Cost-Effective Server Room Air Conditioning? 414
at0mic26 writes "I am currently tasked with finding a cost effective solution to our 30+ degree Celsius server room. The only air conditioning currently provided is a single duct pipe from one of two air conditioner units. I was thinking of stealing air from the second air conditioning unit with some sheet metal work, but it likely will not be sufficient — and would not have tolerance for both AC units being offline for any amount of time. An ideal supplemental portable AC unit is what I am after, however I'm finding it cost prohibitive, with $600+ humidity controlled AC unit, plus 20 amp socket requirement, plus contract work to make a hole in the wall for outside drainage so that the unit does not flood the place. What sort of successful cheaper air conditioning solutions have you come up with?"
this article blows (Score:5, Insightful)
if you can't afford $600 to cool the room, you need to turn off your servers.
Not much you can do (Score:4, Insightful)
Simple answer is don't mess around (Score:5, Insightful)
Never try and just make do with the cooling.
The cost of doing it right pales in comparison with not doing it right and something happening.
Factor in the price of cooling with the servers (Score:2, Insightful)
See subject. Don't just buy servers and think of the cooling problem later. Cooling is expensive, but it costs less if you install it at the same time you set up your facility.
Apologies - I realise this doesn't really answer your question but it's an experience you, or others can gain from this situation.
Maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
If you posted more information you could get a reasonable answer.
How much space?
How much heat is the equipment giving off?
What is your budget?
At what temperature do you want to operate the room?
How quickly is the heat output of the equipment growing?
How much excess capacity do you need?
If you can't answer those questions you won't get a workable solution.
How many servers? (Score:4, Insightful)
If the room averages a temperature of 86 degrees (sorry I'm american) and I wanted to get it cooler there are a lot of options, however what size room are we talking about and where is it located (room, ground floor, basement?) Lots of different options and choices depending on lots of variables that weren't in the post.
I'm not trying to be a dick, just wondering because cooling a room for a small business like the one I work in that houses all of 3 servers in a room a little larger than your average walk-in closet is a lot different than trying to cool a room with 100 rack mount servers lined up in rows.
A google search though brings up a lot of places like http://www.ptsdcs.com/ [ptsdcs.com] - might just be worthwhile to google for what you need.
Turn off the servers (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, the coward shitteth you not. If you can't afford $600 to cool the room, then consolidate your services onto fewer machines and shut the others off, because they're obviously not making you enough money to be worth running.
If, on the other hand, your boss is a cheapskate then do something like I did before - moved the servers out to my desk and stuck a honking big fan at one side to blow air past them. It had the very big plus side of being obvious to everyone that we had to keep the servers cool, and reminded them every day that the alternative was buying some aircon.
F/OSS (Score:3, Insightful)
...You can use standard window units
Maybe he has a F/OSS shop. Geeze!
How much are your servers worth? (Score:2, Insightful)
Discussed this with an A/C tech friend. (Score:1, Insightful)
My buddy, who pulls six figures doing A/C installs and consulting (and earns every penny), discussed this with me a couple months ago. Basically, good A/C is as complicated as putting together a good database. There's air flow and direction and insulation and compression and all sorts of things you'd never even consider. You can get by without training, but you should expect it to fail, and badly.
Depending on the size and population of your server room, you might expect to need a couple of $10K cooler units on the roof. Call your local industrial-service A/C or ducting guys and get an estimate for your BTUs and target temperature. That cost will make your boss cry- but give him a list of what the equipment in the rack would cost to replace and he'll sign off on it.
You wouldn't want the A/C guy to design your db, your boss shouldn't expect you to put together a good A/C solution.
What are you really trying to do? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're trying to make the actual server room a more pleasant place to be, you really do need to look into additional A/C capacity, and that's just not gonna be cheap.
But if all you're trying to do is keep your servers from overheating, there may be other ways of doing this. It could involve dedicated A/C units, but needn't necessarily. Non-A/C options include installing fans (not Wal-Mart box fans, something more permanent; talk to a local HVAC contractor), opening windows, installing specialized vent ducts, etc.
Either way, you're probably going to want to get HVAC in there. Proper cooling for computers, especially servers, is something like proper insurance for driving a car: the question isn't whether you can afford it, it's whether you can afford not to have it.
Re:Antarctica (Score:3, Insightful)
However, you have to keep the temperature above freezing point, otherwise you'll have condensation and humidity problem.
Re:this article blows (Score:5, Insightful)
Call an Engineer! (Score:3, Insightful)
FFS, call an expert. If an engineer with a design firm wrote in and asked how to set up the company's servers, but he doesn't want to hire any IT people, everyone would be incensed at his stupidity for not calling in an expert. But somehow IT training makes people qualified HVAC design engineers?
Spend the money now, and only cry once.
Cooler -- schmooler (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously though, I put in a commercial grade window unit. I had to cut a hole in a brick wall, second story (glad that we own lifts here) while the server room was operational.
