Go Back   Data Center, Colocation, Cloud Computing, Storage, Dedicated Servers Forums > General DataCenter Discussion Forum > Data Center Design, Development, Building Systems and Operations

Reply

 

Thread Tools
  #1  
Old 01-18-2007, 09:22 PM
Keith's Avatar
Keith Keith is offline
Administrator
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Washington DC Metro Area
Posts: 225
Send a message via AIM to Keith Send a message via MSN to Keith
Question Watts per SQ Ft.

Who can tell me the latest average industry standard for specifying wattage per sq ft in a medium density facility? This will be running 208v.
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 01-18-2007, 11:32 PM
KenB's Avatar
KenB KenB is offline
Administrator
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Posts: 468
Default

There is a growing trend to use watts per rack as a better indicator of actual equipment density than watts per sq. ft., since sq. ft. is calculated differently by different people -- some include just the rack footprints, some include aisle and service clearances, others include the entire raised floor space. This leads to apples and oranges comparisons. Here is a good white paper from the Uptime Institute, which gives the details.

However, people still do use watts/sq. ft. to describe and compare data center designs. So, for comparison, we just completed a research data center at 400W/sq. ft. This site will house very dense 1U and blade servers. Our current retrofit project is taking a 25 yr old general purpose data center and upgrading it to 100W/sq. ft. We do not plan to have very dense racks overall and we'll treat hot spots with auxiliary cooling. These values are the result of dividing the UPS capacities by the raised floor space. No mechanical load is included.

From people I've talked with, data centers are being built at different capacities for different reasons. Colocation sites, Yahoo and Google, supercomputer sites, corporate data centers, etc. -- all will have different needs, budgets and design specs.

Hope that helps.

Ken
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old 01-19-2007, 03:26 PM
Keith's Avatar
Keith Keith is offline
Administrator
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Washington DC Metro Area
Posts: 225
Send a message via AIM to Keith Send a message via MSN to Keith
Default

Thanks a lot for the white paper Ken!

I cannot wait for everyone to follow a standard!
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old 01-22-2007, 04:31 PM
dccooling
Guest
 
Posts: n/a
Default

I am still a fan of watts per square foot. For me I take the smaller of the following two:

1. The total electrical capacity for IT gear (critical load)
2. The total cooling capacity at the rack (not CRAC capacity)

Then divide this number by the square footage of the raised floor space. I find IT people like watts per rack (because they just try to fit stuff in the rack) and facilities people prefer watts/sf (because they have to power and cool the stuff).

To convert, an average data centers require 25 sf per rack (includes aisle ways and CRACs). The range I normally see is 20-30.

I also find that when that simple conversion math is done.... IT and Faciliies are 10X off. "What??? We can't do 10kw per rack with air cooling?" (400w/sft)

Every data center is so different the "standards" usually become "guides".

My two cents.
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old 02-05-2007, 09:16 PM
wbellis
Guest
 
Posts: n/a
Post

Hi Keith,

We are seeing the average for a medium density facility at the moment being around the 180w/sq ft. Some sites are higher and some are much lower. I would not put a client into any facility today that was not atleast 160w/sq ft.

Cheers!

Wyatt
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old 05-18-2007, 10:41 AM
keybd_user
Guest
 
Posts: n/a
Default Higher densities means higher energy demands.

Hi,

The problem today is that every single app except perhaps storage, is going the way of every time more energy density.
We are going to start to see 900W PSU on 1U servers, they will be capable of holding two server Motherboards with two Quad CPUS! (Like the new Supermicro).
Dual Dual Quads (16 Cores).
This really requires a lot more punch from the power cord ... and bandwidth ...


Regards,
Pedro
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old 12-03-2007, 05:00 AM
Zitibake Zitibake is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 113
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by wbellis View Post
I would not put a client into any facility today that was not atleast 160w/sq ft.
It seems to me that the cost of building and operating the datacenter scales fairly closely with the size of the M&E and its features. You want a 20k foot 2MW facility with N+1 and Tier3 audit, it costs X; you want a 50k foot 10MW with 2N and Tier4 audit, it costs Y. The cost to build is in the extra MW and features, not in the extra 30k sq feet.

There's a point where increasing cooling density becomes expensive using today's solutions, out of proportion to the benefits of cramming yet more stuff into one cabinet. If I offer a colo package in one facility, with 10kw of usable power and cooling in two cabinets (5kw/cab); or in four cabinets in another facility (2.5kw/cab), at the same price, why do people prefer the 5kw/cab facility?

I would think that the driver would be kw/$.
Reply With Quote
  #8  
Old 01-04-2008, 09:54 AM
sailor sailor is offline
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: atlanta
Posts: 20
Send a message via AIM to sailor
Default

225 watts per sq foot is our current facilit in dc1 buildout - although on our dc2 expansion we are going to allow for higher down the road by going to vented hot aisle ducting which should be much less expensive than fully enclosing it but accomplish close to the same thing.

it will just be a matter of putting the outside plant in to cool it.

another poster is right though - you still need room for all the power and cooling gear - so I think numbers are going to be played with - depending on whether facilities put their ups in the room / crac units in the room etc or they put these in other rooms therby making the watts per sq foot go higher in the dc area.

there is a point where its gets expensive - like going to in row cooling etc. then you just have to look at the cost of the real estate vs the cost of the equipment in your cash flow lifecycle of the facility.
__________________
www.atlantanap.com premier carrier neutral colocation
netdepot.com premier unmanaged servers
tranxactglobal.com amazing managed and unmetered servers
gnax.net route optimized bandwidth AS3595 since 1994
Reply With Quote
  #9  
Old 02-13-2008, 01:39 AM
KenB's Avatar
KenB KenB is offline
Administrator
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Posts: 468
Default Density increases, costs decrease

Here is an interesting chart (courtesy of California Data Center Design Group) showing space usable for equipment racks at various power densities. At 500 W/sq ft, power and cooling (M&E) equipment space exceeds server equipment space by 3:1. Since utility room space is less expensive to build out than server room space, higher dentisy = lower building costs.

http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/kb13/Density.gif


Ken

Last edited by KenB; 02-13-2008 at 12:24 PM.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 04:45 PM.

Member Area



Data Center Industry Daily News


Cloud and Dedicated Hosting


Sponsors Managed Servers Sponsored by DedicatedNOW.
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.