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Dell To Sell Advanced Server Cooling Systems
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat Jun 30, 2007 04:45 PM
from the series-of-tubes dept.
from the series-of-tubes dept.
Mitechsi writes "Dell has struck a deal with Emerson to sell advanced liquid cooling systems and services to data center owners. One type of supplemental cooling technology is called the Liebert XD. The XD consists of refrigerant-filled pipes that snake around the server racks in a data center. The liquid system cuts the cooling power load by about 30%–50% compared to other types of cooling systems."
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And additional cooling systems... (Score:4, Funny)
Nice name... (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
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Kill me later for this... (Score:5, Funny)
"Snakes in a server room!"
*ducks*
I'm glad I already put the piping in. (Score:2)
Water cooling with a different, expensive name ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I don't care if you pump it full of $400/gallon fluorinert and have plastic fishies floating through it, it's still just liquid cooling, something that existed in the server room long before Michael Dell ever sold a single server machine.
If you RTFA, you'd know that they are not selling liquid cooling systems, they're selling liquid-to-vapor phase change cooling systems. Read the third paragraph of TFA.
You know those nifty heat pipes in fancy heat sinks?
Imagine that on a bigger scale.
Re:Water cooling with a different, expensive name (Score:2, Informative)
The ZDNet article is, unfortunately, very scant on details when it comes to our XD (short-hand for "eXtreme Density") system. For one, they give the impression that cooling coils are water-based. They're not; they're refrigerant, just like a whole-house air conditioner. The specific coolers they seem to be referring to are the XDV, an 8kW unit which mounts directly to the top of the rack, and/or the XDO, which is a 16kW unit which hangs in the center
Re: (Score:2)
"they're refrigerant, just like a whole-house air conditioner"
Technically, they're not "just" like an air-conditioner. They're (like the water based systems also listed under the XD tag) only a heat exchange system - there's no compressor (although they also sell some of those under the XD name). Rather than compressing the vapor before condensing it, they pump the liquid refrigerant after it has condensed, which has the advantage of not cooling it below the room dewpoint, so there's no dripping condensat
Re:Water cooling with a different, expensive name (Score:4, Informative)
Ummm, because it's made by the Liebert Corporation? And it's their "XD" line of products?
Is this the first time you've ever heard of branding?
You might as well ask: "Why call it 'Toyota Camry'? What, it's not a car?"
it's still just liquid cooling, something that existed in the server room long before Michael Dell ever sold a single server machine.
So? Cars have been around a long time, too. That doesn't mean I want to drive a Model T.
Anyway, the news here is not that there is a new HVAC product, but that Dell is going to be selling HVAC systems to datacenter owners.
Also, this system uses a gas/liquid phase-change cycle [liebert.com], and it operates on a different scope (zone and spot cooling -- doesn't get anywhere near the CPU), so it's really not like what most people would think of as liquid cooling systems for computers. It's just a way of getting the cooling closer to the heat source instead of blowing cold air around in ducts, such that your HVAC operates more efficiently.
Sure, this idea has been around for a while (though this system makes some improvements that are especially helpful for datacenter use). The news is that Dell is selling it.
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Nicely Done! (Score:2)
Better Idea (Score:2, Informative)
Maintenance (Score:2)
Antartica (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
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Fiber Optics wouldn't be fast enough ?
Speed of Light (Score:2)
"Advanced" Liquid Cooling System? (Score:3, Insightful)
So Dell PC servers now have old fashioned, pipes-in-the-data-centre liquid cooling, while IBM mainframes do not.
We have come full circle, haven't we?
A DX cooled rack is NOT efficient (Score:2, Informative)
The refrigerant-based approach is an efficiency disaster. Any serious datacenter is cooled with chilled water, or it is using double the watt/ton of cooling it should be. A datacenter that is not using water based cooling and some form of freecooling, which saves money even in climates like Phoenix or Atlanta in a 24/7 flat-load datacenter situation, should be sued for false advertising if they claim to be "efficient." There is benchmarking data available on this - a closed-loop dx system is an energy disas
Re:YOU ARE A FUCKING TROLL!! (Score:4, Funny)
(sigh)
George, aren't you supposed to be "idiotified" again by Vladimir Putin here in a few minutes? What are you doing posting on Slashdot?
Parent
No. (Score:2)
That's It? (Score:2)
Re:Why must data centers be so dense ? (Score:4, Interesting)
The real problem for data centers is that some equipment works much better packed close together. Usually, it's only 20% or so, but you have to figure out solutions for this type of equipment.
The most interesting strategies for data center cooling today are using air side free cooling. There are plenty of challenges, and it only works with certain combinations of local climate and building design, but it is another area that benefits from high density-- being able to exhaust 110F air from your cabinets directly to the outside rather than trying to cool it back down to 55F at the CRAC units makes a lot of sense.
(As for converting a big box retail building to a data center... you might be able to put in 100kW of computer load and just run the air conditioning at night as suggested. If you pay $0.50/SF, that would be about $50k/month in rent. Rent in a co-lo for the same power density would be about $26k per month. In either scenario, you need to add power and UPS to the equation for the total picture.)
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