I was recently asked about building a power efficient server, and it seemed like a good idea to share my advice with a wider audience.

Anyone who has to deal with a hosting facility very likely knows the crunch that they’re running into with power. A standard rack may only have 42 rack units in it, but you’ll be lucky to be able to fit and power 15 servers in that rack, on a standard 30 amp circuit. If you’re careful in planning, I can help you get squeeze a bit more into that rack. I won’t advocate any particular server vendor, but I do believe that you’ll have more flexibility with a custom white-box builder, instead of going with one of the (often pricier) big name vendors.

Overall, you want to lower your power draw per server. With some careful planning, you can lower your power consumption by a fair bit, and still get the same power per machine. Here are a few things to consider: