North American Network Operators Group
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Re: rack power question

  • From: Joe Abley
  • Date: Tue Mar 25 10:37:12 2008


On 25 Mar 2008, at 09:11 , Dorn Hetzel wrote:

It would sure be nice if along with choosing to order servers with DC or AC power inputs one could choose air or water cooling.

Or perhaps some non-conductive working fluid instead of water. That might not carry quite as much heat as water, but it would surely carry more than air and if chosen correctly would have more benign results when the inevitable leaks and spills occur.

The conductivity of (ion-carrying) water seems like a sensible thing to worry about. The other thing is its boiling point.

I presume that the fact that nobody ever brings that up means it's a non-issue, but it'd be good to understand why.

Seems to me that any large-scale system designed to distribute water for cooling has the potential for hot spots to appear, and that any hot spot that approaches 100C is going to cause some interesting problems.

Wouldn't some light mineral oil be a better option than water?


Joe