The 100 Degree Data Center

miller60 writes "Are you ready for the 100-degree data center? Rackable Systems has introduced a new enclosure that it says can run high-density racks safely in environments as hot as 104 degrees (40 degrees C), offering customers the option of saving energy in their data center. Most data centers operate in a range between 68 and 74 degrees. Raising the thermostat can lower the power bill, allowing data centers to use less power for cooling. But higher temperatures can be less forgiving in the event of a cooling failure, and not likely to be welcomed by employees working in the data center."

Comments

Were nerds here... use the f'ing metric system

[Anonymous Coward]

Its better

Re:Were nerds here... use the f'ing metric system

[psergiu]

Fahrenheit is stupid.
Celsius on the other hand is much easier to remember:
0 - Water freezes
10 - Cool
20 - Nice
30 - Hot
40 - Scorching hot
50 - Burn sensation
100 - Water boils

And slashdot.org is not an american-only site as it's domain name ends in .org and not in .us

Re:Were nerds here... use the f'ing metric system

[Chrisq]

Fahrenheit just makes more sense to most of us. 30s = cold, 40s = chilly, 50s = cool, 60s = decent/might need a windbreaker, 70s = nice, 80s = warm, 90s = hot, etc, etc. Celsius is no where near that intuitive and was as arbitrarily defined as Fahrenheit was.

Its not intuitive, its just what you're used to

Re:Were nerds here... use the f'ing metric system

[Mr2cents]

When is this Fahrenheit unit going to die? Last time I checked, only a couple of developing countries were using it (Birma, USA).

Re:Were nerds here... use the f'ing metric system

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

The zero of Fahrenheit -- the freezing point of saturated brine -- is no less sensible than the Celcius zero of the freezing point of water. Fahrenheit is also more precise with fewer digits in the ranges most people deal with day to day.

Yeah, because I'm always having to deal with saturated brine. I can't tell you how many times I've gone out driving in sub-zero temperatures and nearly skidded on all that saturated brine ice.

Fahrenheit is also more precise with fewer digits in the ranges most people deal with day to day

What? Nobody needs to be more accurate than 1C for day-to-day casual usage. For anything else there's this neat thing called a fraction that people can use.

Re:Were nerds here... use the f'ing metric system

[FooAtWFU]

I like Farenheit. It maps very well to the range of habitable temperatures that a human is likely to experience. I realize Freezing Water isn't in the best place, sure, and will willingly concede it would be better if it were tweaked down to something rounder (30 or so, perhaps) but aside from that: 100 is (about) as hot as it gets normally, 0 is about as cold as it gets normally, and anything outside that range is sure to be obnoxious and waxing uninhabitable.

I don't care about how hot it needs to be to boil water, or how many gram-degrees-Celcius are in your calorie, or anything like that. And furthermore, if you're going to be Mr. Science, why not just break out the Kelvin and be done with it?

Re:Were nerds here... use the f'ing metric system

[Fross]

I completely fail to see how a range of 40-80 (after all, you did say "habitable temperatures" for humans), is better than a range of 5-30.

Farenheight has no basis in anything practical at *any* range. At least Celsius is based around water, which is useful for a number of reasons.

Re:Were nerds here... use the f'ing metric system

[Ioldanach]

Is 20 Celsius twice as hot as 10 Celsius? No. Twenty Kelvin, though, is twice as hot as ten.

This is just flat out false. The scale was purposefully defined so that a 1 degree change in Kelvin is the same magnitude as 1 degree change in Celcius. That is why there is still a 100 degree difference between the freezing point of water (273K) and it's boiling point (373K). All in all, this is some mega fail.

A mass at 20K has twice as much thermal energy as 10K. A mass at 20C has about 3.5% more thermal energy as 10C. Therefore, 20K is twice as hot as 10K, 20C is not twice as hot as 10C, if you define 'hot' as the thermal energy embodied in the mass.

Re:Were nerds here... use the f'ing metric system

[Tikkun]

Clicking the Start Button to shutdown is what you're used to. Clicking the Shutdown button is intuitive.

Not just no, but hell no

[Em Emalb]

I realize it's the trendy thing these days to target the data center as an area of concern monetarily, but this is a little ridiculous.

All it will take is one poor geek spending a 12 hour day in the data center for this to be deemed a horrible idea. (Like that never happens)

Seriously, this is retarded. If you do your cooling and power CORRECTLY, you won't have a ridiculous bill and your data center will be at a more reasonable temperature.

I hate really hot weather...you can always put on more clothes, but you reach a limit on what you can take off.

Use that waste heat!

[turgid]

Buildings provide hot water for washing hands etc. Cold water comes in from outside and is heated using electricity or gas to make hot water which costs money and energy.

Pipe the cold water (which is usually somewhere between 0 and 20 degrees C) through heat exchangers in the hot data centre before heating it up to working temperature with gas or electricity.

That way, you reduce the data centre's temperature to more like 20-25C, and you heat the water up by 10C (say) saving on gas or electricity bills since there is less of a temperature difference to get it up to the required temperature.

I eagerly await my Nobel Prize for Common Sense.

the larger degrees are nicer

[Trepidity]

A single degree Celsius is qualitatively a bit too big, to the point where most European climate-control systems with digital displays have to resort to using half-degrees as the base control unit.

Re:the larger degrees are nicer

[frieko]

I'm an American, and I disagree completely.

On my metric wrench set, the 8 is one next to the 7. On my American wrench set, the 5/32 is next to the.. I have no idea, I would have to go look. It's even worse if I have to add 3/32" to 5 7/8".

If you really need fractions, then 7.9 cm is 7 9/10 cm and 22.5 C is 22 1/2 C.

Re:the larger degrees are nicer

[Andy Dodd]

That's because for wrench/socket sets, the situation is just the opposite. Metric's unit (mm) is "just right" and doesn't need fractions or decimals, imperial's unit (inch) is way too big and nearly everything is less than one unit.

It goes the other way for Celsius vs Fahrenheit. Celsius units are "too big" and require dealing with fractional units, while most Fahrenheit-based systems can use single-full-unit increments.