Why choose 120 volts?

Tue May 26 20:46:59 UTC 2009

Our power is handed to us at 480v.  We then deliver it to the customer at whatever they need.  The nice thing about 120v is that everything uses it.  No odd cords (as mentioned before) or expensive PDUs.

I've had a lot of people suggest that running our servers at 240v would save us money because we'd use less amps.  Last time I looked at my bill I was being billed by the kWh, not amp and 240v at half the amps is still the same wattage.  I've been told this so many times though that I'm starting to doubt myself.  If anyone can present a reason for me to switch to 240v I'd like to hear it.

Aaron

-----Original Message-----
From: Seth Mattinen [mailto:sethm at rollernet.us] 
Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2009 2:39 PM
To: nanog at nanog.org
Subject: Why choose 120 volts?

I have a pure curiosity question for the NANOG crowd here. If you run
your facility/datacenter/cage/rack on 120 volts, why?

I've been running my facility at 208 for years because I can get away
with lower amperage circuits. I'm curious about the reasons for using
high-amp 120 volt circuits to drive racks of equipment instead of
low-amp 208 or 240 volt circuits.

~Seth