Posted on 07/08/2023 9:08:13 AM PDT by eyeamok
I run my own DNS servers and Mail server, I have purchased a few battery backups that are available, they work but they only work for a limited time. With one backup per computer, which I have 3, they will run for about 45 minutes if the power goes out. None of them work properly with Windows Server 19 to shut down system then restart when the power comes back on. I have had to make multiple emergency trips to my home in Arizona where they are setup, just to turn them back on. Yes it sucks.
I decided to make my own battery backup system modeled after my Solar powered well that has been working for over 10 years flawlessly. Here is what I did to overcome the crappy battery backup systems made.
I took one of the over the counter battery backup systems and plugged the 2 routers into it, it will run both for at least 24 hours which is generally more than enough time for the power to come back on.
Now for my 3 servers I bought a (110 Volt/ 24 volt DC) Magnum MS 2024 Grid Tie Inverter, 4, 6 volt 225 AmpHour Golf Cart batteries from Costco, some wiring,cables,... and set it all up. Total cost about $2500 Since it is a Grid Tie Inverter, I have it plugged into the wall socket to keep batteries fully charged.
With this setup, when the Power goes out, it will run for at least 24 hours without a hiccup, the switching is fast enough to not affect the computers and doesn't even flinch when the power goes down, NO more emergency trips, I still come here every 2 weeks for updates and maintenance and usually the power has gone out while I was gone, but EVERYTHING stays up and running.
Just hope this helps anyone else that runs their own servers
Also consider low power computers.
I have one of these https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Q1900-ITX/
It is slow, but it will run hyper-v I have a bunch of vm on it and certainly could run a mail server/media server
With 4 cores running 2.4ghz max tdp is 10w
We put ours in last year when the rolling blackouts were/are becoming more likely. If you can afford it they are worth it. We had a 2 day outage last winter and
we were so glad we had it. You could not let it 30 straight days without adding/changing the oil.
I just made a stand alone system to run my servers and nothing else. My well is basically the same setup but with a 40 amp 240 volt inverter, 8 batteries and 8 panels and will run my well FOREVER, I have no electricity to my well because it would cost about $100K to run power up my mountain to the well. I could set it up easily to start a generator when the power goes out if I wanted to, but I don’t think it will be necessary. So far it has been working great for about 6 months now.
$2000/month for a static IP is ridiculous. $150 for residential static isn’t much better. You can run your own VPN on a VPS for a tenth of that cost. Not sure what your bandwidth needs are, but they would need to be considerable to justify either one of those costs.
Does your inverter have the "smart load" feature? If so, you can make the rest of the place be powered from the smart load panel (i.e. if battery SOC is 50% or higher) with your server power coming from the main panel (powered as long as there's any charge left in the solar batteries). That way, instead of buying and maintaining APS for the servers, you add a cheaper lithium battery to your battery stack knowing that it won't be used to power the entire building, just the few on the main panel (assuming all other circuits are moved to the smart load panel).
You can’t run DNS servers and Mail server like that though, has to be static to work properly. I had LVnet microwave internet for $100 a month when it was setup in Vegas, but I sold that home and brought it my house in AZ. I didn’t have a lot of options
I’ve used APC battery-backups for years in my home for my computer, router, printer, tv, and other devices. They normally last 10 years. They give you a discount on a new back-up when the old one dies, and send you a postage-paid return label for you to send the old unit back to them so they can properly discard them.
It isn’t that they don’t last long, the problem is they won’t keep everything on very long, 45 minutes to an hour, they just don’t have the amps necessary for extended use. My makeshift system will run for 24 hours and last a long long time, try that with your APC, I have 2 of them, they won’t.
I run a server off grid with solar and 200 ah lifepo batteries to run the small computer, router, and cell phone for internet (all running on 12v dc) The only tricky part was getting a small arduino to kick on a relay for the usb connection between the phone tethered to the router. It there ever is a shut down the router has to boot up before the phone or it won’t tether. The whole set up max draws 8 amps but it rarely draws that much. This is also my 12v setup for everything USB and the lights. I have tried my off the shelf Bluetti power supply but the idle power draw from the inverter uses way too much juice. So I have a couple different systems. The 12v is always on and in 4 years I have never run out of juice with 400watts dedicated solar panels.
If you can move to one of these new mini servers you can run everything off a 12 volt system and skip the power hungry inverters.
Try setting up a vpn on an oracle cloud instance. Free for life and you get a dedicated ip address. Your home router just connects to it. All free.
Congrats on the good work!
I moved my servers to Azure. Don’t worry about power anymore.
Since my servers needed to be on he Internet for commerce, it became apparent that Microsoft had more resources to counter hackers, cyber attacks, etc than I alone did. I also moved many server-based processing to straight apps in SAAS, so I don’t even worry about updates or downtime.
I understand conservatives not wanting to support this company, but cloud providers are all woke anyway. It’s all for commercial enterprises that must exist in the world. I can’t Galt Gutch them.
That’s not a bad idea, but mine was really simple and effective to setup and requires nothing else to make it work properly, no changes, no reinstall and reconfiguring for anything. It just works right out of the box the way everything is setup already. And it will run for 24 hours, the power has never gone out that long here except once 15 years ago when a windstorm of 126 MPH knocked out half the city and toppled a few hundred poles.
bump for later
Ballpark costs?
Coming soon [or has already arrived] at a location near everyone.
What’s wrong with having a generator as a back-up?
nothing really, just costs more and takes longer to get setup. My setup only took a couple hours to get going. I will probably get the whole house backup generator, but I was pressed for time to get something reliable, up and working to keep my mail server up and running.
Go with a 1,800 rpm generator rather than a 3,600 rpm generator.
Pick one rated for prime use rather than emergency or backup.
Those can be run 24/7 until a maintenance interval such as an oil change is needed.
Some have run close to 40,000 hours before a rebuild. The number of zeros is correct.
Very nice. Thank you for sharing. Have you considered taking some servers out of load balancing while energy is short, and also running them at lowest energy use settings during that time as well?
And curious - are you running redundant Internet links? Fiber and 4G for example. Emails can queue if your server is off and DNS doesn’t eat much.
Wow! Can you post any links?
In other news, for those interested, Horror Fraught is blowing out the last of their 3600 RPM 7200 watt generator heads for $250 ($100 shipping).
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