When do I need to consider 3 phase power? [closed]
Ok, I'm trying my best not to make this too subjective and provide all the information I can and if you can help make this a better question then please suggest.
My friend an I have a small software development business. We are looking at hosting some servers for the work we do at an (as yet to be decided) office space. Mainly to reduce costs and because we need frequent access to the servers while we develop.
They can consume upwards or 2KW peak power. We may host upwards of 3 or 4 of them + other equipment, and of course our own desktop computer gear. I have 2 PC's, my friend has about 5 high end machines.
Then there would be air conditioning and other appliances like the occasional electric kettle.
What I want to know is, would an average office designed to be running some workstations be able to cope with our electricity demands or should I be considering one that has 3 phase power available to the building from the get go?
At what point does one make 3 phase power a requirement?
I seriously recommend you consult an electrician, not sys admins, for this kind of information. Nevertheless, for what you are describing there is no reason to go with 3 phase.
My friend an I have a small software development business.
From this I gather that you're not in the infrastructure business.
They can consume upwards or 2KW peak power. We may host upwards of 3 or 4 of them
From this I gather that your power needs are beyond a small office's normal abilities.
Then there would be air conditioning and other appliances like the occasional electric kettle.
From this I gather that you are not a hosting center. =)
At what point does one make 3 phase power a requirement?
Let's cut right to the point. If you have services and software that are hosted for customers, even if it's just backend infrastructure to support your own products, you need to look into a colocation center. They have all the power and air conditioning that you can hope to have and you can then advertise a fancy datacenter to customers. "We have a state of the art datacenter monitored around the clock..." etc.
It's not too expensive to get a half or full rack. You pay a flat fee, you get awesome service. If you need more power or bandwidth, a single phone call can upgrade your provided resources. Simple!
Don't worry yourselves about nasty 3-phase issues. Let someone else do that so you can keep doing what you do best: make software.
EDIT
Okay, okay... three phase is awesome. It smooths out the current and makes things generally better behaved. However, unless there's 3-phase in the building, you're going to have a hell of a shocking bill to get a hookup, run the cabling, get 3-phase PDUs, etc. and etc. If $1,000 a month is too much for a colocation, then getting an invoice for 3-phase power is probably going to cause you to slip into a coma.
Spend the money to take your single-phase 120V building power and pump it into a decent set of power conditioners and UPSs. You'll be just fine unless you start doing so much business that you're drawing tens of Kw. At that point, you might have enough cashflow to look at a high-density colocation package.