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Looking for a cooling system for 4 Servers - help!

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  • Cooling
  • Servers
  • Windows
Last response: in Windows 2000/NT
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Anonymous
April 27, 2005 10:26:36 AM

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsnt.misc (More info?)

Hi,

I wonder if you can help me with this challenge...

I have been asked to find a way to move four Dell Tower servers from 2
locations into a small office supply room that has no stand alone air
conditioning unit. The building is constructed in a way that I cannot
have a cooling system installed in a wall or ceiling due to structural
limitations.

There is no window in the room, so any water runoff from an AC unit
would probably have to be taken care of manually (by me emptying a pan
or something) - which I am fine doing if we bought a stand alone AC
unit. But it would probably be in violation of several building codes
;) 

I have been offered the money to buy server racks with the fans on top
- yet I don't think those will help the heat level in this room.
Currently in one big location, 3 of the servers raise the room temp to
86-90 degrees depending on the day. These Dell servers are certified
to run up to 95 degrees.

I am sure some of you have had to deal with this problem before...how
did you solve it?

Thanks!!

More about : cooling system servers

Anonymous
April 27, 2005 2:27:56 PM

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsnt.misc (More info?)

Blarneystone wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I wonder if you can help me with this challenge...
>
> I have been asked to find a way to move four Dell Tower servers from 2
> locations into a small office supply room that has no stand alone air
> conditioning unit. The building is constructed in a way that I cannot
> have a cooling system installed in a wall or ceiling due to structural
> limitations.
>
> There is no window in the room, so any water runoff from an AC unit
> would probably have to be taken care of manually (by me emptying a pan
> or something) - which I am fine doing if we bought a stand alone AC
> unit. But it would probably be in violation of several building codes

Does the room have an outside wall? If yes, then what about an
external air conditioner? I had this done with a small
window-less basement server room about 10 years ago. The holes
in the walls were be small: two 4" holes for the ducts and much
small ones for the power and control lines.

If the building is so bad structurally that it can't take a
couple of 4" holes, run for your life.

If you had to, you could get by with just one 4" duct for
delivering the cold air. I had a second duct put in with a
separate fan to expel the hot air that had risen to the top of
the room.


> ;) 
>
> I have been offered the money to buy server racks with the fans on top
> - yet I don't think those will help the heat level in this room.

If you can duct the air up from the top of the case and out of
the room - even if only into a hallway, it would help.

> Currently in one big location, 3 of the servers raise the room temp to
> 86-90 degrees depending on the day. These Dell servers are certified
> to run up to 95 degrees.

You don't say what the servers are.

If they are Xeon boxes, consider switching to Opterons. Four 2
GHz dual Opteron machines will outperform and use about 500 W
less than four 3 GHz dual Xeon machines. 500 W less heat is a
huge difference in a small server room.

With the new dual-core Opterons you could get even larger heat
reductions. The dual-core Opterons outperform a pair of
single-core Opterons at the same clock speed, while using about
the same amount of power as /one/ single-core Opteron. In other
words, you would be able to cut the number of processors needed
in half - you could either reduce the number of servers or reduce
the number of processors per server.

Over the last year I have become so impressed with the computing
performance and thermal efficiency of Opterons that it will be
years, if ever, before I ever consider Xeons again. Xeons use a
heck of a lot more power while accomplishing less than Opterons -
it just doesn't make sense to use them any more.

>
> I am sure some of you have had to deal with this problem before...how
> did you solve it?
>

I also worked in one place where a small closet was built to hold
a few servers, and then an air-conditioner was mounted on the
side of the closet. The closet got cooled off nicely, but only
at the expense of warming up the rest of the room.
Anonymous
April 28, 2005 10:48:06 PM

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsnt.misc (More info?)

Blarneystone wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I wonder if you can help me with this challenge...
>
> I have been asked to find a way to move four Dell Tower servers from 2
> locations into a small office supply room that has no stand alone air
> conditioning unit. The building is constructed in a way that I cannot
> have a cooling system installed in a wall or ceiling due to structural
> limitations.
>
> There is no window in the room, so any water runoff from an AC unit
> would probably have to be taken care of manually (by me emptying a pan
> or something) - which I am fine doing if we bought a stand alone AC
> unit. But it would probably be in violation of several building codes
> ;) 
>
> I have been offered the money to buy server racks with the fans on top
> - yet I don't think those will help the heat level in this room.
> Currently in one big location, 3 of the servers raise the room temp to
> 86-90 degrees depending on the day. These Dell servers are certified
> to run up to 95 degrees.
>
> I am sure some of you have had to deal with this problem before...how
> did you solve it?
>
> Thanks!!
>

The "professional" answer would be to decline the invitation
and write a proposal, including budget, to re-locate the servers
to where they really belong. In explaining the rationale, state
the losses should any one of the servers fail while being broiled
in an impossible space. IOW, never become a party to a disaster
(or jobs are plentiful for the seasonsed professional).
!