RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS
+1 We have ours around 65 and 50 for humidity. We have installed a temp/humidity alarm that will alert the hospital operator (we don't man i/s 24x7) who will page I/S and Plant Ops if it goes off. On that same note, we called HP (we use DL 380's) and they said max temp is 95F. From: tvanderk...@expl.com To: ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 16:59:04 -0500 Subject: RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS The part that I find most admins miss in the specs mentioned is the humidity. When you are running the A/C in a room almost constantly the humidity tends to drop fairly quickly. Once the humidity in your data center goes below 40% the chance of static electricity building starts to climb fast. I have yet to see it snow in a server room, but I have seen plenty of servers over the years taken out by a static charge. I run my centers at 71 degrees F and 50% humidity. TVK From: Klint Price - ArizonaITPro [mailto:kpr...@arizonaitpro.com] Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 4:41 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS That depends. I operate a data center in Phoenix, and it gets plenty hot here. I was under the impression that a server room at 68 degrees was optimal, but when I conducted further research several months ago, it appears 85 degrees is just fine too assuming proper air flow, failovers, and architecture. Personally, I stick to 74 degrees or so because I have older equipment. I know Google runs at about 85 degrees, but they also use a commodity home-brew server per their own specs. Links: http://www.adc.com/Library/Literature/102264AE.pdf ASHRAE's Thermal Guidelines for Data Processing Environments[4] recommends a temperature range of 20–25 °C (68–75 °F) and humidity range of 40–55% with a maximum dew point of 17°C as optimal for data center conditions.[5] http://wistechnology.com/articles/4074/ “Because the average temperature [in data centers] will rise from the standard 68 [degrees Fahrenheit] to over 85 F in about 8.6 minutes when a problem arises from, for example, a power outage or an air-conditioning failure, the staff in charge must be alerted and take immediate action,” Sigourney says. “With the critical shutdown threshold for most equipment is universally agreed to be at 85 F, the best response would be to use the automatic server shut-down capabilities included with AVTECH’s PageR Enterprise software to eliminate risk by shutting down the most expensive and critical hardware when extreme conditions occur.” and finally http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/03/23/will-server-warranties-get-hotter-too/ From: Murray Freeman [mfree...@alanet.org] Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 2:20 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS Like many companies these days, we're looking to reduce our expenses. With the hot weather almost here in the Chicago area, I'm being asked to up the thermostat in our server room, to allow it to get warmer and thus save some money. We have been keeping the temperature around the mid 70's, and I'm concerned about higher temps in the server room causing servers to crash or at least reduce their lifetime. What od you think is the maximum operating temperature for a room with servers? We humans are not in the room that often, so it's strictly a case of a safe temperature for the hardware. There's no need to determine how many servers I have or how large the room is, just the temperature necessary to safely operate servers. Murray _ Windows Live™: Keep your life in sync. http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_BR_life_in_synch_062009 ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS
I assume max temp = max room temp, not actual server temp? From: paul chinnery [mailto:pdw1...@hotmail.com] Sent: Thursday, June 04, 2009 8:35 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS +1 We have ours around 65 and 50 for humidity. We have installed a temp/humidity alarm that will alert the hospital operator (we don't man i/s 24x7) who will page I/S and Plant Ops if it goes off. On that same note, we called HP (we use DL 380's) and they said max temp is 95F. From: tvanderk...@expl.com To: ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 16:59:04 -0500 Subject: RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS The part that I find most admins miss in the specs mentioned is the humidity. When you are running the A/C in a room almost constantly the humidity tends to drop fairly quickly. Once the humidity in your data center goes below 40% the chance of static electricity building starts to climb fast. I have yet to see it snow in a server room, but I have seen plenty of servers over the years taken out by a static charge. I run my centers at 71 degrees F and 50% humidity. TVK From: Klint Price - ArizonaITPro [mailto:kpr...@arizonaitpro.com] Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 4:41 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS That depends. I operate a data center in Phoenix, and it gets plenty hot here. I was under the impression that a server room at 68 degrees was optimal, but when I conducted further research several months ago, it appears 85 degrees is just fine too assuming proper air flow, failovers, and architecture. Personally, I stick to 74 degrees or so because I have older equipment. I know Google runs at about 85 degrees, but they also use a commodity home-brew server per their own specs. Links: http://www.adc.com/Library/Literature/102264AE.pdf ASHRAE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASHRAE 's Thermal Guidelines for Data Processing Environments[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_center#cite_note-3 recommends a temperature range of 20-25 °C (68-75 °F) and humidity range of 40-55% with a maximum dew point of 17°C as optimal for data center conditions.