Introduction
Xeal is the Industrial Power division of iStarUSA. From this division you will find power supplies of many different configurations ranging from Pico ITX power supplies to typical ATX power supplies to redundant Industrial Power Supplies. Basically, you won’t find these products at your local Best Buy. The redundant IPC models, which are designed for industrial servers, are what I am interested in today.
While designed for industrial environments, if you have a critical home or small business server that you rely on for 24/7 uptime, a redundant PSU may be on your shopping list.
Many of you may know (or guess) what a redundant power supply is. A very short primer follows:
A redundant power supply is a power supply that actually includes two (or more) units within it, each of which is capable of powering the entire system by itself. If for some reason there is a failure in one of the units, the other one will seamlessly take over to prevent the loss of power to the PC. You can usually even replace the damaged unit without taking the machine down. This is called hot swapping, and is an essential productivity backup for use in servers and other machines used by a number of people.
All this brings us to the iStarUSA/XEAL IS-500R8P 500W PS2 Mini Redundant Power Supply,
which is the subject of today’s discussion. Please note that I am not equipped to stress test a power supply, but hopefully I can give you idea of what you getting into with an item such as this particular type of power supply.
What’s In The Box?
Being an industrial product, you will not find fancy consumer packaging; just a plain cardboard box
with a UPC label designating this as an IS-500R8P.
Once opened, you will find the unit adequately encased for shipping protection.
First out of the box is a plastic bag containing two power cables, cable ties, hardware and brackets.
What follows are pictures from various angles of the power supply itself.
Being that this a hotswap redundant power supply, the modules are easily removable if needed.
A couple of pictures of each end of one module.
An attempted shot of the backplane.
Finally, a shot of a module with the nameplate specs.
What impresses me about this particular device and other iStarUSA equipment that I have dealt with previously is the attention to detail and general build quality. Built like a tank with the finish of a luxury vehicle.
The singular item I am sure you have noticed are those small fans. Small fans normally means big noise, something we will take a listen to shortly.
