One of the most difficult and costly aspects of operating a server room is controlling the temperature of the environment. The equipment housed in a server room produces a huge amount of heat and is quite sensitive to temperature. If the air coolers went offline in a large server room for even a short period of time, the equipment would quickly overheat. In most cases, this would cause permanent damage to the hardware.
Overall, it’s not good to overlook the importance of server room temperature. Find out why it’s critical to keep your equipment cool and how to maintain the ideal temperature for optimal performance.
Factors That Can Affect The Server Room Temperature
For starters, there are several factors that can affect the temperature in your server room. This could be the number and type of servers you have, the size and layout of the room, or the climate in which your facility is located.
Furthermore, other factors such as the amount of insulation in the room and the efficiency of your cooling system can play a role in maintaining the right temperature. As a result, it’s important to consider all of these factors when designing and managing your server room to ensure that your equipment stays cool and performs at its best.
What is the Ideal Server Room Temperature?
Maintaining an ideal server room temperature helps ensure all the equipment is able to operate at peak efficiency. However, the computer equipment won’t be damaged or have any major issues even if the environment is quite a bit warmer or cooler. For most types of equipment, the ideal server room temperature is between 50 and 82 degrees Fahrenheit. The optimal server room temperature is between 68 and 71 degrees Fahrenheit.
Of course, you don’t want to plan for either of these extremes as they don’t leave any room for error. For example, if one part of the server room becomes warmer than the rest, then it would immediately cause problems for your hardware.
Things To Consider for Consistent Temperature
Additionally, most server rooms are in fairly large areas that house dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of different pieces of equipment. Due to the large space, it can make it difficult to maintain an ideal temperature in all areas. Having ‘hot spots’ in a server room is inefficient, which puts the equipment in that area at risk. In order to combat this problem, server room managers need to take a number of proactive steps:
- Thermometers Throughout the Room – Having digital thermometers throughout the room will allow you to identify where potential problems exist.
- Smart Airflow Planning – One of the most important ways to ensure a consistent temperature in a server room is with smart airflow planning.
- Strategically Placed Cooling Ducts – Part of airflow planning is the placement of cooling ducts. These ducts need to be located throughout the room to ensure an even temperature.
- Proper Air Cooling – When cooling a server room, you need to have efficient and reliable air conditioning units. Depending on the outside environment, this can include chilled water systems, outside air cooling, and traditional air conditioning systems.
How To Maintain Your Server Rack Temperature
Keeping your servers and computer equipment as a safe operating temperature is crucial for minimizing hardware failure and maintaining optimal performance. You need to make sure that the average temperature within the server rack is kept at the right levels. Oftentimes, server racks will house a variety of computer equipment, which produces a lot of heat. To prevent this, air should be flowing throughout the server racks. The air should flow outside of the rack or from the bottom/top of the rack.
In an enclosed rack, hot air can get trapped in empty spaces and can have a direct impact on the thermal performance of your servers and other equipment. Fan trays can be used to help break up the hot spots and avoid throttling. The fans are essentially great for circulating the air properly.
Do Server Racks Need Cooling?
Having the right cooling systems in place is essential for maintaining your server performance and preventing overheating issues. This means that server rooms need to be in operation around the clock to support the systems that they house. While the server rooms are operating, the cooling system also needs to be running properly at all times. If there is a power outage, then the air-cooling system needs to be on the backup generators so there is no outage. In the event that the main air-cooling system experiences some type of failure, there should always be a backup system in place.
Many server rooms are cooled by two separate systems that are each operating at all times. If one of them fails, then the other can simply work harder to compensate until the first one is fixed. Another option is to have two distinct types of cooling systems in place. Altogether, the best way to ensure you have redundant cooling for your server room is to analyze the outside environment, and the server room needs, and then pick the solutions that will provide you with the right results.
Do You Need Airflow and Cooling Accessories?
Effective server rack management helps to improve physical appearance, cable traceability, airflow, cooling efficiency and troubleshooting time while eliminating the chance for human error. In the long run, proper airflow will definitely save you money. Your business will be able to run more smoothly, have fewer outages, and less maintenance and repairs.
If you need airflow and cooling accessories for your server rack, feel free to contact us for more information. We provide a variety of airflow solutions that will help you manage and optimize the airflow throughout your rack to ensure an organized operating environment for your equipment. With our high-quality, in house manufacturing, you can be confident that you are buying the best equipment possible for your setup!
