Re: [Declude.Virus] OT - Server Room Temperature

[Matt]

Doug, Hard drives are probably the most sensitive components that you have in your servers, and I am not aware of any hard drives that should be run above 50C/122F.  My server runs about 35F hotter for the system temp than the environment and about 40F hotter for the CPU's than the environment.  Note that these readings are under normal load, but when the server redlines, the CPU's increase by about 15F and the system by about 5F.  Considering that the hard drives create heat themselves and their much lower tolerance for heat in comparison to solid state components, it would seem that going over 30C/85F for the ambient temperature would be very dangerous as far as the hard drives go in an active server.  Hard drives will likely go over their operating temperature long before the system or the processors unless you have a broken fan or bad connection with a heat sync.  My system is spec'd at 15C/27F over the hard drive's tolerance, and my CPU's at 27C/50F over. IMO, 66F is the proper server room temperature, and it gives some leeway for adding more equipment and other issues that can crop up such as A/C failures.  72F would be the high end normal temp that I would want to see.  If my colo was over 75F, I would definitely complain.  The guy next to me with 25 TB's of 15,000 RPM SCSI drives would probably complain louder :) Matt Doug Traylor wrote: We just looked at the operating spec of our servers from the Manufacturer's (Dell) website.  The max is listed as 95* F and we run around 80* F during the day on weekdays and up to 92* F on the weekends when they turn off the AC in the plant.  We have our own AC which runs 24/7 in the computer room/closet.  So far we have not had any noticeable system problems in the five years we have been operating this way.    When we had a large IBM mainframe with all the dressing, we kept it in a large computer room that was kept at a chilly 66* F.  I was a computer operator then and worked in there for 8-12 hours a day.  I would wear two shirts and longs sleeves to work, even when it was 110* F outside - Texas.   Doug   ----- Original Message ----- From: Jeff To: Declude.Virus@declude.com Sent: Thursday, August 11, 2005 8:58 AM Subject: [Declude.Virus] OT - Server Room Temperature Can someone point me to a source of information regarding what temperature a server room should be at ?   Thank you.