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Intel and SGI Test Full-Immersion Cooling For Servers
itwbennett (1594911) writes "Intel and SGI have built a proof-of-concept supercomputer that's kept cool using a fluid developed by 3M called Novec that is already used in fire suppression systems. The technology, which could replace fans and eliminate the need to use tons of municipal water to cool data centers, has the potential to slash data-center energy bills by more than 90 percent, said Michael Patterson, senior power and thermal architect at Intel. But there are several challenges, including the need to design new motherboards and servers."
The Cray-2 did this in 1985 using a liquid called Fluorinert also invented by 3M:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cray-2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorinert
3M Novec 649 Engineered Fluid
Novec 649 fluid is an advanced heat transfer fluid, balancing customer needs for physical, thermal and electrical properties, with favorable environmental properties. Novec 649 fluid is an effective heat transfer fluid with a boiling point of 49C. Novec 649 fluid is useful in heat transfer particularly where non-flammability or environmental factors are a consideration.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
Slash bills by 90%. and increase other costs by 900%!
A small history lesson for those who don't know, this is not the same SGI (or Silicon Graphics) than of the graphics workstation fame. This one is Rackable Systems which acquired the assets of the original SGI in 2009 (and SGI Japan in 2011).
"The technology, which could replace fans and eliminate the need to use tons of municipal water to cool data centers"
So Novec is a great material to sink heat into as it boils at what, 34 degrees. How does that remove fans and cooling water? Heat you put into Novec you also need to take out. You will still need to cool the cold side, or all your coolant boils away and goodbye cooling.
There's also the fact that Fluorinert is potentially toxic, but it's also a greenhouse hazard. One would hope that 3M learned their lessons in the development of Novec and it's not an environmental hazard.
The Amarri pray for god, the Caldari pray for profit. the Gallente pray for peace, but the Minmatar pray their ships hol
Many years ago I invested in a Hardcore Computer Reactor system. This was a giant custom built computer that had both the motherboard and GPUs submerged in a proprietary non-conductive coolant. It weighs over a hundred pounds filled, and they still needed pumps inside it to direct the coolant across a bunch of purpose built water blocks to extract heat from the hottest components (since liquid convection alone was not enough).
About a year ago I had to replace the motherboard (which is a proprietary part). I can't even begin to tell you what a gigantic pain in the ass this was. There is a ton of plumbing running around inside the system that you have to worry about, and beyond that the entire compute module comes out of the coolant dripping wet, so you can't just pop it out and chuck it down on your desk. I had to break out a pair of rubberized gloves just to service the damned thing since it became obvious that the boards weren't going to dry themselves just sitting there- the coolant doesn't evaporate at all and you can't just take a towel to the raw PCB to clean it off. I landed up lining the inside of a large plastic bin with antistatic bags and doing the procedure there, which still made one hell of a mess.
I still run that system, but if anything else ever breaks I'm probably going to sell it off rather then try to fix it again. I honestly can't imagine trying to deal with that sort of a setup on a datacenter scale. General liquid cooling is easy enough to deal with since you can just disconnect the cooling lines and pull out a module (which is precisely what IBM does with their extreme high-end end PowerPC based servers). Submerging the entire PCB is nasty business, and I wouldn't want to be the tech who has to go through that amount of trouble on a weekly or monthly basis.
http://en.battlestarwiki.org/w...
Not a new concept, Cylons are using it for 3000 years already.
In order to obtain a 90% reduction in the energy bill, cooling must account for 90% of the power of the DC. This implies a PUE >= 10. As a reference, 5 years ago virtually any DC had a PUE instantaneous PUE of one of its DC in Prineville, which at the moment is 1.05. This implies that any savings in cooling would reduce the bill, at much, in a factor of 1.05 (1/1.05 = 0.9523).
On the other hand, I believe that this is not the first commertial offer for a liquid-cooled server, Intel was already considering it two years ago, and the idea has been discussed in other forums for several years. I can't remember right now which company that was actually selling these solutions, but I believe it was already in the market.