[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_center#cite_note-4 http://wistechnology.com/articles/4074/ Because the average temperature [in data centers] will rise from the standard 68 [degrees Fahrenheit] to over 85 F in about 8.6 minutes when a problem arises from, for example, a power outage or an air-conditioning failure, the staff in charge must be alerted and take immediate action, Sigourney says. With the critical shutdown threshold for most equipment is universally agreed to be at 85 F, the best response would be to use the automatic server shut-down capabilities included with AVTECH's PageR Enterprise software to eliminate risk by shutting down the most expensive and critical hardware when extreme conditions occur. and finally http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/03/23/will-server-warranties-get-hotter-too/ From: Murray Freeman [mfree...@alanet.org] Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 2:20 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS Like many companies these days, we're looking to reduce our expenses. With the hot weather almost here in the Chicago area, I'm being asked to up the thermostat in our server room, to allow it to get warmer and thus save some money. We have been keeping the temperature around the mid 70's, and I'm concerned about higher temps in the server room causing servers to crash or at least reduce their lifetime. What od you think is the maximum operating temperature for a room with servers? We humans are not in the room that often, so it's strictly a case of a safe temperature for the hardware. There's no need to determine how many servers I have or how large the room is, just the temperature necessary to safely operate servers. Murray Windows Live(tm): Keep your life in sync. Check it out. http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_BR_life_in_synch_062009 ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS
Yes Subject: RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 08:38:14 -0400 From: david.mazzacc...@hudsonhhc.com To: ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com I assume max temp = max room temp, not actual server temp? From: paul chinnery [mailto:pdw1...@hotmail.com] Sent: Thursday, June 04, 2009 8:35 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS +1 We have ours around 65 and 50 for humidity. We have installed a temp/humidity alarm that will alert the hospital operator (we don't man i/s 24x7) who will page I/S and Plant Ops if it goes off. On that same note, we called HP (we use DL 380's) and they said max temp is 95F. From: tvanderk...@expl.com To: ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 16:59:04 -0500 Subject: RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS The part that I find most admins miss in the specs mentioned is the humidity. When you are running the A/C in a room almost constantly the humidity tends to drop fairly quickly. Once the humidity in your data center goes below 40% the chance of static electricity building starts to climb fast. I have yet to see it snow in a server room, but I have seen plenty of servers over the years taken out by a static charge. I run my centers at 71 degrees F and 50% humidity. TVK From: Klint Price - ArizonaITPro [mailto:kpr...@arizonaitpro.com] Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 4:41 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS That depends. I operate a data center in Phoenix, and it gets plenty hot here. I was under the impression that a server room at 68 degrees was optimal, but when I conducted further research several months ago, it appears 85 degrees is just fine too assuming proper air flow, failovers, and architecture. Personally, I stick to 74 degrees or so because I have older equipment. I know Google runs at about 85 degrees, but they also use a commodity home-brew server per their own specs. Links: http://www.adc.com/Library/Literature/102264AE.pdf ASHRAE's Thermal Guidelines for Data Processing Environments[4] recommends a temperature range of 20–25 °C (68–75 °F) and humidity range of 40–55% with a maximum dew point of 17°C as optimal for data center conditions.[5] http://wistechnology.com/articles/4074/ “Because the average temperature [in data centers] will rise from the standard 68 [degrees Fahrenheit] to over 85 F in about 8.6 minutes when a problem arises from, for example, a power outage or an air-conditioning failure, the staff in charge must be alerted and take immediate action,” Sigourney says. “With the critical shutdown threshold for most equipment is universally agreed to be at 85 F, the best response would be to use the automatic server shut-down capabilities included with AVTECH’s PageR Enterprise software to eliminate risk by shutting down the most expensive and critical hardware when extreme conditions occur.” and finally http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/03/23/will-server-warranties-get-hotter-too/ From: Murray Freeman [mfree...@alanet.org] Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 2:20 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS Like many companies these days, we're looking to reduce our expenses. With the hot weather almost here in the Chicago area, I'm being asked to up the thermostat in our server room, to allow it to get warmer and thus save some money. We have been keeping the temperature around the mid 70's, and I'm concerned about higher temps in the server room causing servers to crash or at least reduce their lifetime. What od you think is the maximum operating temperature for a room with servers? We humans are not in the room that often, so it's strictly a case of a safe temperature for the hardware. There's no need to determine how many servers I have or how large the room is, just the temperature necessary to safely operate servers. Murray Windows Live™: Keep your life in sync. Check it out. _ Insert movie times and more without leaving Hotmail®. http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/QuickAdd?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_QuickAdd_062009 ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
