What's the Proper Temperature for a Server Room? 84
Izzard asks: "As a network engineer, I sometimes have to spend many hours in other people's server rooms. One in particular has a good few servers, DVD jukebox, plenty of monitors and switches etc. It's a thick, stone-walled room with a big door. It would get very, very warm were it not for the two huge air conditioning units in there. Someone has decided that these units will be set to maintain a constant air temperature of 17-18 deg. C (62-64F). After an hour or so of sitting in the air stream from these units my legs go numb and fall off and I can't type. Now my guess is that it would be fine to set the units to maintain, say, 21-22 deg. C (70-71F) to make it more comfortable for those of us who have to work in there. This argument comes up a lot, and my position is that the room doesn't need to be refrigerated, *per se*...it only needs to be prevented from overheating. Consequently I maintain that a *consistent* temperature of 'pleasant' for the room is almost as good a consistent temperature of 'a bit nippy'. Is there a definitive answer to this?"
Not a server room but... (Score:4, Informative)
Dude (Score:5, Funny)
You type with your legs that is awesome.
And the answer is (Score:4, Funny)
72 (Score:2, Informative)
So, unless you have VERY sensitive equipment, or some other special reason for keeping it that cold, 72 is fine.
Re:72 (Score:2)
Re:72 (Score:2)
It's for the servers, not you. (Score:1)
Otherwise, keep it at 65 degrees, and either learn to deal with it, or learn to bring a sweater with you.
Forget the sweater! (Score:4, Funny)
Otherwise, keep it at 65 degrees, and either learn to deal with it, or learn to bring a sweater with you.
Hey, c'mon now! Give him some advice he can actually use! He specifically said "After an hour or so of sitting in the air stream from these units my legs go numb and fall off and I can't type." You should be advising him to "learn to wear pants" instead!
GMD
Re:It's for the servers, not you. (Score:1)
We have had a condesation problem, though, when the temp. in the room got over 75F, and any rapid changes cause the series of units we have in the room to strain...
And before you ask, this building opened in June of this year.
Hotmail server room (Score:2, Funny)
I'm a server admin at Hotmail. We keep our server room at about 300 degrees F. They don't call it HOT mail for nothin'.
If you can't stand the cold... (Score:5, Interesting)
These hot spots can (and are often) murder for server farms. Take a page from the experts (i.e. big colo firms): keep your data center cold, and have lots of airflow near the racks.
This isn't necessarily always true, and a small data center can probably afford to not be frigid. But if you've got a lot of money in your data center which would you prefer: big, expenive AC bills or more expensive outages on very expensive hardware?
Re:If you can't stand the cold... (Score:2)
Google (Score:2)
hth
Re:Google (Score:1)
perfect temp (Score:5, Funny)
Re:perfect temp (Score:2, Funny)
Oh, boy... (Score:5, Funny)
Buddy... this is SLASHDOT.
Re:Oh, boy... (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Oh, boy... (Score:1)
Put yer money where your mouth is (Score:3, Insightful)
"This argument comes up a lot, and my position is that the room doesn't need to be refrigerated, *per se*...it only needs to be prevented from overheating. Consequently I maintain that a *consistent* temperature of 'pleasant' for the room is almost as good a consistent temperature of 'a bit nippy'."
You have to realize that management isn't too excited to take chances on ruined server equipment because of your belief. However, if you were to state that you are so confident that a constant temperature of 'pleasant' wouldn't damage the servers that you will offer to pay for any overheating damage done out of your own salary (minus the cost savings realized by using less air conditioning), they might be willing to turn down the AC.
If you're not willing to take chances with your money, how can you expect management to take changes with the company's? Even if some knowledable slashdotter here can direct you towards some written proof of your claims, don't expect management to go "By jove, you've been right all along! Since this paper says so, we'll turn down the AC immediately!"
GMD
Re:Put yer money where your mouth is (Score:1)
Petition for them to create a proper work environment for you if they won't raise the temperature. Working in the NOC sucks.
Re:Put yer money where your mouth is (Score:2)
I worked in a cold server room for a time and had the same problem you did. I understand where you're coming from. Being too cold to type is the least of your worries. You could catch a serious cold if you follow the contagion with a couple hours spent shivering in the server room.
- Find the drafts in the server room and reposition yourself so you aren't directly in its path and avoid the "Wind-Chill Factor".
- Double-up your socks.
- Wear a t-shirt under your dress-shirt, which will layer your clothing.
