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Keeping a Data Center Cool on the Cheap
jedimaud writes "You've heard of bubble wrap, and the boy in the bubble -- now, here's a datacenter in a bubble. I work for a government agency that, like most, is trying to cut back some costs, and one of those costs is a REAL datacenter. So, we decided to wrap the whole thing in plastic (including two 1.5 ton ACs). The room hovers about 83 degrees, however, the racks in the bubble (ok, more like a termite tent) stay about 10 degree cooler. Here's some pics to check it out."
Clean dry cold air. Self sufficient oil. Great physical security
First off, a "real" data center needs a little more than 1.5 Tons of cooling
I'm pretty sure 3 (2x1.5) is considered a little more than 1.5 but perhaps I'm not using "real" math.
Your 3 computers must be built with awful components. At my former employer we were keeping the entire server room cool with a $200 window air conditioner. The server room had 2 HP servers, a handful of 1U IBM x336 servers, 3 workstations, 2 racks of networking equipment, and a variety of other smaller devices. The window unit ran about once an hour for 5 minutes in 85 degree weather and kept the room sufficiently cool.
The key is to move your UPS out of the temperature controlled area, since that's the biggest source of heat in most server rooms. Then we were gradually replacing the multitude of old HP servers with the IBM servers. Each IBM could to the work of 4 HP's easily, and ran much cooler than a single HP.
Your 3 computers must be running 1000+ watt power supplies, multiple 6800 vid cards, and a ton of hard drives if your home a/c is having trouble cooling that room.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
Having recently faced a similar problem (though on a much smaller scale), we came up with almost the same solution.
As one suggestion, though, cardboard (in 4x8ft sheets) proved a lot easier to work with than plastic sheets. For starters, the plastic requires attachment at the ceiling, and will eventually come loose under its own weight; cardboard, with a single fold in the sheet, will stand upright and support its own weight for years, assuming not too high of a humidity level. For another, cardboard won't flap around and potentially block air intakes nearly so easily as plastic will.
Believe it or not, though, what we found the most effective way to make use of barely adequate AC - Don't treat the room as a closed system. You've basically used the plastic sheets to build giant chimneys - Now take advantage of that fact, and along with a high volume fan above each rack, just exhaust the air at the top outside rather than recycle it back into the room... Think of it this way... You spec your cooling to work to perhaps 110F ambient, right? At the top of a full rack, with 50-60F going in the bottom, you probably have 120-130F going out the top. Does it take more work to cool 130F, or 110F, back to 50F? Not to mention, your normal ambient shouldn't come anywhere near 110F...