Power Distribution Unit With Amp Meter?

Sorry, this should have read "...of each device attached to the PDU...."

Don't know one offhand. Depending on your application, you could do something like that with an individual UPS for each device, then poll the UPS via their serial ports for that data. What's the application? Distros that monitor aggregate amperage are out there, usually as an overpriced add-on.

--Dale

I'm trying to determine which of our servers and disk arrays use the most energy, with an eye towards possibly replacing those with more energy efficient models.

Get a number of Watts Up or Kill-A-Watt meters and plug a server into each one. Run for a while and read the average power consumption.

I doubt you can save any money by replacing a server early, but there may be other considerations. Obviously, buy the most energy-efficient machines you can when you do replace them at the end of their normal or scheduled lifetimes.

Fortunately, AMD and Intel are now talking about low-power, high-performance machines, though there's a lot of marketing double-speak you have to wade through, and lots of traps for the unwary (processor thermal design power versus box elecrical consumption, for instance).

The thing you also have to be wary of is power factor issues. To measuere that you need something like the FLuke model 46 (I think) power quality meter. Put that on the power line and you can see all those exciting harmonics and stuff. Power factor correction equipment may reduce your electric bill noticeably. Although your major power consumer isn't actually in the room. It's the air conditioner that is removing all the heat that the electrical power is being turned into. If you can lay your hands on on an infrared camera, using that to look for hot spots will be useful. For simple power consumption measurements, I'd just use an amp-clamp meter and a notebook to write down the power readings. Computers use surprisingly little power.

--Dale

The Watts Up measures power factor, and the Pro will measure and log it.

Are you distributing AC or DC power? Bill Kaszeta Photovoltaic Resources Int'l Tempe Arizona USA snipped-for-privacy@pvri-removethis.biz

Maybe 50 servers all taking 125V AC.

But I would use a portable PDU of this type in many similar applications, taking it to individual rooms where I have some device that I suspect might be taking up a lot of CPU.

Tut writes:

Willy, I see your much more polite on the EE news group--and what ever happened to your normal "rec.outdoors.rv-travel" signature....

Will Sill The Curmudgen of Sill Hill

.....and sign off..."Poster Requests His Insults Removed in 6 Days"

Tut

I've never read, let alone posted, to rec.outdoors.rv-travel. Last time I checked there were at least 15 million people in the U.S. alone with the first name Will. No doubt some are rude. Don't hold it against everyone with the same first name, please. :)

Will,

My apologies!

Just popping in to remind that this topic is WAY OFF TOPIC and according to unwritten RORT politeness, should be labeled as such.

IMHO

Jan Eric....the Orme "Always drink upstream from the herd."

Kill-A-Watt can display instantaneous p.f., watts (implying p.f.), and va, besides summation of kva-h since plug-in and time-duration since that.

KaW only displays kWh and time not kVAh. Too bad for inverters and other enery generators