DC to DC Power Supply

I’m building a server that will run off grid. I’m starting my hardware search with the power supply. As what I can get there will dictate my other choices. Ballpark end goal is 4 3.5" HDD with NVME for boot. 4 core and 16gb ram. CPU/Mobo will be chosen based off power supply and power draw. Speed isn’t a huge concern may even look to under clock if that saves power.

It will be powered by a dedicated battery and solar panels. Server will probably run 24/7, but hard drives will typically only be spun up if the battery is at sufficient levels and enough solar is available to power them so I don’t draw down the battery with them.

Anyway I’d like to avoid an inverter in the system and would rather power this off the battery with a DC-DC ATX power supply. I found these picoPSU at DC-DC ATX PSUs

Does anyone have experience with these or other solutions?

Bob

Used them in tens of small form factor pfsense appliances, for your projected power draw (10-20w witjout HDDs?) they will be plenty, HDDs included …

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Thanks Matt. There seem to be lots of capacities. So I’ll have to do some testing with the HDDs. Concerned about draw on spinup from sleep or off.

My M3-ATX must be over 15 years old and still works great. Admittedly I never messed around with the advanced settings for startup and shutdown like someone might want to use in a car, but I have run it off of solar in the past. I’ve also got a few of the PicoPSU-80’s and they also work well if provided with a sufficient amount of clean power. As long as your CPU isn’t drawing too much it should work fine. I’ve been looking at getting an M4-ATX to handle a bit more power, but that’s on the back burner like lots of things.

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