- Wear a hat in the server room. Keep the hat in your bag or pocket at other times. Scarves work too and give you that Tom Baker idiot-savant look.
- Go to a store that caters to hunters and buy some thermal underwear. The good kind looks more like medieval tights than that white pleated junk they sell at K-Mart. BE CAREFUL: when wearing thermals, you build up a lot of static electricity. Pay attention to ESD.
- Shiver while you type. The motion will raise your body temperature a bit.
- Eat something with a lot of calories before going in the server room. Metabolism creates body heat as a waste product.
- Drinking hot liquid doesn't work. The warmth doesn't last, and it makes you have to pee. But hey, whatever gets you out of that freezing server room, right?
- Gain some badly needed weight, pal. Cold doesn't bother heavier people as badly. Score some Carl's Jr. coupons and get to work.
If you're still cold after all that, then yes, maybe the room is too cold. But probably it's not, and the client is moderating your complaints as "Whiny" and "Wuss". Just quietly solve the problem on your end and protect your own health, and then you won't need to bother your clients with "I can't work under these conditions!!!"-type complaints.
Re:Put yer money where your mouth is (Score:1)
If it were only weight you might have a valid point. I have gained 35-40 lbs in the last 5 years to no avail. I am perhaps more suceptible to cold server rooms now than I was 5 years ago. It's a metabolism thing, not (as much) a blubber thing.
Yes, I see your point. I suggest you wear a hat.
Advising anyone to gain weight is misguided. At best.
P.S. Carl's jr. is evil. Ever notice their advertising? They ALWAYS depict an animal eating with it's mouth open, for the sake of saying their customers/potential customers are all animals, therefore should be addressed on an anamalistic level, i.e. visible noisy mastication.
Not even McD's/BK sink that low!
Re:Put yer money where your mouth is (Score:1)
Some of your suggestions may be good, but he's talking about a 17C room, not a 0C one!
I mean, the big problem over there wouldn't be cold in itself but the cold air flows and the passage between the heated outside and the server room, as these are the ones that could really cause harm.
Common warm clothes are usually enough to stand even colder temperature: the main thing you should take care of is not to leave uncovered spots, expecially the head and neck. An hat will help, but a scarf would be really better (expecially if you don't have long hairs)
For the hands-so-cold-you-can't-type part, you can try to have some computer blowing its warm air toward the keyboard (there are hot spot in the room, so why not taking advantage of them).
Re:Put yer money where your mouth is (Score:1)
Regards,
Stephen
Most equipement can go up to 40°C ambient (104°F) (Score:4, Informative)
So from 17C to 40C, there's quite some room. Yet, watch out. Those temperature are specified at the cooling inlet of the equipment. With lateral cooling, the gear at the wrong end of a row of racks may suck heated air from the other racks and see much higher temperature than ambient. That's bad room design
IMHO, the guy who spec'ed 17C is overdoing it (and padding the wallet of the local utility). 25C should be OK.
Re:Most equipement can go up to 40°C ambient (104° (Score:2)
exaggeration (Score:1)
After an hour or so of sitting in the air stream from these units my legs go numb and fall off and I can't type. Now my guess is that it would be fine to set the units to maintain, say, 21-22 deg. C (70-71F) to make it more comfortable for those of us who have to work in there. This argument comes up a lot, and my position is that the room doesn't need to be refrigerated, *per se*...it only needs to be prevented from overheating. Consequently I maintain that a *consistent* temperature of 'pleasant' for the room is almost as good a consistent temperature of 'a bit nippy'."
Perhaps management is a little reluctant to gamble based on the "guess" of someone who makes exaggerations like "my legs go numb and fall off and I can't type".
GMD
cool enough to keep the equipment cool (Score:3, Informative)
One problem with excessive cooling is that maintaining humidity becomes difficult. Equipment in a machine room needs humidity. Humidity means more efficient transfer of heat to air, and helps to keep static electricity from become a problem.
Too cold can be as much a problem as too hot. In the early 90's, IBM had to specify *minimum* air temperature limits to keep some disk drives happy.
A.
Re:cool enough to keep the equipment cool (Score:1)
it would start next morning though.
and i imagine that you're absolutely correct, 25c should be plenty enuff. and harddrives and things that actually have moving parts with lube somewhere i kinda imagine not liking being too cold.
the original asker could use one argument though, he could argument that the room should be kept at the same temperature as the rest of the building to prevent condension happening somewhere when you open the door to the server room and 'hot'(normal) air from elsewhere enters the room.
