# Data center density hits the wall



## lotuseclat79 (Sep 12, 2003)

Data center density hits the wall.

*Why the era of packing more servers into the same space may have to end*

-- Tom


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

Interesting! :up:

Peace...


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Not that big a deal, just make the room bigger.


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

I don't think the size of the room is the issue. I would think simply making it colder would help. Maybe put a snow making machine in the room or something. LOL

Peace...


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

It's the power density that's the issue, you make the room bigger and put fewer of the power hungry servers in each rack.


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

Increasing the size of the room is going to increase the number of servers in the room. I think the amount of heat generated would appropriately "scale" as the room size increased.

If a water based cooling solution (or some other method of cooling the systems) can keep the servers properly cool, that might prove to be a more effective long-term solution.

Peace...


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

I think you're missing the point. It's not the total heat, it's the amount of cooling you can direct into the individual racks. Just opening up the racks some to allow additional cooling will make a difference.

I don't say that liquid cooling isn't a good way to go, but it's FAR more work to install and maintain, so I suspect there will be a lot of resistance to it.

When I worked on the big iron IBM boxes, we had raised floors and huge A/C plants to keep the monsters cool.


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

I fully understand that. What I'm saying is, considering how important of a factor heat is in a data center, for things to get to the point they are now it's clear *limiting* the density wasn't important enough of an issue to keep data centers, like ILM's from getting to the point where it is now. It's not like data centers housing servers is something new. 

If there is space, it will be used. Sure, at first people would be happy with how the cooling issue would have been reduced some but later someone else would see that space as "unused" and will want to cram something else in it.

I don't know how the AC works in the ILM data center but in the few I've personally been in (Hurricane Electric, 365 Main, and ServePath) I haven't noticed or seen any "fancy" or "sophisticated" AC being used. The rooms were all chilly and that's about it. They were all on raised floors, etc.

If we could eliminate the human factor in deciding how to stack the servers, maybe things would be different. LOL

Peace...


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Actually, if we could just apply good design rules to the rooms, things would probably be fine. The same folks that design highways probably do server rooms, and you know how screwed up the highways are!


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

Very well stated. :up:

Peace...


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