Server Air Con?

ajf

ajf

ajf

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What do any you have for air con at the moment in server rooms?
We need to replace the unit sat work and some discussion as to what to go for.

The room is about 7m x5m with three server racks and two switch cabinets.
Currently us APC InRow units, but these are quite an expensive option to buy and get support on.
The room is not a full 'in row' type install either now.

A local firm has suggested looking at 2 or 3 large ceiling cassette type units, but unsure how good these are being above the racks etc?

Comments, suggestions and photos of installs appreciated!
 
We have had problem where the A/C has failed or iced up which results in them dripping water. Fortunately not onto racks though!
 
Off the top of my head my server room is 5m x 12m and has 5 ceiling mounted cassette units. Individually they are not particularly powerful but we have a lot of redundancy built in.

The basic layout is two rows of 10 server racks with a mix of servers, desktops, storage and wiring plus a dirty great big UPS covering one end of the room.

The units aren't directly above any rack but having the ceiling mounted units isn't an issue. What you really need is a site survey to include your current and projected energy requirements so they can quote properly.

We usually get years of use from the units before any significant serving is required though we have regular servicing. We've had units stop or just need a power cycle but that's very rare and again we have redundancy built in. Originally we had Daikin units but now have all Mitsubishi installed and they have been that bit more reliable.

In my experience apart from an outright failure, the dripping and freezing happens when they are set too low. Happens all the time in ours classrooms when people set them to targets they'll never reach so they overwork and freeze up. Eventually someone gets a shower when the ice starts to melt!
 
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Bit of different scale to yours, but we have 4 standalone units with 4 backup units, these pipe the cold air under the floor and each row of racks is enclosed - so no cold air mixes with the hot air. I think we have just over 200 full racks.
 
Semple said:
Bit of different scale to yours, but we have 4 standalone units with 4 backup units, these pipe the cold air under the floor and each row of racks is enclosed - so no cold air mixes with the hot air. I think we have just over 200 full racks.
Click to expand...

Now that sort of setup needs proper design and planning where mine just grew from what was already in there and yeah I've always commented that I didn't think the air was being properly managed but the company wouldn't start from scratch just replaced or added as needed.
 
not a big fan of cassettes or any pipework over racking etc. once had a split pipe which sent water all over an IBM mainframe. was like a very expensive water feature. cassettes can be costly to maintain too, much harder to replace if/when they fail.

think our room is about 10x5m and we have 4 mitsi wall mounts.
 
Ours is 1mx2m (don't ask! It's not what I requested) and a single bog standard unit. Should have two but no room.
 
These:

http://www.airedale.com/web/Products/IT-Server-Rack-Cooling/InRak.htm

20 racks with hot aisle containment, 4 of these units placed in the relevant spaces. Quite a nice arrangement and very efficient. All on roomwide UPS (batteries for which are 4 tons and give room autonomy of 4hrs!) all backed up by an essential site wide generator with approximately 7 days worth of diesel to run the full site at any one time! :D
 
neil_g said:
not a big fan of cassettes or any pipework over racking etc. once had a split pipe which sent water all over an IBM mainframe. was like a very expensive water feature. cassettes can be costly to maintain too, much harder to replace if/when they fail.

think our room is about 10x5m and we have 4 mitsi wall mounts.
Click to expand...

Some of IBM's high end servers laugh at being submerged in water and just keep on running heh.
 
Avoid the ceiling mounted units - as others have said the risk of leaks (or even condensation or icing) is quite high - certainly don't want it dripping everywhere.

Our Server room at work has 2 Wall mounted air con units, that are on one of the short walls blowing across the front and back of our 3 racks.

Both units are oversized and can keep the room cool on their own if need be.

Potentially we may add another rack in line, and so the opposite wall could have 2 further air con units added if need be.

As important as aircon, is to make sure you have some decent environmental monitoring (we use APC and Eaton probes that connect to our UPSes - both temperature and humidity), that log and can email temperature alerts, but can also be useful to pass onto our air con engineers to help identify any problems.
 
We are doing this now, also depends on what is in the room in terms of BTU's as two people can have the same size room but one will have a larger thermal load than the other.

Something to consider.
 
Thanks for the comments everyone.
The concerns about the cassette type were my main concerns too, plus we have also been advised they do not want any additional external condensers installed on the premises.

Those Airedale units will be worth a look as very similar to the current InRow ones, which have done the job very well.

The main issue with the APC units is they are getting unreliable, and APC charge silly figures to maintain them outside warranty and no third party companies can get a lot of the components.
New units are also pricey, as is the extended warranties.
 
kefkef said:
These:

http://www.airedale.com/web/Products/IT-Server-Rack-Cooling/InRak.htm

20 racks with hot aisle containment, 4 of these units placed in the relevant spaces. Quite a nice arrangement and very efficient. All on roomwide UPS (batteries for which are 4 tons and give room autonomy of 4hrs!) all backed up by an essential site wide generator with approximately 7 days worth of diesel to run the full site at any one time! :D
Click to expand...

That sound similar to our setup although ours aren't Airedale.
Ours are supplied with chilled water from 2 80kW roof mounted chillers.
We have heat recovery on the return water to the chillers which is fed to the general office AHU's.
 
If the room is small then we tend to end up with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (different company sort of to Mitsubishi Electric) wall mount units with the condensate drain being gravity fed - had too many of those small pumps fail and cause the unit to shut down to trust them again. The inverter models are so ridiculously frugal with power usage which is always good.

Not sure if it's a standard thing with AC units but the ability to cool even when the outside air temperature is lower than the inside temperature is sort of required for a server room, as well as stuff like auto start when AC power recovers.
 
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RJC said:
A bit late but also look at Stulz units, worked on a few in the past:

http://uk.stulz.com/
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I'll have a look into these as well, thanks.

The only issue I potentially saw with the Airedale, was the literature mentions external chillers and condensers.
I am not sure if that was an option for better efficiency or a requirement, as we need units that are completely self contained.

Certainly going to look at wall/cassette type units as well, but still not convinced they are the ideal solution.

The APC units have just had a bit of tlc anyway, so hopefully keep them ticking for a bit longer whilst we look at the options!
 
Majority of these units tend to have external condensers or dry air-coolers to reject the heat, if you go with a wall mount or ceiling cassette then you still would need an outdoor unit.

Another option is floor mount units.

Don't think I have worked on any self contained units, they all had external counter parts.
 
Hmm, not good to here!
Seems APC might have us by the proverbials:mad:
The InRow units we currently have are completely self contained, the only venting is excess hot air, which goes into the false ceiling void.
 
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