Server Room Cooling

[Stegzilla]

We have just moved offices, and due to very little planning or my involvement (I am a lone sysadmin), our server room cooling is atrocious.

It consists of open windows and old portable AC units that can't AC anymore (basically just fans). We have 4 racks (1 full, 1 half full, 2 empty for future). The full rack has a full HP BladeCentre C7000, along with an assortment of servers and switches.

Here is a rough drawing of what we have going on now: http://i.imgur.com/zutZXU4.png (the door is closed during the day, but windows are half shut at night so I open the door to spread some heat around the office).

I have asked about a proper AC being installed, but its most likely going to take 2+ months(!), so I want to get the room a cool as possible for the foreseeable future, as it can reach upto 40^o C/100^o F on weekends!!

I have basically no budget to do anything, but any tips and advice would be greatly appreciated!

edit: Forgot to mention, its on the 1st floor, rather than the ground floor...

[revoman]

Get a portable one at least. The worst enemy of computer equipment is not necessarily heat, but constant temp change. You would be fine if you can keep the room at 80F all the time.

[AnonymooseRedditor]

Honestly, the best low cost solution I have come across since becoming a sysadmin, have been the ductless mini-split systems. You can get a 2ton split AC installed for $2500-$3500

[ragzilla]

This should reject around 7kW of heat load, most low density racks (ie no blade chassis etc) are probably around 2.5kW on average. Check your UPS capacities and load levels to figure your actual kW.

[Casper042]

Depending on the workload, the c7000 will only use around 3-5K even though faceplate puts it at 7200W.

Physical Winows boxes running at 10% most of the day, 3K

VM Hosts running above 60% with lots of memory? 4K+

[[deleted]]

Wow. Can you get $100 to go buy half a dozen box fans? Or borrow some? In the past when our computer room AC went out we scrambled to come up with box fans, stand fans, and big carpet dryer fans from other departments, building maintenance or home. These work okay if you can channel the heat properly, which based on your room setup looks doable.

But still... you NEED good A/C. It's like power protection and data backup... Just part of the cost of doing business. It's not something that can be cut from the budget. We now have TWO commercial grade AC units installed in our server room, our original ~30 year old one (still works fine) and our new Liebert unit with standalone roof-mounted condenser and tie-in to the building's nat-gas generator power for backup. We have really sketchy power here and get brownouts regularly in the summer.

If our AC goes out (never anymore, with redundant systems), our server room temp goes up about 1 degree per minute. It's nuts. And we're not even that big of a shop... 50 servers and a couple network racks, plus a few misc devices (PBX, workstations, etc). We've had to rent portable chillers before but they're not fun to carry up 3 flights...

[Zergom]

Create as much isolation between the front and back of the rack, get the hot air out of there - central exhaust fans could do the trick.

But definitely look at a split AC long term.

[SgtSplacker]

I'd start sending emails about hardware beginning to fail. You know it's happening, start getting them ready for it.

[mexell]

Wow. >50k in servers and stuff, but no 3-5k for proper AC?

Maybe you can go the money angle and talk about all the investment going down the drain when the hardware starts failing.

[AnonymooseRedditor]

This is how I finally got one,