A 99.7% Efficient 300 W Hard Disk Drive Storage Server with Multiport Ac-Coupled Differential Power Processing (MAC-DPP) Architecture

High performance computing needs high performance power electronics. This paper presents the design of an ultra-efficient series-stacked hard-disk-drive (HDD) data storage server with a multiport ac-coupled differential power processing (MAC-DPP) architecture. A large number of HDDs are connected in series and ac-coupled through a multi-winding transformer with a single flux linkage. The MAC-DPP architecture offers very low power conversion stress, can achieve extremely high efficiency, and can reduce the magnetic size and the component count. A hybrid time-sharing and distributed phase-shift control strategy is developed to modulate the ac-coupled multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) power flow. A 10-port MAC-DPP prototype was designed to support a 300 W data storage system with 10 series-stacked voltage domains. The MAC-DPP converter was tested with a 50-HDD 12TB testbench, which can maintain normal operation of the server against the worst hot-swapping scenario. The 300 W MAC-DPP prototype can achieve 99.7% peak system efficiency and over 100 W/in
³
power density.