Cooling Server Room

[Richard Conway]

Just thought I would add to the already excessive number of heat related posts!

We have a small server room that is getting very warm at the moment. We can't justify installing fixed air con as we will be moving in a few months. Having looked at the possibility of hiring a portable air con unit, it seems that this is also an impossibility as the room is not in a position to allow us to vent the hot air to the outside. My questions are:

1) I beleive you can get portable air con units that vent into the suspended ceiling space. The space above the ceiling in question is not confined to the room itself but spans the whole of our open plan office space (about 2000 sq ft.) Are these units any good? Would they simply cause our (already warm) office to get even hotter?

2) If using the roof space is feasible - what about simply installing a fairly powerful extractor fan into one of the ceiling tiles that would suck the hot air from the room and into the roof space.

Any ideas or suggestions greatly welcome!

Thanks, Richard

[bigcat]

then theres really no solution. If you remove the heat, it has to go somewhere, simple as that. You need ducting for any system to work.

of course, they simply move the heat into those other places

that would do the same, expect that the power used by the ac, all of which turns to heat, would not be added as well.

Opening the door would also do the same, except the leccy used by the fan, which all turns to heat, would not be added.

there is no solution unlses youre willing to either a) put in ducting to the outide. b) just move the heat out the room and into the rest of the building, by leaving the door open.

NT

[Richard Conway]

We do prop the door open during the day, but it is locked when I leave the office at 5:30. Would the fan idea be an effective solution for keeping the heat down during the hours when the door is closed? Would there be any issues with condensation or anything if we blow hot air up into the cooler ceiling void?

[Toolmaker]

"Richard Conway" wrote

You need a flow of air - cooler air from outside replacing warmer air. You could do with a ventilator at one end of the room and a fan (either extractor or blower) at the other. Then you can get a flow of cool(er) air. The warm air from your server room would be shared around your office. Roof space - I'd avoid that because of the potential for dust contamination.

[John Rumm]

Given that you can buy small portable units for under 300, does hiring make sense?

How far from the outside world is the room?

The portable units tend to have a 4" diameter hose that you can route wherever you like.

They will warm the office slightly - but one assumes that the heat from your server room already makes its way into the rest of the office ultimately anyway, so you may not notice much difference. You will be adding the extra heat generated by the aircon unit itself.

It will work to an extent, but be less effective. Also where will the replacement air be drawn from when the door is shut?

(the same question will also apply to mobile air con since this will also throw some of the rooms air out of the vent)

The air con solution will be pushing dehumidified air into the ceiling void and hence will be less likely to cause a condensation problem. You will of course need to remeber to empty the aircon unit of water on a frequent basis if you don't have anywhere to drain it locally.

[Ian Stirling]

Have you considered adding a large grille to the door, to allow ventilation through the closed door?

[Chris Bacon]

Get a horticultural spray mister, and use that with a large fan, or a vane compressor, it will lay the dust as well.

[Aidan]

Richard Conway wrote: You can also get portable AC units which have an outdoor heat rejection radiator which is filled with water. There's then a twin hose, with hoses about 35mm OD which goes back to the indoor unit. I've hired them before but can't recall who from. Very expensive at this time of year & I don't know if this is any more practical that the 6" air hose job.

I'd hope the spray idea was a joke.

[Andrew Gabriel]

They are a complete disaster and make the room hotter. They can work if you have air ducting in the ceiling which they can break into, and have the heat extracted. We did this in an office where the aircon was going down for a few weeks to have the outside chiller unit replaced (a giant crane job to lift the old one out and bring the new one in).

I've been in the same situation for a short period prior to getting aircon installed. Things you might do: o Move any computers which don't need to be in there someone else. o Look at doing some server consolidation -- generally easy for unix applications where people have no worries about running some ~20 applications on one system, but can be harder for windows applications which seem to prefer (or whose admins prefer) dedicated machines. o Switch off systems which aren't being used (be surprised how often this is overlookeded). Also generally no reason for monitors and the like to remain switched on except when someone's reading them. o Switch off the lights when not needed -- could be 5-10% of the heat generation. o A fan helps avoid hot spots, and helps more rapidly transfer heat to the boundaries of the room where it escapes.

[Derek ^]

Not come across them, out of a window more likely.

In one of our offices they built a "hutch" around 4 or 5 servers out of timber and polythene sheet and put a portable air conditioner in there with them with the waste hot air and the replensihment air ducted directly to/from outside. That worked.

Bear in mind the exhaust elephant's trunk hose gets very hot, losing heat to the room depending on it's length (but you could insulate it), and the air conditioner consumes electricity importing electrical energy into your sealed system that ends up as extra heat.

Mostly the only benefit is being able to sit in a stream of cold (ish) air whilst the room itself is hotter than ever.

[The Natural Philosopher]

That is not a totally bad idea - teh last one BUT there needs to be somewhere for the hot air to get out.

[The Natural Philosopher]

If you are moving on do you care?

[Pete C]

Hi,

Probably best to have a 'box fan' blowing air in at one corner of the room and another tile removed at the other corner to let the warm air into the roof space.

The outgoing warm air should rise to the top of the roof space, minimising recycling of the air into the room.

In any case, try a SMART monitoring program to read the temps of the hard drives, if they are below the maximium, probably 55c, they should be fine in the short term.

cheers, Pete.

[Rick]

You would do better to outsource your server room to somebody who can do it properly. The cost of a melt down, would probably be so high, that it will scare your company into paying the bill.

The "Reliance DataCenter" in Bangalore is one we use - and have no probloems with it.

Ric