Hot Aisle Or Cold Aisle For Containment?

1sockchuck writes "Separating the hot and cold air in a data center is one of the keys to improving energy efficiency. But containment systems don't have to be fancy or expensive, as Google showed in a presentation Thursday, which discussed the use of clear vinyl curtains in isolating hot and cold aisles. Containment systems have been in use at least since 2004, but there's an ongoing debate about whether it is best to contain the hot aisle or cold aisle. Leading vendors are split as well, as APC advances hot aisle containment while Emerson/Liebert champions a cold aisle approach. What say Slashdot readers? Do you use containment in your data center? If so, do you contain the hot aisle or cold aisle?"

Comments

Hot or Cold?

[siglercm]

Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but the answer shouldn't be complex. Base the decision to contain either hot or cold aisles on the differences to ambient temperature. If (HotT - AmbientT) > (AmbientT - ColdT), then contain the hot aisles. If it's the other way around, contain the cold aisles. This minimizes the entropy loss due to temperature mixing in the data center, I believe. Just my 2 cents.

Where is your datacenter?

[Jave1in]

The best solution is going to based on the average ambient temperature of your location. If you're in a hot environment, why contain the cold if you need additional A/C in the datacenter for employees? Reduce costs by using the same equipment to cool both. If you're in a cold region, then let the heat also warm the datacenter. If you're in an ideal temperature environment, then you don't have much to worry about beside good air flow.

Re:Can you try both methods?

[countertrolling]

You forgot Iceland...

Yeah well, they're having a little trouble with containment right now themselves. And it appears geothermal isn't as clean as it was made out to be.