A Closer Look At Immersion Cooling For the Data Center

1sockchuck writes "Want to save money on data center cooling? Tip your racks on their side, fill them with mineral oil, and submerge your servers. Austin startup Green Revoluton Cooling first profiled here) has a video demo of its immersion cooling solution, which it says can handle racks using up to 100kW of power. A photo gallery on the company web site shows some early installations."

Comments

Paging Dr. Freeze

[upside]

1999 Have I been reading Slashdot that long?

Re:What about the hard drives?

[gclef]

Actually, hard drives are *not* supposed to be air tight. They intentionally allow airflow into the HD, but through a filter to keep dust out. If you want a drive that is airtight, it'll cost more.

http://www.acsdata.com/how-a-hard-drive-works.htm

Four years of college....

[Ahimoth]

and I still get to go home smelling like fries!

Re:What about the hard drives?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I suspect that the main advantage over waterblocks is that your server vendor of choice doesn't have to cooperate, and you don't have to run so many small hoses, and can get away with the big huge tank. Now, if some sort of critical mass were achieved in terms of industry acceptance of waterblocks as a factory option(along with some sort of standardized fluid connector), I suspect that that would swiftly become a superior option(though, quite possibly not displacing fans entirely. A fair number of ancillary systems, too small to justify their own waterblocks, get very unhappy if they aren't getting any airflow, even if the CPUs are taken care of...)

Re:False

[RingDev]

Having worked in a fair number of server rooms, I'd say that the freequency of needing to service equipment has been dropping significantly over the lat 15 years. These days, it's almost a non-issue. I don't think I've pulled a single server for anything but replacement in the last 4 years.

Transfering heat to fluids is significantly more efficient, both on the recieving site (in the server) and the giving side (in the cooling tower). It requires less energy to transfer heat from components to the water (ie: no fans or heat sinks). And it requires less energy to transfer heat from the water in the cooling tower (ie: much smaller chiller/AC unit). So it is more efficient. Acording to the article, their solution consums 50% less energy than the traditional air conditioning and fans.

-Rick

Re:What about the hard drives?

[macs4all]

The only other issue I can imagine might crop up would be discovering the hard way that some polymer used in one of the system's components doesn't handle oil exposure well in the long term. I suspect that most are fine; but if the plasticizer used to soften the insulator coating on some important bundle of wires leaches out over 18 months in a warm oil bath, and the embrittled insulator cracks and shorts the next time you mess with it, the joke would be on you...

Hard drives aren't the only thing designed with "vent holes".

Every single electrolytic capacitor has a tiny vent hole (to keep them from acting like a mini fragmentation grenade if they develop an internal short circuit, etc.) Over time, with thermal cycling, the oil might get pumped in and out of the vent holes, thus degrading the electrolyte (guessing), and one fine day...

And as you say, think of the insulation on the cables...

Re:Mineral oil = nightmare

[PopeRatzo]

Leakage is definitely a concern, because mineral oil creeps along capillaries.

I once drank half a bottle of mineral oil, and let me tell you, leakage was definitely a concern.

Re:Mineral oil = nightmare

[GameboyRMH]

Additionally, it has the nasty tendency to dissolve some plastics over time.

From what I understand, this has been the main problem with immersion cooling. Mineral oil softens PCBs.