What is the ideal temp for a DC

[BrianVaultnet]

Hey all, I'm a customer of one of the major datacenters here in Miami, Fl. Yesterday we had an A/C handler that failed in the dc and the zone in which it was in got VERY HOT. I was wondering if some people could share a bit of information about their experiences.

I currently have greater than 500 Sq ft of space at this location and my daytime temp is always between 75-80 and it was in the 90's-100's when the AC failed.

Where is your DC locate? (it was about 80 outside when failing yesterday)

What is the ideal temp of your DC?

Is your DC that temp?

At what point in time would you start to shut down the cisco switches and servers to save drives etc?

Where can i get a good env monitoring tool that lets me know when there are problems?

Thanks for the input.

Brian

[SiteSouth]

The ideal temperature is about 72 degrees. If your space stays above 75 it is time to get more permanent cooling in.

Once you start hitting about 85 degrees air temperature you are already starting to damage the equipment. Many servers run 10-25 degrees warmer than the air temperature.

We are in Atlanta so we get the same heat and humidity issues you get. We try to stay at 72 +/- 2 degrees.

In an emergency you can rent portable air conditioning units. This is done all the time in data centers that have temporary outages or if the AC has to come down for service. I'd rather pay the cost of the portable air conditioning units than have damaged gear or have to call clients and tell them they are going to be off line for x hours or x days.

Check you local telephone book or on-line for portable air conditioning or portable spot air conditioning.

Ones in your area might be http://www.etopp.com/ or http://www.spot-coolers.com/

Most computers have some type of heat sensoring and alarm system. We track 1 or 2 in each rack, one near the bottom and one near the top. They email us updates.

[SQNWK]

The datacenter were in they keep pretty cool, I believe around 65-68 degrees, but I agree 90-100 degrees is way to warm for a datacenter.

[Rob T]

Our space at 55 S Market in San Jose always stays very cool, since it is right in front of the AC unit that cools our zone. I haven't looked at the temp, but i'd guess somewhere around 65-68 F. I prefer it a bit on the cool side, so I would start complaining if it ever got up over 72 F. Its amazing how much heat 38 1U servers in a 42U rack can throw off, so i'd rather stick to being cautious and pay a bit more.

[IronJohn]

Our regional hospital's data center is stuffed to the gills with old and brand-new 1U units. Last summer 79-80 was typical. We finally got safe and have 2 portable AC in addition to the permanant systems. The issue was growth. too many cables in the raised floor dimminishing the air flow.

75 and bellow has been normal this week, in NC where outside temp was 100+.

PS, no failure related to heat occured durring the last year or so, as far as we know.

[WII-Aaron]

I keep my DC's at 70. Just as important as a cool temperature is a stable one. Equipment will get damaged also if you have wide temp variations.

Aaron

[jpablo]

Mine is kep pretty cold then... 58 to 64, being 62 degrees the average.

Maybe we're spending too much power on that, however, we need to take care of some pretty hot 1U servers.

[jaybirdsmith]

68 degree target, with 42% relative humidity.

[PaulTech]

68 degree target, with 42% relative humidity.

We run the same.

[Scott]

According to Federal Standard 209e the optimum temperature was 70-72 degrees F at 50% humidity.

[gothambus]

68 degree target, with 42% relative humidity.


The fossil fuel suppliers of the world thank you. Next time you read about the price of a barrel of oil going up 40% in 3 weeks, think about that 68 degree target.

Once you get down to 72 degrees, there is little to no benefit in spending energy dollars to drive the temp down into the 60s.

[dcole]

Check out the Enterprise software from The Advantage Group (www.taglim.com). It can monitor environmental monitors from many different companies, as well as UPSs, PDUs, IP cameras, network switches and so on. It can even monitor applications and batch jobs running on servers. Everything is displayed in an easy-to-read visual layout of your data center.

[gallant]

Most UPS battery manufacturer's recommend 77F or 25C.

[Maggie]

There are lots of ways to control cooling issues in the data center. We just gave an important webinar on this topic, "Practical Solutions for Resolving Cooling Issues in the Data Center". It is available on demand by going to http://www.dataclean.com/webcasts.html.

By viewing this recorded webcast, you will learn how to calculate how much cooling you need, how to get the most out of your cooling systems, eliminate hot spots, and save money too.

Data Clean is a nationwide cleaning service company for data centers and cleanrooms. For more about us, see our advertisement under the following posting http://www.datacentertalk.com/showthread.php?t=2721 or at http://www.dataclean.com (http://www.dataclean.com/)

[jcviawest]

68 degrees 42% humidity is where we are at as well

jcviawest
www.viawest.net