Cost-Effective Server Room Air Conditioning?

at0mic26 writes "I am currently tasked with finding a cost effective solution to our 30+ degree Celsius server room. The only air conditioning currently provided is a single duct pipe from one of two air conditioner units. I was thinking of stealing air from the second air conditioning unit with some sheet metal work, but it likely will not be sufficient — and would not have tolerance for both AC units being offline for any amount of time. An ideal supplemental portable AC unit is what I am after, however I'm finding it cost prohibitive, with $600+ humidity controlled AC unit, plus 20 amp socket requirement, plus contract work to make a hole in the wall for outside drainage so that the unit does not flood the place. What sort of successful cheaper air conditioning solutions have you come up with?"

Comments

this article blows

[Anonymous Coward]

if you can't afford $600 to cool the room, you need to turn off your servers.

Re:this article blows

[wgoodman]

I have a similar setup and have had to go into it with a very low budget. I have a ~$400 portable LG air conditioner. No worries on draining it since it's smart enough to use the hot air of the exhaust to evaporate the moisture and send it out the warm air duct. I leave the unit on the "Dry" setting which tends to keep the room plenty cool.

Re:this article blows

[mpoulton]

True, but condensation can't be an issue anyway. The compressor and condenser must be outside, or you'll just have a fancy heater that blows cold air on one side and drips water on the floor. See the laws of thermodynamics for details.

Nah. What you have is a refrigerator the size of the room. You just need to reject the heat out of the server room, not out of the building necessarily. Putting the condenser inside the building but outside the server room (as would be the case with a window AC unit installed through ain interior wall) will successfully cool the server room. The only downside is that it will increase the total load on the building's main cooling system. This may not be a problem.

Not much you can do

[Nos.]

Dry ice and a fan? Seriously though, there's not much you can do here. What is the cost to the business if hardware starts failing if it overheats? How does that compare with the total cost of installing another A/C unit?

Simple answer is don't mess around

[banbeans]

Never try and just make do with the cooling.
The cost of doing it right pales in comparison with not doing it right and something happening.

Maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

If you posted more information you could get a reasonable answer.

How much space?
How much heat is the equipment giving off?
What is your budget?
At what temperature do you want to operate the room?
How quickly is the heat output of the equipment growing?
How much excess capacity do you need?

If you can't answer those questions you won't get a workable solution.

How many servers?

[greymond]

If the room averages a temperature of 86 degrees (sorry I'm american) and I wanted to get it cooler there are a lot of options, however what size room are we talking about and where is it located (room, ground floor, basement?) Lots of different options and choices depending on lots of variables that weren't in the post.

I'm not trying to be a dick, just wondering because cooling a room for a small business like the one I work in that houses all of 3 servers in a room a little larger than your average walk-in closet is a lot different than trying to cool a room with 100 rack mount servers lined up in rows.

A google search though brings up a lot of places like http://www.ptsdcs.com/ - might just be worthwhile to google for what you need.

Turn off the servers

[Bronster]

Seriously, the coward shitteth you not. If you can't afford $600 to cool the room, then consolidate your services onto fewer machines and shut the others off, because they're obviously not making you enough money to be worth running.

If, on the other hand, your boss is a cheapskate then do something like I did before - moved the servers out to my desk and stuck a honking big fan at one side to blow air past them. It had the very big plus side of being obvious to everyone that we had to keep the servers cool, and reminded them every day that the alternative was buying some aircon.

Re:Turn off the servers

[ktappe]

It had the very big plus side of being obvious to everyone that we had to keep the servers cool, and reminded them every day that the alternative was buying some aircon.

Trying to re-educate the boss can easily backfire. When my company moved to a new building, ownership neglected to account for I.T. storage and workspace needs (workbench, shelving for spare monitors, PC's, cables, software, manuals, etc.) In protest (not wanting to turn my office into a store room), I stacked the stuff in the hallways of our nice new building. I thought this would give ownership the hint. Instead I got the evil eye from the owners and was outsourced shortly thereafter, despite seven years of service with consistently positive annual reviews.

Many owners/bosses got to where they are by persuading others that they know more than they actually do. When you show them up, you become an obstacle to their ambition and ego. To their thinking, you, not the item they were wrong about, is what needs "fixing".

Your boss refusing to pay $600 for A/C to keep thousands of dollars worth of servers running that (probably) contain data worth tens or even hundreds of thousands, is the real problem. But make sure you have calmly and unchallengingly made this clear to him/her. Use phrases like "The plant would be down X days if the servers fail due to heat. How much would that cost?"

As for trying to rig something up yourself, I wouldn't unless you're a certified HVAC technician. Make that clear to the boss too (again as gently as you can). "I'm not trained in this. I don't want to accidentally take A/C away from anyone else--they have work to do to and we can't afford to lower their productivity." Again, make the costs of the lack of $600 apparent if you can.

Good luck!

F/OSS

[BitterOldGUy]

...You can use standard window units

Maybe he has a F/OSS shop. Geeze!

Re:Antarctica

[tommeke100]

Isn't google thinking of moving some data centers to colder places to save on cooling expenses?
However, you have to keep the temperature above freezing point, otherwise you'll have condensation and humidity problem.

Call an Engineer!

[R2.0]

FFS, call an expert. If an engineer with a design firm wrote in and asked how to set up the company's servers, but he doesn't want to hire any IT people, everyone would be incensed at his stupidity for not calling in an expert. But somehow IT training makes people qualified HVAC design engineers?

Spend the money now, and only cry once.

Hot Air Ducting

[sciop101]

Install separate ductwork for hot air expulsion.

The hot air is expelled from the server cabinets, into the hot air ductwork, and out of the building.

Don't blow equipment heated air into the air-conditioned facility.

Re:do what CIHost does

[RMH101]

which isp was this? so i can avoid them?

Re:Celcius?

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

Yes, but it's a good rule of thumb that if the language has evolved at the hands of a business consultant, they're just trying to make an ordinary, everyday job description sound sexy and exciting through deliberate obfuscation and complication of syntax. "I've been tasked with getting a tiger team to think outside the box vis-a-vis their normal operational paradigm with regards to proactively seeking out new-media revenue generation through forward-thinking distribution channels" sounds a lot sexier to the average suit than "We need more money. What ideas do you internet nerds have?"