Re: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS
On Tue, 2 Jun, 2009 at 16:59, tvanderk...@expl.com wrote: The part that I find most admins miss in the specs mentioned is the humidity. When you are running the A/C in a room almost constantly the humidity tends to drop fairly quickly. ... I have seen plenty of servers over the years taken out by a static charge. On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 8:34 AM, paul chinnery pdw1...@hotmail.com wrote: We have ours around 65 and 50 for humidity. I've been told that the primary difference between a regular air conditioner and a CRAC (computer room air conditioner) is that a CRAC is designed to lower the temperature while keeping the humidity at a more suitable level. -- Ben ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
Re: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS
CRAC's are big, noisy and blow a lot of things around if it's not secured..and keeps the humidity levels stable. When ours was installed a couple of years ago, I was doing some serious praying...we didn't know for sure that it would roll across our raised floor without collapsing it, and that would have been very bad. On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 8:04 AM, Ben Scott mailvor...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, 2 Jun, 2009 at 16:59, tvanderk...@expl.com wrote: The part that I find most admins miss in the specs mentioned is the humidity. When you are running the A/C in a room almost constantly the humidity tends to drop fairly quickly. ... I have seen plenty of servers over the years taken out by a static charge. On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 8:34 AM, paul chinnery pdw1...@hotmail.com wrote: We have ours around 65 and 50 for humidity. I've been told that the primary difference between a regular air conditioner and a CRAC (computer room air conditioner) is that a CRAC is designed to lower the temperature while keeping the humidity at a more suitable level. -- Ben ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ -- Sherry Abercrombie Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clarke ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS
I hear ya. We put in a big Leibert and the first I noticed was just how noisy it was. That's when I started keeping my office door closed. I didn't want to retire and find out I'd lost some of hearing due to the constant noise from the a/c. Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 08:20:43 -0500 Subject: Re: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS From: saber...@gmail.com To: ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com CRAC's are big, noisy and blow a lot of things around if it's not secured..and keeps the humidity levels stable. When ours was installed a couple of years ago, I was doing some serious praying...we didn't know for sure that it would roll across our raised floor without collapsing it, and that would have been very bad. On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 8:04 AM, Ben Scott mailvor...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, 2 Jun, 2009 at 16:59, tvanderk...@expl.com wrote: The part that I find most admins miss in the specs mentioned is the humidity. When you are running the A/C in a room almost constantly the humidity tends to drop fairly quickly. ... I have seen plenty of servers over the years taken out by a static charge. On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 8:34 AM, paul chinnery pdw1...@hotmail.com wrote: We have ours around 65 and 50 for humidity. I've been told that the primary difference between a regular air conditioner and a CRAC (computer room air conditioner) is that a CRAC is designed to lower the temperature while keeping the humidity at a more suitable level. -- Ben ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ -- Sherry Abercrombie Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clarke _ Windows Live™ SkyDrive™: Get 25 GB of free online storage. http://windowslive.com/online/skydrive?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_SD_25GB_062009 ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
Re: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS
Yeah but like me you are in Florida where we sometimes get nights above 80. Personally I like it no higher than 75 but will accept with a lot of complaining higher but like Roger says 80 and above is just not good. Jon On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 5:26 PM, Roger Wright rwri...@evatone.com wrote: I get a little nervous when the temp gets above 80 in my server vault. Anything below that and I’m happy enough. Roger Wright Network Administrator Evatone, Inc. 727.572.7076 x388 _ *From:* Murray Freeman [mailto:mfree...@alanet.org] *Sent:* Tuesday, June 02, 2009 5:20 PM *To:* NT System Admin Issues *Subject:* PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS Like many companies these days, we're looking to reduce our expenses. With the hot weather almost here in the Chicago area, I'm being asked to up the thermostat in our server room, to allow it to get warmer and thus save some money. We have been keeping the temperature around the mid 70's, and I'm concerned about higher temps in the server room causing servers to crash or at least reduce their lifetime. What od you think is the maximum operating temperature for a room with servers? We humans are not in the room that often, so it's strictly a case of a safe temperature for the hardware. There's no need to determine how many servers I have or how large the room is, just the temperature necessary to safely operate servers. *Murray * ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS
