Oil Soaked Servers Coming Soon 321
grease_boy writes "A UK company will start selling server racks submerged in oil baths within a year. Very-PC is working on prototypes and says that because oil transfers heat more efficiently, power usage can be cut by fifty percent."
Heh (Score:4, Funny)
*grabs coat*
Previously Patented Work? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Heh (Score:4, Funny)
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Hot cha cha cha cha
Re:Heh (Score:4, Informative)
It was Curly, actually. In one Three Stooges short, Curly was covered in oil (from an oil well he just discovered, you pervs), and Moe said something like "Whatcha doin, knucklehead?" To which Curly says "You know what they say! The oily boid gets the woim! nyuk nyuk nyuk"
The Hot cha cha cha was Jimmy Durante, and I just added that in for kicks.
The funny part is that this post will get modded informative. If there are any other jokes that need in-depth explanations, I'd be happy to serve.
obligitory (Score:3, Informative)
British company, computers, oil! (Score:3, Funny)
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Re:Heh - Fluorinert (Score:3, Informative)
The fluid was Fluorinert [wikipedia.org] and it was pretty expensive when I admin'ed the Cray II at NASA Langley back in 1988.
Re:Heh (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Heh (Score:5, Funny)
Why not start off right, and soak these in biodiesel or ethanol?
Interesting (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Funny)
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Depends on the admin (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Depends on the admin (Score:5, Funny)
And since we're posting on /. (Score:3, Funny)
(I will admit, though, that the scenery would probably be more appealing then... >:-) )
Re:And since we're posting on /. (Score:4, Funny)
I think all of slashdot wants to know... are you hiring?
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Ummmm
I'm a server admin, and I bet you'd like to see ME (Score:2, Informative)
The captcha word for me this time is "fondling". How strangely appropriate.
Pass the brain bleach! (Score:2)
You just HAD to paint that picture, didn't you?
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Re:Interesting (Score:4, Interesting)
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We also need to break the dependency on foreign PC oil sources. I'm switching to bio-diesel PCs. Ummmm, my PC smells like french fries.
Liquid cooled computers, are so last millenium! (Score:3)
Hurrah! (Score:3, Insightful)
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Specialty fluids like Fluorinert are less messy when you need to work on the submerged parts, but that stuff is EXPENSIVE. How about over $300 per LITER?
http://www.parallax-tech.com/fluorine.htm [parallax-tech.com]
Re:Hurrah! (Score:5, Interesting)
Why on earth they didn't at least think to use highly-refined mineral oil like transformer oil is beyond me. I mean, filling a server with motor oil? Are you kidding me?
Someone saw the Tom's Hardware cooking-oil-cooled-PC experiment that was published a while back, and saw an opportunity to make some money. They didn't realise that Tom's Hardware used oil because it was headline-grabbing, cheap, easy to purchase and --oh yeah-- wasn't being used to cool a server that had to be stable and reliable. That doesn't mean it's the best choice of coolant.
Hell, you could do it with purified water if you wanted to, but your uptimes might take a hit.
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Dielectric Fluids "better"? I think not. (Score:5, Interesting)
Novec's a greenhouse gas problem.
Every other fluid in this class has the same set of issues, unfortunately.
They may be "clean" and non-toxic, but they're decidedly NOT environment friendly compared to oils-
and they're a hell of a lot more expensive than oils and not as effective at cooling things.
The reason why the fluids are used in the supercomputer industry is more the mess caused by the oils
on everything- and they're actively cooling the systems. Oils are actually superior to the fluids
in heat-transfer terms- it's why you have oil filled transformers for power distribution instead of
dielectric fluid filled ones. The specific heat of Novec is actually less than air's- the only advantages
these fluids have is that you can effectively move a LOT more of it quickly over a surfaces being cooled
without noise and you can refrigerate the stuff to below ambient to temperatures close to the freezing
point of water without condensation risks.
Oils tend to have issues with active cooling. Unless you're implementing vapor-phase, stirling cycle,
or aggressive peltier active cooling below ambient, you are actually better off with oils than the fluids
as they won't work as well at cooling- you'll be better off with air cooling.
This has been discovered by the overclock crowd and they have done a handful of oil-immersed PC's.