Re:cool enough to keep the equipment cool (Score:2)
Boo hoo (Score:3, Interesting)
I pay close to $120 a month to keep my apartment 62F year round, and I save a huge amount of money because I don't have to constantly repair and replace equipment.
Re:Boo hoo (Score:5, Funny)
Really? I too keep my apartment at 62 F year round, and I've been having problems with some of my more sensitive equipment. In particular, I'm noticing some shrinkage. Do you have any advice?
Re:Boo hoo (Score:2)
Re: Now that's just stupid... (Score:4, Funny)
"_I_ spend $1400 on A/C every year. Aren't I cool???"
As a matter of fact, yes.
Re:Boo hoo (Score:2)
I think it really depends on the person whether or not low temperatures are troublesome or not. I know some people who love the cold, and I know some people who hate it. 62F is a little cold for my tastes, especially when I get out of the shower.
Here's a solution, if management is unyielding about the cold: put VNC on all the servers. That way, you can access the servers from outside the server room, and it'll be just like you're there, only you'll be warmer, because you won't be in the server room. Unless there's some reason you have to be *in* the server room, it's probably best to manage all of the computers remotely anyways.
<side comment>$120 seems awfully expensive to keep a place heated to 62F </side comment>
Cool air vs Static Electricty and airborn dust (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's also not forget that air conditioners aren't always good for the mechine: They increase the level of static electricity in the area, and can blows dust around if don't have an airfilter in that room. Dust and static buildup can harm the machines more then at 70F temperature.
As another poster pointed out, the only good reason to keep an AC at a really low temperature is to deal with the hotspots. It may be 60F at your desk, but the big server is sitting in a corner far from the AC, and it's case is 80F. But that's just a result of poor air flow, and can probably be resolved with a few fans and a few air ducts.
Re:Cool air vs Static Electricty and airborn dust (Score:2)
Part of the problem often is hot spots. As humans, we often are in the well circulated portions of the server room. These get good air flow are often very chilly.
Other parts of the room, perhaps inside a server cabinet, perhaps inside the CPU case can get warmer than when you're standing. This is why good air flow is key in a building a solid server room.
I think in most cases it's low risk to raise it a few notches, but the consequences of being wrong are pretty high. (I.e. someone high up gets fired.) Hence, it's unlikely to change.
You have to learn to pick your battles. Picking one that can solved just as easily with a sweater or fingerless gloves probably isn't the one to fight.
-Bill
terminals and servers in separate rooms (Score:2, Insightful)
I think persuading people that the server room climate control should be set to "cozy" would be an uphill battle. Spend some money on a good KVM switch (rackables can handle a dozen inputs and more) and put the main keyboard, mouse, and monitor in an adjacent room (which would then have to be secured) or make a small terminal room inside the server room (which would be as secure as the server room); that way, the server room can be as cold as your boss wants and you can stay as warm as you like. This will require the allocation of space and budget -- hard battles to fight, too -- but is more likely to succeed.
Constant? No pretty graphs... (Score:2)
The answer: Get an engineer. (Score:5, Insightful)
-
The economics include the initial cost of the system, the
continuing cost of energy & maintenance, and the cost of
failure - all of the servers overheating and the network
going down.
-
The estimates include the heat load (heat energy output of the equipment),
the system effieciency over time, system neglect, & management cheapness.
-
The engineering includes doing all the math to determine many of the
previous factors, & compensating for all of those unknowns with a factor of safety.
:)
Is there a definitive answer to this?The answer to your question(s): Get an HVAC engineer to look the system over, and tell you if the existing AC is overkill. (You might want to be sure that she doesn't think that she'll get the contract for any additional work needed. :)
'Course, this might all be quite accademic. The reason for the chill might be that your boss's brother has the contract, or that your boss had a bad experience with a server catching on fire. Then it's not engineering, it's psychology. :)
Low 70's (Score:4, Informative)
Most of the labs I've built or worked in, we've set up the ACs somewhere around 70-72 degrees. It's plenty cold while still leaving a small amount of headroom. The headroom is useful in case there's a sudden influx of heat and it takes a while to restabilize the temperature. Can't really predict what sorts of wierd things might cause that - a crapload of new equipment, an A/C unit going out of service for an hour, etc, etc..
It's very important to get your humidity correct as well. If the humidity is too low, static buildup becomes easier and static damage more frequent. If it gets too high, corrosion occurs faster. Computers like to be in the middle, if I remember right the ideal for most machines is around 35% humidity? It's been a while, that might be off by a bit.
