it. I on the other hand am tempted and I wonder if I could use the unused telephone wires inside the CAT5 cables to offer that 12V DC throughout the house.

[Ubi]

Dont be sorry, its comments like that that make me read this forum

[Cheeseboy]

Dont be sorry, its comments like that that make me read this forum

Agreed!

[Gordon]

Okay okay, I'm NOT feeling sorry for making you feel dizzy in the head. May I do it again sometime?

[Cheeseboy]

May I do it again sometime?

You just did. I was just editing my last post, when I got an email about you already responding to it.
Too fast for me.
It was going to be something like this:

NOT REALLY AN EDIT:
Oh a nice Power over Ethernet solution is what Gordon is suggesting?
People use it all over the place. I think the problem would be the power-surge during a disk spin-up (as an example).
There are loads of boring figures here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_over_Ethernet
And just think how tiny those two twisted little wires are inside that TP-cable...
But hey, everything doesn't have to start up at the same time. The OpenUPS seems to have plenty of room for customization.
And there are SSDs.

I myself use the opposite - slightly more retarded way in some cases, because otherwise I would have to drill a lot of holes in very thick walls:
http://www.dlink.com/us/en/home-solutio ... 00-adapter

[Ubi]

Be aware that these socket adapters have crap bandwidth if theres multiple connectors or breakers inbetween them. At least mine do? And there pretty expensive too.