I'm surprised they run at that temp. HP servers will typically shutdown around 90F. -Original Message- From: Phil Brutsche [mailto:p...@optimumdata.com] Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 5:27 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS I've got a cheapskate boss so I've run them 95F+ for long periods of time. They're not properly rackmounted - due to our crappy and proprietary Panduit racks we have no choice but to use shelves - which may have helped them survive. Don't be surprised if you get warranty rejections from the excessive heat. Murray Freeman wrote: Like many companies these days, we're looking to reduce our expenses. With the hot weather almost here in the Chicago area, I'm being asked to up the thermostat in our server room, to allow it to get warmer and thus save some money. We have been keeping the temperature around the mid 70's, and I'm concerned about higher temps in the server room causing servers to crash or at least reduce their lifetime. What od you think is the maximum operating temperature for a room with servers? We humans are not in the room that often, so it's strictly a case of a safe temperature for the hardware. There's no need to determine how many servers I have or how large the room is, just the temperature necessary to safely operate servers. -- Phil Brutsche p...@optimumdata.com ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS
Eh? I've had racks of HPs running @ 100+ during HVAC events... -sc -Original Message- From: Maglinger, Paul pmaglin...@scvl.com Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 8:20 AM To: NT System Admin Issues ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com Subject: RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS I'm surprised they run at that temp. HP servers will typically shutdown around 90F. -Original Message- From: Phil Brutsche [mailto:p...@optimumdata.com] Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 5:27 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS I've got a cheapskate boss so I've run them 95F+ for long periods of time. They're not properly rackmounted - due to our crappy and proprietary Panduit racks we have no choice but to use shelves - which may have helped them survive. Don't be surprised if you get warranty rejections from the excessive heat. Murray Freeman wrote: Like many companies these days, we're looking to reduce our expenses. With the hot weather almost here in the Chicago area, I'm being asked to up the thermostat in our server room, to allow it to get warmer and thus save some money. We have been keeping the temperature around the mid 70's, and I'm concerned about higher temps in the server room causing servers to crash or at least reduce their lifetime. What od you think is the maximum operating temperature for a room with servers? We humans are not in the room that often, so it's strictly a case of a safe temperature for the hardware. There's no need to determine how many servers I have or how large the room is, just the temperature necessary to safely operate servers. -- Phil Brutsche p...@optimumdata.com ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS
We had an older Proliant (now retired) that was always the first to shut down when the AC went down, and would do so at 90 degrees. We now have HP Integrity servers that will shut down somewhere between 90 to maybe 95 degrees (not that far off from your 100). -Original Message- From: Steven M. Caesare [mailto:scaes...@caesare.com] Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 7:26 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS Eh? I've had racks of HPs running @ 100+ during HVAC events... -sc -Original Message- From: Maglinger, Paul pmaglin...@scvl.com Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 8:20 AM To: NT System Admin Issues ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com Subject: RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS I'm surprised they run at that temp. HP servers will typically shutdown around 90F. -Original Message- From: Phil Brutsche [mailto:p...@optimumdata.com] Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 5:27 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS I've got a cheapskate boss so I've run them 95F+ for long periods of time. They're not properly rackmounted - due to our crappy and proprietary Panduit racks we have no choice but to use shelves - which may have helped them survive. Don't be surprised if you get warranty rejections from the excessive heat. Murray Freeman wrote: Like many companies these days, we're looking to reduce our expenses. With the hot weather almost here in the Chicago area, I'm being asked to up the thermostat in our server room, to allow it to get warmer and thus save some money. We have been keeping the temperature around the mid 70's, and I'm concerned about higher temps in the server room causing servers to crash or at least reduce their lifetime. What od you think is the maximum operating temperature for a room with servers? We humans are not in the room that often, so it's strictly a case of a safe temperature for the hardware. There's no need to determine how many servers I have or how large the room is, just the temperature necessary to safely operate servers. -- Phil Brutsche p...@optimumdata.com ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
Re: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS
