How Much Power Does a Server Use, and How Is It Billed?

In colocation, power is billed by the rating of your power supplies. It pays to understand the numbers before you sign the contract, not after the first invoice.

Rated power vs. actual consumption

The “750 W” label on a power supply is the maximum it can deliver, not what the server draws all the time. In normal operation a typical machine uses noticeably less. But data center infrastructure is designed for peak load, so billing is based on the declared rating.

Ballpark figures

• Entry-level single-CPU server: 350–500 W power supply.
• General-purpose dual-CPU server: 550–750 W.
• Server with many drives: 750–1000 W.
• Redundant power (two supplies): the combined rating is counted.

How to cut costs

Check whether the power supply matches the actual configuration. Servers are often bought “with room to grow” but run with half the drives and a single CPU — in that case, swapping in a lower-rated supply pays for itself within a few months of colocation.

The second source of savings is consolidation. Replacing three old, lightly loaded servers with one modern machine often makes sense: fewer units, fewer watts, fewer points of failure.

Calculate in advance

In the calculator on the colocation page, enter the number of power supplies and the rating of each — you’ll see the fee per day, month and year right away, along with the cost of units, ports and IP addresses.