0U PDUs

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This will be meaningless to a good chunk of you. Just ignore me, if that’s the case.
Don’t ever buy 0U PDUs. If you’re thinking about it, don’t. If you’re still thinking about it now, slit your own throat before you can verbally agree to the purchase. If you’ve already verbally agreed, chop off your hand so you can’t sign. If you’ve already signed, then the phrase “down not across” should become your new mantra.
Seriously, there isn’t a single fscking vendor out there that does them right. And heaven forbid you’re stuck with a cabinet configuration that’s not the Official Sanctioned and Blessed Configuration Manufactured By The PDU Manufacturer, because then you’ll be lucky if you can get the PDU anywhere near the right location, even if you use arc-welders, chewing gum, and duct-tape.
Don’t do it. Self-performed Lasik surgery would be a more productive use of your time, and far less painful.

6 thoughts on “0U PDUs”

  1. FWIW, I work in a facility that has 100s of APC Vertical 0U pdus mounted with basically 0 issues, they can be a PITA to get mounted sometimes, especially if your not using officially sanctioned racks, but not a huge issue, they definitely work better than horizontal PDUs with far better cable management.

  2. Oh, I agree that many of them are shit. But there are a few great ones. Granted, we tend to buy at the high-end of the market for these, but the Sentry Switched CDUs that we use in our internal labs are awesome. Remote access via IP. Each one has a regular 3 prong outlet at the bottom for laptops/crash carts.
    But having worked in a over a hundred different datacenters when I was doing field implementations, I agree with you in principle that most of them suck ass.

  3. Adam:
    No way…. I had the APC vertical PDUs at my last job, in APC cabinets, and we hated them. The circuit-breaker “box” protrudes far enough that it blocks access to the rear posts. Between the circuit-breaker portion and everything else, you’re almost half-way down the cabinet before you reach your first power outlet.
    Two words : never again.
    I’ll take horizontal PDUs forever.

  4. did you have overhead or below power? Idk how horizontal PDUs can possibly lead to a neater cabling than vertical ones but I will entertain pictures. Every installation that I have worked on with horizontal PDUs had to use regular long power cables. I can’t imagine how that’s going to be neater but I will entertain pictures.

  5. We had overhead power. I can’t picture that it’d be much different with below-floor power though.
    Pictures will be forthcoming. I’m in the middle of a project that will involve horizontal PDUs.

  6. fwiw we have both overhead and underfloor power, I vastly prefer overhead power keeping data cabling under floor. I’ll snap a pic or two as well.

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