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Small Startup Prevails In Server Cooling 'Chill Off'
miller60 writes "A small startup has shown exceptional energy efficiency in a data center 'chill off' comparing server cooling technologies. Clustered Systems posted the best numbers in the 18-month vendor evaluation sponsored by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. The Menlo Park, Calif. company built a prototype server that uses no fans and cools processors with a cold plate with tubing filled with liquid coolant. The testing accidentally highlighted the opportunity for additional energy savings, when the Clustered Systems unit continued to operate during a cooling failure that raised the chiller plant water temperature from 44 to 78 degrees F."
I'm pretty impressed by how quiet their demo rack is - it'd be a challenge to get a good audio recording of a conversation right next to a full rack of air-cooled 1U servers - it's frustrating using a cell phone in most server rooms, just because of the fan noise. 1U systems are the worst simply because the form factor requires a large number of tiny fans running at high speed.
Even if there's some serious impracticalities with their approach, eliminating that fan noise is a huge selling point.
The world is no stranger to liquid-cooling in computers, but this is pretty impressive. Does anyone have any numbers on how much traditional cooling costs compared to estimated costs from this company?