How Cold is your Server Room?

Caporegime
Joined
7 Nov 2004
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30,194
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Buckinghamshire
In your average server room, with the servers installed in racks I mean. You would want the racks facing towards the aircon's airflow, with the possibility of extraction at the back of the server racks somewhere.

Well...That's the normal type of setup I see at work on the sites I work at :)
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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10,950
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Bristol
There's work being done at the moment to increase temperatures, or at least find the maximum temperatures before equipment starts to fail. The conventional 18-20C thinking is too conservative. Most kit is fine up to 40ish, running the room that hot saves loads of money on air-conditioning.
 
Soldato
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18 Oct 2002
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Brighton
It was 30 degree's in ours today, the aircon unit is some ***** portable unit that sits in the corner and needs to be filled up with water every 5 minutes.

I must have told them 10 times that we need to plum in a proper system but they just won't listen, one day we will come in on a monday and everything will be dead... then i can say I TOLD YOU SO :D
 
Soldato
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17 Feb 2003
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Northampton
There have been a few studys recently (one of my hosting team has been harping on about them)which have shown that as long as the humidity is low that computer rooms into the 40-50 mark are viable with little if any reduction in the life of the hardware. Obviously not nice to work in or near but gives a different twist on what the rooms can support. Also it appears that hard drives have an extended life in a warmer temperature...

[prepares for the barrage of comments]
 
Soldato
Joined
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10,950
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Bristol
There have been a few studys recently (one of my hosting team has been harping on about them)which have shown that as long as the humidity is low that computer rooms into the 40-50 mark are viable with little if any reduction in the life of the hardware. Obviously not nice to work in or near but gives a different twist on what the rooms can support. Also it appears that hard drives have an extended life in a warmer temperature...

[prepares for the barrage of comments]
You're quite right, as I mentioned above.
 
Associate
Joined
28 Oct 2002
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534
Location
Taunton, Somerset
Our room is a pleasant 16-18'c; having just had a 2nd aircon unit installed; One is mostly idle; but having seen what happened with just an hour's downtime in the room, Resiliancy is key. The back of the racks are obviously a bit warmer; but not too warm to work comfortably in.

I think more than absolute temperatures being bad for kit, its the change in temperature which causes more issues?
 

Baz

Baz

Soldato
Joined
9 Dec 2002
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4,373
Location
Peterborough
18'c according to the AC's temp monitor.
We did have a problem 2 years ago when the outside unit overheated during 30'c weather, so we had a big ass unit installed. It is only 2 racks and 20 servers, but they do kick out some heat. This time of year I love going in there to cool off :)
 
Soldato
Joined
11 Mar 2004
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5,000
Has been talk of putting the AC in the rack, where it can cool more efficiently.

The ultimate situation will be to have liquid cooling in the rack, and the servers plug into it to be liquid cooled themselves, like you'd plug it into the PDU now.

That way the air never gets warm, and you won't need to AC the room.
 
Associate
OP
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3 Jan 2006
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1,835
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South Wales
There have been a few studys recently (one of my hosting team has been harping on about them)which have shown that as long as the humidity is low that computer rooms into the 40-50 mark are viable with little if any reduction in the life of the hardware. Obviously not nice to work in or near but gives a different twist on what the rooms can support. Also it appears that hard drives have an extended life in a warmer temperature...

[prepares for the barrage of comments]

Do you have any links to the study findings?
 
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