Even if you keep the room in the mid 70's you should get a reading right next to the servers in the rack you will see about a 15 to 20 degrees difference. Tell your boss it is like running a temperature yourself. You can survive and function at 104 degrees but you are miserable, you don't give accurate information, and you are sluggish. You could possible slip into a coma if your temp goes up a degree or two and you could lose brain function and memory loss. If that is what he wants by saving a few dollars then yeah raise. Hell shut it off and hope the internal fans keep it cool enough. If the AC is pulling to much power maybe a wiser approach is to get an energy efficient AC unit... Just my thoughts. - Original Message - From: Steven M. Caesare scaes...@caesare.com To: NT System Admin Issues ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 8:25 AM Subject: RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS Eh? I've had racks of HPs running @ 100+ during HVAC events... -sc -Original Message- From: Maglinger, Paul pmaglin...@scvl.com Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 8:20 AM To: NT System Admin Issues ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com Subject: RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS I'm surprised they run at that temp. HP servers will typically shutdown around 90F. -Original Message- From: Phil Brutsche [mailto:p...@optimumdata.com] Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 5:27 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS I've got a cheapskate boss so I've run them 95F+ for long periods of time. They're not properly rackmounted - due to our crappy and proprietary Panduit racks we have no choice but to use shelves - which may have helped them survive. Don't be surprised if you get warranty rejections from the excessive heat. Murray Freeman wrote: Like many companies these days, we're looking to reduce our expenses. With the hot weather almost here in the Chicago area, I'm being asked to up the thermostat in our server room, to allow it to get warmer and thus save some money. We have been keeping the temperature around the mid 70's, and I'm concerned about higher temps in the server room causing servers to crash or at least reduce their lifetime. What od you think is the maximum operating temperature for a room with servers? We humans are not in the room that often, so it's strictly a case of a safe temperature for the hardware. There's no need to determine how many servers I have or how large the room is, just the temperature necessary to safely operate servers. -- Phil Brutsche p...@optimumdata.com ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS
I'll assume that was for Paul, not me. In any case, the 100+ degrees we saw during enviro failures were as reported thru Insight Mangler, which is indeed the internal chassis temp... often 20 degrees higher then ambient... -sc -Original Message- From: David W. McSpadden [mailto:dav...@imcu.org] Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 8:34 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS Even if you keep the room in the mid 70's you should get a reading right next to the servers in the rack you will see about a 15 to 20 degrees difference. Tell your boss it is like running a temperature yourself. You can survive and function at 104 degrees but you are miserable, you don't give accurate information, and you are sluggish. You could possible slip into a coma if your temp goes up a degree or two and you could lose brain function and memory loss. If that is what he wants by saving a few dollars then yeah raise. Hell shut it off and hope the internal fans keep it cool enough. If the AC is pulling to much power maybe a wiser approach is to get an energy efficient AC unit... Just my thoughts. - Original Message - From: Steven M. Caesare scaes...@caesare.com To: NT System Admin Issues ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 8:25 AM Subject: RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS Eh? I've had racks of HPs running @ 100+ during HVAC events... -sc -Original Message- From: Maglinger, Paul pmaglin...@scvl.com Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 8:20 AM To: NT System Admin Issues ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com Subject: RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS I'm surprised they run at that temp. HP servers will typically shutdown around 90F. -Original Message- From: Phil Brutsche [mailto:p...@optimumdata.com] Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 5:27 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS I've got a cheapskate boss so I've run them 95F+ for long periods of time. They're not properly rackmounted - due to our crappy and proprietary Panduit racks we have no choice but to use shelves - which may have helped them survive. Don't be surprised if you get warranty rejections from the excessive heat. Murray Freeman wrote: Like many companies these days, we're looking to reduce our expenses. With the hot weather almost here in the Chicago area, I'm being asked to up the thermostat in our server room, to allow it to get warmer and thus save some money. We have been keeping the temperature around the mid 70's, and I'm concerned about higher temps in the server room causing servers to crash or at least reduce their lifetime. What od you think is the maximum operating temperature for a room with servers? We humans are not in the room that often, so it's strictly a case of a safe temperature for the hardware. There's no need to determine how many servers I have or how large the room is, just the temperature necessary to safely operate servers. -- Phil Brutsche p...@optimumdata.com ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
Re: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS
