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Emergency Cooling with Limited Power?

Posted by Cliff on from the what-will-you-do-when-the-A/C-breaks-down dept.

Nos. asks: "I work for a small webhosting company (I'm on leave from my Gov't job) and we've started having some power problems. Actually someone managed to blow out the substation powering the area so we're piggy backing off another one, and they're slowly powering more and more things off. Elevators, lights, etc. are gone. Since the building we work in has a few IT company's working it in, they're trying as hard as they can to keep the A/C running, but its not looking good. As such, the possibility exists that our server room could get very warm, very quickly. Since we've already powered off everything that's not essential, we're starting to look at ways to keep the room cool without using a lot of power. Generators an small A/C units are a last resort as it would mean holes in the walls. The only thing we've been able to come up with is dry ice and some small fans to circulate the air. Of course this is happening as we're heading in to a week of over 30C days. Does Slashdot have any ideas?"

4 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. Rent big truck generator & run whole building by StormForge · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's pretty affordable to rent a huge generator system mounted on a tractor-trailer. Probably have plenty of power to keep everything running. Maybe make the power company reimburse you even?

  2. AC onna truck by PapaZit · · Score: 4, Interesting

    First of all, you should have thought about this BEFORE now. If you're a decent webhosting company, disaster planning and recovery is as essential to your business as spare hard drives.

    That being said, there are often companies who can provide air conditioning and/or generators on a truck. They'll block off a doorway or the loading dock and pump the air in through there. If you have a little more time (and appropriate permits, etc.), they're often willing to run temporary connections into your forced air system.

    Whenever they do HVAC work on our building, they have the trucks set up and waiting. We have a few too many computers to even survive with "just the essentials" if the AC goes out.

    --
    Forward, retransmit, or republish anything I say here. Just don't misquote me.
  3. Nix the Dry ice by jandrese · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'd nix that Dry ice idea. Most server rooms don't have paricularly good ventilation despite the large amounts of A/C in use (it's mostly recirculated air). Releasing large amounts of CO2 into the room might just turn your server room into a silent deathtrap.

    --

    I read the internet for the articles.
  4. most important of all -- by fraxas · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Ask Slashdot.

    But seriously -- be sure to consider the relative risks of keeping your server room up versus taking it down and waiting. If you take it down now, you're guaranteeing yourself downtime, but you can come back online as soon as the substation comes back.

    If you try to stay running, you're not guaranteed to have downtime, but if you do it'll be intense, because you'll have damaged hardware to deal with.