I keep it set to 72F with a smart fan option, and it has been running 24/7 for 4 years now. It is cooling 12 machines in 2 racks, PBX and switches/routers plus all the UPSs. Positioned the hole in the wall so that it blows across the front of the racks. Nary a problem. The unit cost $800 from McMaster-Carr, and I spent a weekend installing it. I'm fortunate that I spent 25 years in the building/fabrication trades before moving to IT, and I don't have to have anyone's permission to do the right thing.
Hot Air Ducting (Score:3, Insightful)
The hot air is expelled from the server cabinets, into the hot air ductwork, and out of the building.
Don't blow equipment heated air into the air-conditioned facility.
Use some cooler servers (Score:3, Insightful)
You have a room full of computers and you can afford $600?? Something is wrong.
Is the room full of cheap desktop PCs? if that is the case then your problem is that you yu are using to much power. Replace and consolidate the servers
Back to the "can't afford $600 problem: have you figured out what it will cost per month to run your $600 AC unit? I'm thinking that you can burn up $600 of power in 90 days. If you were to replace those servers you'd save a bundle. Look into something like one of Sun's "cool threads" servers. Typically one of these can replace a rack of PCs It's a very low power 16 core machine.
In the mean time it ooks like you've found your low cost solution, only that you are not only paying to much for power now but the $600 AC unit will double your power bill. Best to cut power usage with low power servers. Every wat that the server burns takes more than one wat to cool with an AC unit.
Re:Antarctica (Score:3, Insightful)
So how does putting a computer in oil solve the heat problem in the server room? In this house we obey the law of thermodynamics.
Re:this article blows (Score:4, Insightful)
True, but condensation can't be an issue anyway. The compressor and condenser must be outside, or you'll just have a fancy heater that blows cold air on one side and drips water on the floor. See the laws of thermodynamics for details.
Nah. What you have is a refrigerator the size of the room. You just need to reject the heat out of the server room, not out of the building necessarily. Putting the condenser inside the building but outside the server room (as would be the case with a window AC unit installed through ain interior wall) will successfully cool the server room. The only downside is that it will increase the total load on the building's main cooling system. This may not be a problem.
Re:do what CIHost does (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Celcius? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but it's a good rule of thumb that if the language has evolved at the hands of a business consultant, they're just trying to make an ordinary, everyday job description sound sexy and exciting through deliberate obfuscation and complication of syntax. "I've been tasked with getting a tiger team to think outside the box vis-a-vis their normal operational paradigm with regards to proactively seeking out new-media revenue generation through forward-thinking distribution channels" sounds a lot sexier to the average suit than "We need more money. What ideas do you internet nerds have?"
Re:Simple... (Score:3, Insightful)
Given the ridiculously limited budget and the extent of responsibility, he's probably the son or nephew of the owner or the boss himself. Underclocking the systems would protect the hardware and probably reduce current heat problems. Not getting caught would just be a BOFH=in-training field test. It was supposed to be funny BTW.
Here's another antisocial solution. Install the AC on an inside wall. It's cheaper to just cut through sheetrock.
Re:Turn off the servers (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? Aren't all half-decent AC units these days inverter-based (ie running constantly)?
How about used units? (Score:1, Insightful)
If you buy a small portable units used, you can find them in your budget. As for the water, a small pump attached to tubing can be used to pump out the sump on the device. Even new ones can be had at 10K BTU for much less than $600.
Re:Turn off the servers (Score:5, Insightful)
It had the very big plus side of being obvious to everyone that we had to keep the servers cool, and reminded them every day that the alternative was buying some aircon.
Trying to re-educate the boss can easily backfire. When my company moved to a new building, ownership neglected to account for I.T. storage and workspace needs (workbench, shelving for spare monitors, PC's, cables, software, manuals, etc.) In protest (not wanting to turn my office into a store room), I stacked the stuff in the hallways of our nice new building. I thought this would give ownership the hint. Instead I got the evil eye from the owners and was outsourced shortly thereafter, despite seven years of service with consistently positive annual reviews.
Many owners/bosses got to where they are by persuading others that they know more than they actually do. When you show them up, you become an obstacle to their ambition and ego. To their thinking, you, not the item they were wrong about, is what needs "fixing".
Your boss refusing to pay $600 for A/C to keep thousands of dollars worth of servers running that (probably) contain data worth tens or even hundreds of thousands, is the real problem. But make sure you have calmly and unchallengingly made this clear to him/her. Use phrases like "The plant would be down X days if the servers fail due to heat. How much would that cost?"
As for trying to rig something up yourself, I wouldn't unless you're a certified HVAC technician. Make that clear to the boss too (again as gently as you can). "I'm not trained in this. I don't want to accidentally take A/C away from anyone else--they have work to do to and we can't afford to lower their productivity." Again, make the costs of the lack of $600 apparent if you can.
Good luck!