The main reason why you don't see a lot more of those oil immersed PC's is oil wicking
by the wires. Each point where a connector would be or a peripheral like a CD/DVD or hard disk is
hooked in has wires coming out of the system that will wick the oil or dielectric fluid out all over
the place. In order to deal with this specific problem, you'd have to resort to specialized sealed
header and other connectors for each edge case for SATA/PATA, VGA/DVI, etc. Those don't come cheap,
so the overclocker crowd tends to just resort to fishtank and similar plays for lan parties or
PAX/QuakeCon, etc.
So, in the end, it is a mixed bag. The oils are messier, but are actually more environmentally friendly
than the dielectric fluids- and they have a higher heat capacity and thermal conductivity in many cases.
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Environmental issues? (Score:2)
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The only problem i can see is that once you bath your pc components in oil you cannot reuse them elsewhere because the contacts get all dirty. Also i wonder if the components on a Motherboard can handle being oaked in oil. I can imaginge some component will solute in oil after a month or so.
Note also that Harddrives can not be soaked in oil (they need the air cushing )
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But back to the main concern... Obviously when needed you would drain the oil and filter it so it can be reused for cooling again. I would assume that the system would be closed and the same oil could be used for dozens / hundreds of years.
I would also assume that servers could be more dense - much more dense than traditional blade servers as long as you pump the oil around a little. The spacing between boards could be drast
Go green... (Score:2)
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Cut power in half? (Score:3, Interesting)
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Of course, depending on the location, it might be easy enough to circulate the oil to cooling coils outside, but that still takes energy.
Given these guys obvious engineering expertise (not), I wonder if they have ever heard of Polyalphaolef
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My question is "Why do they have to bathe the components in the liquid?". I seem to recall old stereo components with finned heat sinks sticking ou
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I've got this great idea! Let's put the liquid in TUBES and have pumps to circulate the liquid.
The answer is simple: That's already being done. This is only news because it sounds crazy and someone did it. It sounds crazy on the surface because 'everyone knows' that liquids and electronics don't mix. You've got to have a bit of knowledge about physics to overcome t
Re:Cut power in half? (Score:5, Informative)
More or less, yes. Efficiency on the A/C units is usually around 2:1 and sometimes approaches 3:1, that is you get twice the cooling as the energy you put in. Since nearly 100% of the power in to servers is expressed as heat, you need the same amount of cooling. Now add inefficiencies in the cooling architecture, power for fans in the servers, inefficiency of semiconductors when running hot, etc. When you add it all up you're approaching 50% of the total power consumption.
Its a disingenuous marketing claim though. Cooling oil is no more efficient than cooling air and convection won't be the final word at an industrial scale - they'll need pumps which consume as much energy as fans
On the plus side 10kva in a oil-cooled rack will be a hell of a lot quieter than 10kva in an air-cooled rack with a hundred 3cm fans running at 7krpm.
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You got it all right regarding A/C inefficiency.
So right there the efficiency improvement means that C/kva ratio is better. (More cooling for less power)
But the goal of using oils is their heat transfer properties. Allowing for low speed pumps and radiators. In an ideal system, it would have integration into the building. Servers in their oil, heat exchanged with some central system that leads to roof radiators.
In Warm climates this would be less effective...
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That's why I drive a bank of high-intensity LEDs from each server power supply, and shunt the light out of the building with mirrors. It considerably lowers the fraction of power we spend on cooling!
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In this /., we obey the laws of thermodynamics!
SEER = BTU / W.h (Score:3, Informative)
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The O.P. has it right, actually. You can move more heat than energy put in - read up on Coefficient of Performance (C.O.P.). A heat pump/AC is basically a heat engine run in reverse mode.
-b.
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Generating the cold air (by extremely cooling the hot air) as a real air conditioning does is not that efficient. You can't possibly remove more energy out of a system than the energy you p
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A heat pump is a generic term for a system that uses compression and expansion of refrigerant to transfer heat. It can either be run as an A/C to cool a space and dump heat to the outside, or as a heater to heat a space by taking heat from a ground loop.
What you're talking about is a simple ventilation blower, not a heat pump.
-b.
A sensible idea. (Score:2, Interesting)
But it's a decent idea. Oil has a high thermal capacity and will circulate through convection keeping the temperature down. Repairs and upgrades aren't going to be all that pleasant but some swarfega will get the grease of your hands after changing the motherboard.
Changing the oil (Score:2)
Re:Changing the oil (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyhow, even by reducing the power requirements by using efficient passive cooling to evacuate heat from the chips to the room, you still need to evacuate heat from the room.