Don't forget the whole BTUs thing. All your equipment will have a sticker or manual (or call the company) saying how many BTU of heat it puts out at max. Add them all up and make sure you have enough A/C capacity to account for the BTUs during a failure scenario (e.g. Buy 3 AC units that can handle 1/2 the desired BTU, so you have N+1 redundancy). Be sure to estimate the future as best you can in the BTU calculations - replacing A/C units when upgrading new servers in a fully loaded production room can be a bitch.
Computers like stability too, so try to set it up such that the humidity and temperature stay constant while all your gear is running. If they're wobbling up and down throughout the day or week, you need to fix it. You can buy cheap chart recorders for this, they drag a pen over a graph and show you a temperature line for a week or more. Assuming your A/C is adequate for the BTUs, the wobbling is most likely from bad airflow design.
Airflow design can be a black art, so you might want to get a professional. In general, most datacenter-class machines suck cold air from the bottom and/or front and exhaust out the top and/or back. Space out your vent tiles, too many too clsoe together can shunt air away from the inlets on your equipment. But by all means place vent tiles here and there in the empty areas to even out the room.
And if you're looking for professionals to do these kinds of things, up to and including designing and building new datacenters from scratch, I can't recommend IBM Global Services high enough. They really kick ass at these things. It almost makes up for AIX sucking so bad
Re:Low 70's (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Low 70's (Score:2)
Hmm I've never had to deal with printers in my places, so I've never heard of the paper curl thing, interesting. I could've swore it was below 50 though, but like I said, it's been a while since I've been involved at that level. Now I'm all off in software, I really miss doing the hardware stuff myself and building out things like this
what are you doing spending hours in a datacenter? (Score:2, Insightful)
are you pulling cable or filling racks with hardware? then you need to dress warmly.
if not, have you considered asking your clients if you can use a desk while you work?
keep in mind that the noise generated in a datacenter is *much* worse for you than the mildly cool temp, so you have other larger problems if you are spending hours at a time in a datacenter. (not to mention the terrible feng shui!)
Re:what are you doing spending hours in a datacent (Score:1)
Re:what are you doing spending hours in a datacent (Score:3, Funny)
I, I, I believe someone has his stapler...
Re: (Score:2)
Re:take some classes (Score:2, Funny)
I hope you replied, "That's funny, cause if you don't fix them they're goin in Uranus"
Thanks, I'm here all week...
Your comfort is irrelevant (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Your comfort is irrelevant (Score:2)
Well, I will tell you anyways: If you can't put it out with a couple of fire extinguishers, everyone hop in the lifeboats...
Re:Your comfort is irrelevant (Score:1)
link [halifax.ns.ca]
another link [sympatico.ca]
and another link [gov.ns.ca]
That ship was carrying 2,500 tons of high explosives. That means a 2.5 kiloton blast. That's about 10% of the Hiroshima atom bomb. I hope those lifeboats have powerful outboard motors attached, because they need to get at least a mile away quick.
It's simple really... (Score:3, Informative)
If you want to get more complicated, monitor the inside of the boxes and just keep dropping ambient till you hit your target (of temperature inside the case).
You'll save money, keep your equipment cool, and be able to work in there comfortably.
At our server room at the office (Score:1)
Personal experiences: (Score:3, Funny)
That having been said, you data centre is going to have to be at whatever temperature the equipment needs. So, if you've got several racks of Clariion, you're going to need to pump more air in than if you're just running a couple racks of PCs. Sometimes, in order to keep some peices of equipment cool, you need to pump so much air that the rest of the DC is cooler. I was in a DC that was comfortably at about 70 or so before they installed a few racks of storage gear. That gear started getting temp alarms until they cranked the thermostat down to 65. (And that wasn't a result of the equipment being too far out from the AC. One of the units was only a few floor tiles away).
Keeping your DC around 65 or 70 is probably your best bet. You could play with it, by bringing the temperature up a little bit and seeing what breaks, but that's not real smart. Wear heavy clothing if you have to into the DC, but primarily you should avoid going in there unless you absolutely can't avoid it. That's not workspace, that's equipment space.
On a more amusing note... I worked for a very small company once which had some PCs in the data centre which ran a CTI application. There were these two women that refused to do their work from their desk and insisted in working at the rack in the DC. The room was pretty well packed wall-to-wall -- when I had to get in to do physical cable moves, or server installs, or what-have-you, I was forever tripping over these two. The solution was simple: I cited an increased amount of hardware in the room and brought the temp down to the lowest setting. They found it so hard to work while trying to keep their elbows over their chests, they finally went back to their desks and worked from there. There *can* be advnatages to having an overly-cold DC.
