Rack cooling

[DCUK6]

Hi.

 

Started at a new school a few weeks ago and the servers are located in a room with an open window and one of the air vent bricks ( brick with holes in it).

 

Have 3 servers in there and it's got so hot at some point that a card in one of the servers has melted and hanging down.

 

Looking for some sort of cooling that can reduce the temperature.

 

Thought about one of the wall extractor fan kits you get for tumble dryers as they are cheap and extracting out of the top of the cabinet and out through the wall and keeping the windows open for incoming air.

 

Also looking into some sort of air con for the rack/room but not sure what would be best.

 

Budget is a couple of hundred tops unfortunately.

 

Any ideas/recomendations on AC units?

[Guest Guest]

Mention risk of fire, should increase your budget significantly. You'll be lucky to even get an air-con unit for a couple of hundred, never mind one thats big enough or the installation costs - it will need a pipe for water to drain plus obviously the hole and mounting for the external unit. Edited May 29, 2014 by Guest

[smithson83]

That budget is going to be very limiting. The setup of the rack will help dramatically, if you can't cool the entire room sufficiently with a proper AC then that extractor idea will be your best hope, together with a cheap portable AC unit near the window.

 

Make sure you have the hot air only going out the TopOfRack, making sure to close off any gaps in the front of the rack using blanking plates so hot air cannot get back into the room(is the back of the rack closed off), that way the cheap underpowered portable AC unit from argos will only have to chill the ambient air and not the hot exhaust air from the rack.

 

You might be able to get it down to just above 20-25'c on a warm day

[DCUK6]

Thanks both for your suggestions.

 

Spent all morning tidying up the room so I can get in. Found the side and back panels for the rack so they can go back on.

 

Think it will have to be a combo of extractor and portable AC unit.

 

Might try and find something similar to the srcool12k that I found on the us forum.

 

18c outside. Bottom Server running at 33c at the mo.

Edited May 29, 2014 by DCUK6

[speckytecky]

False economy not to have Air Con methinks. I know you have a very tight budget but I had a similar situation (no meltdown) a couple of years ago. Nice little air con unit fully fitted for under £2K and since then the rooms been at a nice 21 degrees with kit happily running in a practically dust free environment and no screaming fans.

[Nibiru]

Our council put proper air con in our server room when they replaced our servers a couple of years ago. The aircon is wall mounted opposite the cabinet so that cool air is blown straight onto the cabinet area.

 

What a difference - instead of all the fans howling at full revs all summer its nice and quiet in there - and as a bonus its pleasant to work in there on a hot afternoon

 

Well worth whatever the investment was.

[speckytecky]

False economy not to have Air Con in a server room nowadays as far as I'm concerned. Most run on a heat pump inverter system now as well so come the cold season it continues to keep the set temperature. Worth getting a recommended fitter to do the work though. We had a fly by night put Air Con into a Food Tech room a couple of summers ago. For the first year the teacher was off sick and the room hardly used. Come the time they switch it on it didn't work and my Air Con man had a look at it only to find the install had been botched and all the coolant had evaporated!

 

Needs servicing for H&S reasons six monthly as well.

 

Our council put proper air con in our server room when they replaced our servers a couple of years ago. The aircon is wall mounted opposite the cabinet so that cool air is blown straight onto the cabinet area.

 

What a difference - instead of all the fans howling at full revs all summer its nice and quiet in there - and as a bonus its pleasant to work in there on a hot afternoon

 

Well worth whatever the investment was.

[plexer]

Don't fall in to the trap of trying to run it as cool as you can the important thing is stability so 22 is fine if you keep it at that.

 

Ben