(sorry for the duplicated posting; the previous one was cut because of problems with the html marks)
In order to obtain a 90% reduction in the energy bill, cooling must account for 90% of the power of the DC. This implies a PUE >= 10. As a reference, 5 years ago virtually any DC had a PUE lower than 3. Nowadays, PUE lower than 1.15 can be obtained easily. As a referecence, Facebook publishes the instantaneous PUE of one of its DC in Prineville, which at the moment is 1.05. This implies that any savings in cooling would reduce the bill, at much, in a factor of 1.05 (1/1.05 = 0.9523).
On the other hand, I believe that this is not the first commertial offer for a liquid-cooled server, Intel was already considering two years ago, and the idea has been discussed in other forums for several years. I can't remember right now which company that was actually selling these solutions, but I believe it was already in the market.
If you search for "computer immersion cooling" with Google it will throw up a bunch of people (and companies) doing PC systems totally immersed in mineral oil and things as a way to get even more power out of a system (even more than regular liquid cooling gets you)
But there are several challenges, including the need to design new motherboards and servers.
Swapping out that faulty network card gets to be a bitch.
(might need a bit of context; something goes wrong with the super-cooled computers and Chris Evans has to dive in and fix it. Then he dies)
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Silicone oil is not flammable, can withstand a lot of heat, excellent heat transfer characteristic, doesn't conduct electricity ... and furthermore, Silicone oil is CHEAP !!
Can Silicone oil be used in similar operation ?
Get rid of dynamic languages (like PHP which recompiles on every pageload) for web apps and use properly compiled ones.
Transformer oil - move out!
There is no magic bullet here. The accumulated heat must go somewhere. Perhaps they are using vapourized gas or the liquid fluid directly to transport the head but you're pumping that instead of blowing air and there needs to be a heat transfer equivalent to the refrigeration cycle in AC so how can this save energy if you're running around the clock? If not then it's merely a heat sump that any system could augment their AC with.
Even though according to wonkypedia it has low GW potential and doesn't damage ozone, do we really want to be manufacturing more fluorinated hydrocarbons which almost never decay in the enviroment by themselves and just build up over time in the soil, plants and eventually us?
Oh my! One ton of water is a staggering 250 gallons (1000 litres). Everyone knows it must be put into olympic-sized swimming pools you dolt!
Seriously, using the water and then dumping it? Why not just cool down the water (by using a passive radiator) and reuse it? I know at least one datacenter that does exactly this.
Air cooling is inefficient, but it's not so horrible that that inefficiency alone accounts for 90% of data center power usage. Heat is heat, and Watts is Watts; they gotta go somewhere.
And the "tons of water" that data centers use is generally used to spray the outdoor condenser (think cooling tower at a power plant); changing the servers to liquid cooling won't fix that.
Liquid cooling makes less sense for smaller servers, as going to all the trouble to plumb a pizza box is generally more trouble than it's worth. Big Iron is already frequently liquid cooled, if not in an immersion bath.
Transformer oil - move out!
Man, these greasy energon cubes are more than meets the eye, Optimus.
I thought you had a taste for crunchy fried things, Bumblebee?
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Shut Up Starscream!
http://www.datacenterknowledge... It's been done before.
I'd been talking about Novec 1230 being used as a computer coolant for years on this site. Prior art all over the fucking place.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Using any non-conductive, non-corrosive liquid would work. The low viscosity liquids currently in use (the liquid in use now is common air), has a low heat dispersion. Being able to conduct more heat would be an important part of this liquid. Circuit board manufacture commonly uses liquids (like clean municipal water) to 'wash' water soluble flux from solder connections, but these must be free of (usually conducting) flux and also must be dried thoroughly as water can also conduct electricity, altering the connections between chip pins and power/signal busses, etc. Small systems users can still use CPU and GPU liquid cooling technology currently available.
But I don’t so I’ll have to hope some mod heed my request.
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