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Accepted
Will Glass
Asked: 2011-04-01 11:00:57 +0800 CST

When to add air conditioners [duplicate]

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Possible Duplicate:
What is the correct temperature for a server room?

We're a small company with a 200 foot back room we use as a server room. It has no fans and no ventilation.

Right now, I'm running a small desktop computer as a PBX box and a Dell T605 server for general office use. (We're making heavy use of virtual machines but are basically out of capacity).

I want to add another Dell server to the room. I'm worried though about temperature.

Realistically, at what point do I need to invest in air conditioning for the room? Currently, the temperature is slightly warm when the door is closed but not excessive. How can I effectively measure the need?

physical-environment

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I would start with Dell's recommendation regarding temperature: For a T610, they recommend 23°C +/- 2°C ambient, so I guess the T605 is somewhat similar.

    Then you will have to measure what the current temperature in the room is (with a thermometer, not your wet finger), and how that might change if you add another ~300W heat source to the room, also factor in how hot the room might get even without a server in the summer and if you figure this will constantly be below 25°C, you are fine without a new AC, but I somehow doubt this will be the case in California.

    Another thing: With or without an AC, you will have to monitor the temperatures in your server room and make sure someone gets alerted if it gets too high.

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  2. It's worth bearing in mind that the cooler you keep your servers, the higher MTTF you'll achieve with the server components, and the faster you'll be able to run said servers.

    Needless to say: if your servers crash repeatedly, then it's too hot!

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