North American Network Operators Group
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Re: kW Per Rack.

  • From: John Curran
  • Date: Wed Sep 13 21:46:55 2006 
At 4:20 PM -0700 9/13/06, Robert Sherrard wrote:
>How many of you are currently cooling 7kW+ per cabinet.. are any of you cooling more than 15kW per rack, if so how large is your footprint? Are any of you using water cool racks, by tapping into house water?

We're doing >7kW per cabinet via forced chilled air ducted directly
into the top of hollow-post racks with ventilation slots opened on
forward/side/back depending on the specific equipment needs.  Air
return is drawn off the structural floor (no raised floor) by computer
room air chillers and then back into the duct system.   We could
increase density but only because the room is completely sealed
with only penetrations for fiber, power, and chilled water loops.

With a traditional raised-floor environment, you're in a very difficult
situation at 15kW (~500 w/sqft).  There's a couple of facilities in
Northern VA with such a design point, but they very custom with
4 to 5 foot raised-floor due to the airflow.  Water cooling to the rack
(or at least to the aisle) almost required at that point.

/John
CTO, ServerVault