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Dell To Sell Advanced Server Cooling Systems

Posted by kdawson on from the series-of-tubes dept.

Mitechsi writes "Dell has struck a deal with Emerson to sell advanced liquid cooling systems and services to data center owners. One type of supplemental cooling technology is called the Liebert XD. The XD consists of refrigerant-filled pipes that snake around the server racks in a data center. The liquid system cuts the cooling power load by about 30%–50% compared to other types of cooling systems."

2 of 79 comments (clear)

  1. Why must data centers be so dense ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    One constantly reads of problems with heat and cooling at datacenters, and exotic solutions, which would all be solved by leaving every other rack empty and renting twice as much space.

    This is North America. A data center, by definition, is remote from it's users. There is no need to place it in one of the three or four regions where square footage is that expensive.

    If I were building a data center, I would select one of the empty Albertson's or Kmarts that recently closed in my area. I would pick the one in the suckist retail location to get the cheapest rent. With the whole center spread out, and three story high ceilings, you have a low enough density and enough thermal mass in all that air that you can run the AC full blast at night (when it is more efficient because the coils outside are in cooler air) and let the temp rise slightly over the day.

    Instead, they are constructing several NEW data centers in my area, building from the ground up, and I know from friends who are working in the build-out that they are packing it in tightly. It is also hell to control any kind of fire in that environment, I guess that's why they have those dangerous people-suffocating Halon (?) fire systems.

    1. Re:Why must data centers be so dense ? by aaarrrgggh · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Density has a number of benefits-- especially in reducing your network and power interconnect costs. We build data centers that are about as big as a big-box retail store, and the average power draw is around 5kW per cabinet, or 125W/SF raised floor. Your 100,000 square foot retail space would tend to be half raised floor, so you have a total of about 6.2 MW UPS.

      The real problem for data centers is that some equipment works much better packed close together. Usually, it's only 20% or so, but you have to figure out solutions for this type of equipment.

      The most interesting strategies for data center cooling today are using air side free cooling. There are plenty of challenges, and it only works with certain combinations of local climate and building design, but it is another area that benefits from high density-- being able to exhaust 110F air from your cabinets directly to the outside rather than trying to cool it back down to 55F at the CRAC units makes a lot of sense.

      (As for converting a big box retail building to a data center... you might be able to put in 100kW of computer load and just run the air conditioning at night as suggested. If you pay $0.50/SF, that would be about $50k/month in rent. Rent in a co-lo for the same power density would be about $26k per month. In either scenario, you need to add power and UPS to the equation for the total picture.)