A computer room air conditioner has an important job to do. Failing to cool a server room can result in the outage of several important sites on the Internet. If any server farm was to practice anything less than the best cooling practices, it could lead to major problems. Here are some tips, and some precautions you should avoid as you try out cooling solutions for a server room.
Hacks Don’t Work
It’s not to say there aren’t things you can do to reduce heat buildup, but you shouldn’t expect a quick and dry hack to fix the problem of data center cooling. Quick tips like removing ceiling tiles may offer some extra space for heat to move, but it doesn’t dissipate the problem. Cooling server units requires extra cooling units, or duct work to point specifically in the cage housing your server.
Things that will work include doing better cabling. Specifically tighter cabling so you reduce clutter. Clutter is like throwing a big blanket over an area, heat will escape less rapidly through the cluster of cabling. Spreading out hardware will also help, so you can avoid a densely populated rack with lots of hardware sharing the heat load. Of course, this becomes more difficult to do successfully the more equipment you have.
Thermal Sensing
One way to cut costs is to use thermal sensing to pinpoint where it would be best to place a server room air conditioner. You can immediately detect heat build up and see where your hot spots are. That would make it possible to direct cooling on specific portions of the server room, rather than paying the costs for running AC through the whole space all day long.