How are servers powered?

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So at work the servers seem to have the standard power cord, but they also have another power source which is connected to a rectifier that has an earth, live and neutral wires coming off of it.. I'm a bit confused about the latter.. How are these two power sources different???
 
Are you sure they haven't got one power supply on the mains and another through a UPS? Ideally you'd have both PSUs on different UPS's but that's not always feasible.
 
Are you sure they haven't got one power supply on the mains and another through a UPS? Ideally you'd have both PSUs on different UPS's but that's not always feasible.

Is it true that business and warehouses etc get AC power so the rectifier is used to convert that into DC?
 
Houses get AC power as well. It's converted to DC inside the power supply. It's possible to spec servers with DC supplies and network switches often have the ability to connect an external DC supply as a backup. I couldn't tell you the benefits of running DC to servers though, maybe it improves UPS efficiency when you have lots of them as you don't have to keep converting.
 
Servers are powered by the dark arts and magic :p .... Most these days (Im talking big ones) have a wd to dc sub station then ups into the blade array.
 
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