Redundant PSU's, overthinking this?

[LemonBag]

Hello all,

New truenas user here. I've been thinking about my truenas set up which uses a corsair consumer grade power supply and was thinking if the PSU randomly dies (unlikely given it's 10 year warranty---but following the thought experiment nonetheless) is my "need to have data" gone with it? The truenas server is connected to an APC UPS so I'm not too worried about the outlet power ruining it (Model: BN1500M2). I mostly just read from it, but since the data is relatively important to me and it serves as a "blackbox" of data in my home, should I get some sort of redundant dual system power supply setup for it instead? Right now it's just in a ATX PC case and not a server looking chassis or anything. Thoughts? I think I'm over thinking this as such an event is unlikely to occur and it would be expensive to get all these extra parts when you consider an offsite backup of all my data is far better insurance against these things.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Is your concern data safety or data availability? Of course if the PSU dies, your system will not be available. Swap in replacement PSU - good as new, all your data plus minus the last couple of seconds if you had a write operation just going on will be perfectly fine. Do a zpool scrub and you should be good.

If you need the data available 24x7 with minimal downtime that's a different story, but then I would get proper server hardware which frequently comes with dual PSUs in the chassis.

 

[LemonBag]

Is your concern data safety or data availability? Of course if the PSU dies, your system will not be available. Swap in replacement PSU - good as new, all your data plus minus the last couple of seconds if you had a write operation just going on will be perfectly fine. Do a zpool scrub and you should be good.

If you need the data available 24x7 with minimal downtime that's a different story, but then I would get proper server hardware which frequently comes with dual PSUs in the chassis.

Data safety is my priority. It would be annoying to RMA a 10 year warranty PSU, but so long as the data is fine that is what matters most

 

[jlpellet]

Problem is there is no guarantee if the ps dies it will do so gracefully. Most likely, yes, but I've seen ps arc & send 120 vac to the system, frying mb & components, especially from an external event such as nearby lightning strike or grid failure. The only way to guard against this is offline, offsite data backup.

Good luck,
John

 

[ChrisRJ]

It does not make sense to only look at one particular aspect for availability. So yes, having a redundant power supply will likely increase availability. But without looking at the complete picture it is also likely that other factors are even more relevant.

 

[LemonBag]

Yeah I think I'm overthinking this, point is I think a backup would solve my worries about a rogue PSU

 

[MrGuvernment]

3-2-1 backup rule if your data is that important.