FSP Twins 500W Redundant ATX Power Supply Review

Peter Donnell / 8 years ago

Final Thoughts

Pricing

The FSP Twins ATX Dual Module 500W 80 Plus Gold Redundant PSU is available right now from Amazon US. The Twins 500W is currently $399.00. That’s not cheap, but when it comes to ensuring your server or workstation never looses power and your data with it; it’s a small price to pay.

Conclusion

I can see a lot of people reading this review and feeling a bit lost on how this unit performs and what it really is for. I can understand that too, this is almost a consumer version of the kind of hardware we would normally see in the professional and enterprise market. Over the last few years, I’ve been toying around with home server technology. Building a compact system that runs my Plex server, as well as dealing with all my transcoding. This isn’t the most vital sounding system, but I wouldn’t like it to go offline should the PSU fail. For this, the Twins is the perfect solution to maintaining uptime.

Of course, there are more vital applications for some users. If you’re running a mining rig, rendering system, or something running a system that your business relies on such as a web server. It’s situations like this where the Twins offers peace of mind.

Two PSUs are Better Than One

The Twins isn’t cheap. However, losing your data in the event of a PSU failure could cost you a whole lot more. If one unit fails, you’ll hear a loud beep from the failed unit and the other unit will automatically take over. I tested this best I could. I plugged in both, ran our PSU testing scenarios and pulled out one of the plugs. It didn’t skip a beat! You’re able to pull out one of the units from the PSU while it’s still live. Again, this had no effect. Simply slot it back in and you’re good to go. If one fails, remove it, replace it with a new one, you’re back up to speed.

Practical?

From opening the box to installing the Twins, this is no more complex than a standard ATX PSU. You plug a power cable in the back, you hook up the headers to your components. It’s really very straightforward. In fact, if all goes well you can hope you never even have to remove or replace one of the PSU units. It’s a failsafe for if and when things go wrong; that doesn’t mean they will.

Digital

With digital features, you can monitor the power output, temperatures, efficiency and cost of running your system. When it comes to rendering and other demanding tasks on systems that are on 24/7 this is important. Knowing what it costs to run a system can be important to any business. This is a nice feature to have, although not everyone will really need it.

Pros

Redundant PSU design
Hot swappable PSUs
Easy to install and use
Digital monitors
Good efficiency
Trusted brand name
Ideal for servers and vital systems

Cons

Quite noisy

Natural

A little expensive, but worth the investment

“When it comes to protecting your systems, your data and your uptime, a redundant PSU adds peace of mind. The FSP Twins is as easy to use as any ATX PSU, but helps ensure your system never goes without power.”