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Cooler Servers or Cooler Rooms?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the six-of-one-half-a-dozen-of-another dept.

mstansberry writes "Analysts, experts and engineers rumble over which is more important in curbing server heat issues; cooler rooms or cooler servers. And who will be the first vendor to bring water back into the data center?"

5 of 409 comments (clear)

  1. well I've always wondered this by Saven+Marek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've always wondered this. why have duplication of a function in a server across every single server box when it could all be done in the environment. For example all servers get electricity from the server room and all servers get network from the server room so why not all servers get cooling from 10F cooling in the server room.

    It makes sense!

    1. Re:well I've always wondered this by T-Ranger · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What I have never understood is why servers virtually always have AC power supplies. Yes, you can get NEBS(?) compliant servers that take DC, but this isnt really a general option, but a distinct model line compleatly.

      UPSs take AC, turn it to DC, charge their batteries. A sepearate system takes DC from batteries, inverts it and sends out AC. (Good UPSs, anyway. Otherwise they are "battery backups", not uninteruptable) Computer power supplies take AC and distribute DC inside the case. WTF?

      Why doesn't APC start selling ATX power supplies? Directly swap out AC powersupplies, have them plug into the DC providing UPS and/or per-rack (or even per-room) powersupplies.

      Electrical codes are a BS excuse. Even if you needed verdor specific racks, a DC providing rack is, so far as the fire marshal should be concerned, just a very large blade enclosure, which are clearly acceptable.

      I cant beleive that Im the first one to ever come up with this idea. So there must be some problem with it.... Some EE want to explain why this wouldnt work?

  2. If you have cooler servers... by havaloc · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...you won't need as much cooling in the room. Easy enough. This will save a ton of money in the long run, not to mention the environment and all that.

  3. Re:Why not both? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Cost.

    The question isn't whether it's good to keep both cool. The question is, which makes more financial sense? Cooling the whole room? Spending the money to purchase servers with a low heat-to-computation ratio?

    Probably a combination. But to say that people should equip every computer with VIA ultra-low-power chips _and_ freeze the server room is silly.

  4. Cooler servers... by Aphrika · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From experience of aircon failing/breaking.

    At least if a server fails it's one unit that'll either get hot or shutdown which means a high degree of business continuity.

    When your aircon goes down you're in a whole world or hurt. Ours went in a powercut, yet the servers stayed on because of the UPSes - hence the room temperature rose and the alarms went off. Nothing damaged, but it made us realise that it's important to have both, otherwise your redundancy and failover plans expand into the world of facilities and operations, rather than staying within the IT realm.