TL;DR: What caps would be recommended to replace a bunch 2200uF 16v electrolytic caps with long-term reliability as a primary goal? Details below.
Hi all,
I'm a traditionally software guy that has recently been getting into hardware and tinkering. While looking into an issue on a NAS that had been up and running for months (and suddenly wouldn't turn on), it turned out that the 5v rail was overloading the power supply due to 16 2200uF capacitors on the hot-swappable drive backplane (manufacturer suggests minimum 15 amp rail.)
Now, what interested me is that this HAD worked for about ~6 months... could the caps have started drawing more power after 6 months of 24/7 use?
They are ChangX caps, which I understand do not have the most... savory... reputation.
Even though I'm swapping out the power supply for one with a 25amp 5v rail, I am still considering swapping out the caps (Since drive reliability is pretty much the core idea of a NAS)
Figured that 2200uF and 16v would be an easy set of specs to find, and it is, but... there seems to be a lot more to caps than I thought. ESD, leakage current, and endurance specs that I do not know how to read (What does ?5 & 6.3 : 4,000hours mean?) Would there be an advantage to switching to a polymer cap? Am I making this harder than it has to be?
And here I always thought caps were "so simple"....
Realize I've asked a lot of questions in this post... if anyone wants to just answer "I'd recommend X, and here is why" that's all I really need. I do love to learn though, so... hence the large batch of Q's.
PS. Configuation of current caps is : 8 HDD bays 2 caps each, one on the 5v rail, one on the 12v rail. All caps are 2200uF 16v ChangX electrolytic, picture attached.