Sorry, It was. Having same type issues here and used that analogy and it worked for now. - Original Message - From: Steven M. Caesare scaes...@caesare.com To: NT System Admin Issues ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 8:42 AM Subject: RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS I'll assume that was for Paul, not me. In any case, the 100+ degrees we saw during enviro failures were as reported thru Insight Mangler, which is indeed the internal chassis temp... often 20 degrees higher then ambient... -sc -Original Message- From: David W. McSpadden [mailto:dav...@imcu.org] Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 8:34 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS Even if you keep the room in the mid 70's you should get a reading right next to the servers in the rack you will see about a 15 to 20 degrees difference. Tell your boss it is like running a temperature yourself. You can survive and function at 104 degrees but you are miserable, you don't give accurate information, and you are sluggish. You could possible slip into a coma if your temp goes up a degree or two and you could lose brain function and memory loss. If that is what he wants by saving a few dollars then yeah raise. Hell shut it off and hope the internal fans keep it cool enough. If the AC is pulling to much power maybe a wiser approach is to get an energy efficient AC unit... Just my thoughts. - Original Message - From: Steven M. Caesare scaes...@caesare.com To: NT System Admin Issues ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 8:25 AM Subject: RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS Eh? I've had racks of HPs running @ 100+ during HVAC events... -sc -Original Message- From: Maglinger, Paul pmaglin...@scvl.com Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 8:20 AM To: NT System Admin Issues ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com Subject: RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS I'm surprised they run at that temp. HP servers will typically shutdown around 90F. -Original Message- From: Phil Brutsche [mailto:p...@optimumdata.com] Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 5:27 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS I've got a cheapskate boss so I've run them 95F+ for long periods of time. They're not properly rackmounted - due to our crappy and proprietary Panduit racks we have no choice but to use shelves - which may have helped them survive. Don't be surprised if you get warranty rejections from the excessive heat. Murray Freeman wrote: Like many companies these days, we're looking to reduce our expenses. With the hot weather almost here in the Chicago area, I'm being asked to up the thermostat in our server room, to allow it to get warmer and thus save some money. We have been keeping the temperature around the mid 70's, and I'm concerned about higher temps in the server room causing servers to crash or at least reduce their lifetime. What od you think is the maximum operating temperature for a room with servers? We humans are not in the room that often, so it's strictly a case of a safe temperature for the hardware. There's no need to determine how many servers I have or how large the room is, just the temperature necessary to safely operate servers. -- Phil Brutsche p...@optimumdata.com ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS
In a well designed room the temperature should be relatively even with the only hotspot being directly behind the servers. Front, side, top and bottom temps should be very close to the same. TVK -Original Message- From: David W. McSpadden [mailto:dav...@imcu.org] Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 7:34 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS Even if you keep the room in the mid 70's you should get a reading right next to the servers in the rack you will see about a 15 to 20 degrees difference. Tell your boss it is like running a temperature yourself. You can survive and function at 104 degrees but you are miserable, you don't give accurate information, and you are sluggish. You could possible slip into a coma if your temp goes up a degree or two and you could lose brain function and memory loss. If that is what he wants by saving a few dollars then yeah raise. Hell shut it off and hope the internal fans keep it cool enough. If the AC is pulling to much power maybe a wiser approach is to get an energy efficient AC unit... Just my thoughts. - Original Message - From: Steven M. Caesare scaes...@caesare.com To: NT System Admin Issues ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 8:25 AM Subject: RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS Eh? I've had racks of HPs running @ 100+ during HVAC events... -sc -Original Message- From: Maglinger, Paul pmaglin...@scvl.com Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 8:20 AM To: NT System Admin Issues ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com Subject: RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS I'm surprised they run at that temp. HP servers will typically shutdown around 90F. -Original Message- From: Phil Brutsche [mailto:p...@optimumdata.com] Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 5:27 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS I've got a cheapskate boss so I've run them 95F+ for long periods of time. They're not properly rackmounted - due to our crappy and proprietary Panduit racks we have no choice but to use shelves - which may have helped them survive. Don't be surprised if you get warranty rejections from the excessive heat. Murray Freeman wrote: Like many companies these days, we're looking to reduce our expenses. With the hot weather almost here in the Chicago area, I'm being asked to up the thermostat in our server room, to allow it to get warmer and thus save some money. We have been keeping the temperature around the mid 70's, and I'm concerned about higher temps in the server room causing servers to crash or at least reduce their lifetime. What od you think is the maximum operating temperature for a room with servers? We humans are not in the room that often, so it's strictly a case of a safe temperature for the hardware. There's no need to determine how many servers I have or how large the room is, just the temperature necessary to safely operate servers. -- Phil Brutsche p...@optimumdata.com ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS