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I'm not so much worried about changing the oil as much as changing failed components/servers. I'd think that could be a bit annoying, what with the tank of oil and all.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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Give it to us raw -- and wriggling! You keep nasty chips!
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The wife is going to love that!! (Score:2)
Its clean!
Especially compared to say motorbikes as a hobby, oily bike parts in the sink are not a good way to endear yourself aparantly...
But now servers come in oil? I can see problems starting here!!
Follow up (Score:2)
Liquid cooling has been around for a long time and has advantages over air cooling. Energy efficiency is not one of them.
Problems: Connectors, HDD,degradation (Score:5, Interesting)
However, the main problem I see is connectors. Existing connectors have been developed to work in air, except for a few exotic types. Watertight connectors are designed to work with wet environment outside and dry electronics inside, not vice versa, but in any case existing technology would require standard connectors to be used entirely submerged in dielectric. Modern connectors have much smaller contact surfaces than they did even ten years ago, and the distance liquid would have to move by capillary action before breaking the contact is quite small. It's hard to see how you could do accelerated life testing for such a system, which means it could be many years before we know whether they are reliable or not.
I recall when doing research involving electronics in Fluorinert we had to make soldered connections in liquid. Contacts that were frequently made and broken could be pressure contacts, but that is quite different from the situation in a server. And if we had known of a cheap substitute for Fluorinert we would have used it. The majority of oils degrade quite interestingly - you wouldn't expect bacteria to live in them but they can and do if the conditions are right.
These guys may have a workable solution to all the problems, but I can't help thinking that technology will make the concept obsolete. How does the performance of an old Fluorinert-cooled Cray stack up against a modern server in flops and GBit/s of IO per watt? (Hint: Don't bet on the Cray.)
and one more (minor problem) (Score:2)
Probably leakproof
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For everyone that was posting about hard drives I doubt tha
Re:Problems: Connectors, HDD,degradation (Score:5, Informative)
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The only problem (Score:2, Interesting)
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I would have thought that a lighter oil like diesel or LHM (suspension oil) would have been better. Maybe even ATF, although that is a bit thicker.
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Or pure mineral oil. Impurities/additives generally cause oil to become more conductive, and car oils are not meant to be good insulators.
The really good insulating oils - containing PCBs - were phased out due to their environmental toxicity in the 50s.
-b.
Fire risk, anyone ? (Score:2)
BOFH has already done this (Score:2, Interesting)
... with water (Score:2)
slosh
fizz!
Aah... not only have we saved ALL of our VAX power bill, but we've eliminated all noise in the process.
Now to persuade the Boss to dive in to look for the drain plug...
Sounds Tasty... (Score:2)
oil (Score:4, Funny)
Bad consequences (Score:2)
Just what overweight geeks need (Score:4, Funny)
Or, if they use motor oil, will Penzoil and other oil companies start running TV ads? "I couldn't play DOOM 6 until I switch to 10W-40 ultra. Now I kick butt"
Maybe the computers can start coming with chrome valve covers.
Irn Bru with that (Score:2)
job interview, 2009: (Score:5, Funny)
"Well, I was a fry cook at McDonalds for 2 years"
"You're hired"
Cooking Oil? (Score:2)
All that is old is new again...? (Score:4, Interesting)
Entire rack? (Score:2)
Can someone please explain to me... (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)
hot swapping issues? (Score:2)
But with comments about doing hardware swaps and waiting for oil drainage, can't these problems be solved with keeping some components in boxes/trays, and cirulating the oil in and out of each compartment via something similar to the dry break connectors used in some motorsport hoses.
That way you just yank it out and the only bit of oil to worry about is the amount immediately around the swapped part - which you could leave to drain, r
Greeeeeeat... (Score:2)
Not just for mechanics any more (Score:2)
Coming soon to a computer geek near you.
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I run a cybercafe with twenty machines. During the winter my electricity bill is cut by over 60% even though I have the same level of computer use. It's only because I don't need A/C. I almost never use a heater during the winter either. I actually h
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Looks like they had no clue then. Building size doesn't produce heat, building contents do. People are 300W each, and you can probably assume computers to be ~200-300W each, too.
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So for every human in the Matrix, they could run one computer?
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As you point out, total system cooling can be significant when AC is involved. But this will NOT change with oil-cooling. 98% of the heat will still be generated and have to be removed by the same AC units unless someone mounts external radiators.
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I also read that some IBM mainframe core memory units were oil-cooled.
-b.