Re:RTFM - its really, really fucking simple. tsark (Score:1)
Data center temperature should be (Score:1)
above 75 degrees under any circumstance. Should
also not go below 60 degrees, preferentially.
This issue has been hashed out, and best current
practices have been defined. Best practice is 68F.
Room versus server temperatures (Score:2, Insightful)
That's the real motivation, I suspect. If you want a semi-definitive answer, you could use the thermal monitoring software that probably came with the servers to see how hot they are. Then raise the temperature gradually, watching how the server temperatures change. If you have lots of money to throw at this, you could buy one of those, uh... heat sensors, whatever they're called. I know they use them on tires to look for defects, wear patterns, and so on. They probably have ones that will work on computer-type objects too.
The colder the better (Score:2)
One thing to do to make it very cold but comfortable for humans is to put the computer machinery (CPU's, GPU's, hard-drives, etc) in one room, and terminals in another, where the users sit.
Re:The colder the better (Score:4, Informative)
From the HVAC viewpoint, two important factors are the heat load vs. capacity and the design of cooling equipment.
Air conditioning units loose compressors frequently due to "slugging". Slugging is what happens when the refrigerant is not fully boiled off as it leaves the evaporator and returns to the compressor. If liquid reaches the cylinder of the compressor, the reed valves get bent (in a reciprocating compressor) rendering it useless. New "scroll" compressors can deal with this a bit better however, they too will fail in some circumstances. Simply put, the warmer the room, the more likely that all the refrigerant is boiled off before it reaches the compressor and the accumulator. With the room chilled to colder temps, the refrigerant may not boil off fully due to the small temperature differential between return air temp and discharge air temp. chances go up in the potential problems that can occur. This directly relates to the life expectancy of the compressor. While high quality air conditioning units are designed against such conditions with accumulators and suction pressure regulators, a regular air conditioner typically has no "anti-slugging" devices because they are designed to run under very specific conditions (outdoor 70-100+ and 72-82 F indoor temps. (something to keep in mind if you are thinking installing a run of the mill residential/commercial air conditioner unit in your server room to save money).
BTW, over sizing the equipment can be just as bad as under sizing. Oversize the equipment and it will short-cycle rapidly thus wearing out the mechanical and electrical components, humidity control issues, and slugging.
That's a server room, not your rec room. (Score:1)
Our machine room (Score:2)
Not temperture - Circulation (Score:2)
Most server rooms/labs are chilled well below 70 degrees to make sure that no crucial point in the room goes above ~70 degrees. Even in our lab where it's 65 degrees all the time it was still ~80 degrees behind the rack of alphas.
Remote Use (Score:2, Insightful)
It's a server room, a room for servers - not for people.
Aside from changing backup tapes, or power cycling servers, there is no reason for you to need to be in the server room.
We have 2 server rooms, one in a room 10 feet from us and another that is 30 miles away. We have to do 50% of our admin remotely and it isn't a problem. Instead of altering the server room from it's original purpose, why don't you change your working practices and find a more appropriate location for your work.
We keep ours at 68-69 F (Score:2)
But you shouldn't be spending a lot of time in your datacenter in the first place. If you are, wear hearing protection! That low rumble for a couple hours a day over the course of a year will do far more damage to your hearing than 2 loud rock concerts.
Disks, Employees (Score:2)
I have been shown by the engineer for one of the major disk manufacures graph of failure against disk case temperature. It was a deep U with a minimum at 20C, but a "sweet area" from about 15C to 30C. Outside this range, the failure rate rose fast in both directions. Bear in mind that is disk case temperature. - the disk will probably be inside some form of an enclosure and generates quite a lot of heat itself, so will be well above ambient. So if I was thinking only of the welfare of the disk, I would chioll the room to 15C, with the idea that this leaves the disk casing at 200-25C, the optimum temperature.
However, you should be asking why you have to work, sitting, in the server room for periods of an hour or so. Of course you have to go in to rack and wire, restart etc. But surely any system system should be arranged so it can be accessed from outside the server room. There are so many different ways of remote accessing a computer, I cannot believe tha an enlightened employer cannot implement one or another.
Large Print Comapny experience... (Score:1)
That room was kept downright FROSTY. More than 5 minutes in there made me uncomfortable. It was nice to pop in there in the summer when the production floor would hit upwards of 40 C.
We tried keeping it warmer, but we starting running into problems with the plate writer locking up.
The answer is obvious (Score:1)