The latest conversations I've had with our server HVAC guy was the current thinking is that as long as the intake temp on each server is below 80 then it will be a non-issue. How one goes about achieve that is your choice :-) David Lum // SYSTEMS ENGINEER NORTHWEST EVALUATION ASSOCIATION (Desk) 971.222.1025 // (Cell) 503.267.9764 -Original Message- From: David W. McSpadden [mailto:dav...@imcu.org] Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 5:34 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS Even if you keep the room in the mid 70's you should get a reading right next to the servers in the rack you will see about a 15 to 20 degrees difference. Tell your boss it is like running a temperature yourself. You can survive and function at 104 degrees but you are miserable, you don't give accurate information, and you are sluggish. You could possible slip into a coma if your temp goes up a degree or two and you could lose brain function and memory loss. If that is what he wants by saving a few dollars then yeah raise. Hell shut it off and hope the internal fans keep it cool enough. If the AC is pulling to much power maybe a wiser approach is to get an energy efficient AC unit... Just my thoughts. - Original Message - From: Steven M. Caesare scaes...@caesare.com To: NT System Admin Issues ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 8:25 AM Subject: RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS Eh? I've had racks of HPs running @ 100+ during HVAC events... -sc -Original Message- From: Maglinger, Paul pmaglin...@scvl.com Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 8:20 AM To: NT System Admin Issues ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com Subject: RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS I'm surprised they run at that temp. HP servers will typically shutdown around 90F. -Original Message- From: Phil Brutsche [mailto:p...@optimumdata.com] Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 5:27 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS I've got a cheapskate boss so I've run them 95F+ for long periods of time. They're not properly rackmounted - due to our crappy and proprietary Panduit racks we have no choice but to use shelves - which may have helped them survive. Don't be surprised if you get warranty rejections from the excessive heat. Murray Freeman wrote: Like many companies these days, we're looking to reduce our expenses. With the hot weather almost here in the Chicago area, I'm being asked to up the thermostat in our server room, to allow it to get warmer and thus save some money. We have been keeping the temperature around the mid 70's, and I'm concerned about higher temps in the server room causing servers to crash or at least reduce their lifetime. What od you think is the maximum operating temperature for a room with servers? We humans are not in the room that often, so it's strictly a case of a safe temperature for the hardware. There's no need to determine how many servers I have or how large the room is, just the temperature necessary to safely operate servers. -- Phil Brutsche p...@optimumdata.com ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
Re: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS
We have temperature probes that send snmp traps to Nagios to send messages when they get to a certain levels (warn, critical). We have one center of the server room probe that reports the ambient room temperature, the remaining probes are scattered through the server room behind the servers inside the racks. Based on the server to rack ratio, we have these set alerts set at different levels for each rack. The more servers in a rack the lower the warn level temp is, the fewer number of servers in a rack, the higher the temp warn levels are. In an HVAC event, we have a procedure of what to shut down to keep critical production servers up, but keep temps within acceptable ranges. All HP servers in our server room, and our shut down threshold is ~95 ambient room temp. We're also about 80% virtual guests, so a good number of our physical servers are actually virtual hosts. In a HVAC event, I could get to the point that I have half of my virtual hosts shut down if necessary. On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 10:04 AM, Tim Vander Kooi tvanderk...@expl.comwrote: In a well designed room the temperature should be relatively even with the only hotspot being directly behind the servers. Front, side, top and bottom temps should be very close to the same. TVK -Original Message- From: David W. McSpadden [mailto:dav...@imcu.org] Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 7:34 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS Even if you keep the room in the mid 70's you should get a reading right next to the servers in the rack you will see about a 15 to 20 degrees difference. Tell your boss it is like running a temperature yourself. You can survive and function at 104 degrees but you are miserable, you don't give accurate information, and you are sluggish. You could possible slip into a coma if your temp goes up a degree or two and you could lose brain function and memory loss. If that is what he wants by saving a few dollars then yeah raise. Hell shut it off and hope the internal fans keep it cool enough. If the AC is pulling to much power maybe a wiser approach is to get an energy efficient AC unit... Just my thoughts. - Original Message - From: Steven M. Caesare scaes...@caesare.com To: NT System Admin Issues ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 8:25 AM Subject: RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS Eh? I've had racks of HPs running @ 100+ during HVAC events... -sc -Original Message- From: Maglinger, Paul pmaglin...@scvl.com Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 8:20 AM To: NT System Admin Issues ntsysadmin@lyris.sunbelt-software.com Subject: RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS I'm surprised they run at that temp. HP servers will typically shutdown around 90F. -Original Message- From: Phil Brutsche [mailto:p...@optimumdata.com] Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 5:27 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS I've got a cheapskate boss so I've run them 95F+ for long periods of time. They're not properly rackmounted - due to our crappy and proprietary Panduit racks we have no choice but to use shelves - which may have helped them survive. Don't be surprised if you get warranty rejections from the excessive heat. Murray Freeman wrote: Like many companies these days, we're looking to reduce our expenses. With the hot weather almost here in the Chicago area, I'm being asked to up the thermostat in our server room, to allow it to get warmer and thus save some money. We have been keeping the temperature around the mid 70's, and I'm concerned about higher temps in the server room causing servers to crash or at least reduce their lifetime. What od you think is the maximum operating temperature for a room with servers? We humans are not in the room that often, so it's strictly a case of a safe temperature for the hardware. There's no need to determine how many servers I have or how large the room is, just the temperature necessary to safely operate servers. -- Phil Brutsche p...@optimumdata.com ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~ -- Sherry Abercrombie Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from
RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS
I get a little nervous when the temp gets above 80 in my server vault. Anything below that and I'm happy enough. Roger Wright Network Administrator Evatone, Inc. 727.572.7076 x388 _ From: Murray Freeman [mailto:mfree...@alanet.org] Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 5:20 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS Like many companies these days, we're looking to reduce our expenses. With the hot weather almost here in the Chicago area, I'm being asked to up the thermostat in our server room, to allow it to get warmer and thus save some money. We have been keeping the temperature around the mid 70's, and I'm concerned about higher temps in the server room causing servers to crash or at least reduce their lifetime. What od you think is the maximum operating temperature for a room with servers? We humans are not in the room that often, so it's strictly a case of a safe temperature for the hardware. There's no need to determine how many servers I have or how large the room is, just the temperature necessary to safely operate servers. Murray ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS
I'd check the specifications for your servers. They will give you the temperature range they are rated to run in. Though from my experience as an electronic technician, cooler has always been better to extend the life of electronics. -Paul From: Murray Freeman [mailto:mfree...@alanet.org] Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 4:20 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS Like many companies these days, we're looking to reduce our expenses. With the hot weather almost here in the Chicago area, I'm being asked to up the thermostat in our server room, to allow it to get warmer and thus save some money. We have been keeping the temperature around the mid 70's, and I'm concerned about higher temps in the server room causing servers to crash or at least reduce their lifetime. What od you think is the maximum operating temperature for a room with servers? We humans are not in the room that often, so it's strictly a case of a safe temperature for the hardware. There's no need to determine how many servers I have or how large the room is, just the temperature necessary to safely operate servers. Murray ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS
The part that I find most admins miss in the specs mentioned is the humidity. When you are running the A/C in a room almost constantly the humidity tends to drop fairly quickly. Once the humidity in your data center goes below 40% the chance of static electricity building starts to climb fast. I have yet to see it snow in a server room, but I have seen plenty of servers over the years taken out by a static charge. I run my centers at 71 degrees F and 50% humidity. TVK From: Klint Price - ArizonaITPro [mailto:kpr...@arizonaitpro.com] Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 4:41 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS That depends. I operate a data center in Phoenix, and it gets plenty hot here. I was under the impression that a server room at 68 degrees was optimal, but when I conducted further research several months ago, it appears 85 degrees is just fine too assuming proper air flow, failovers, and architecture. Personally, I stick to 74 degrees or so because I have older equipment. I know Google runs at about 85 degrees, but they also use a commodity home-brew server per their own specs. Links: http://www.adc.com/Library/Literature/102264AE.pdf ASHRAEhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASHRAE's Thermal Guidelines for Data Processing Environments[4]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_center#cite_note-3 recommends a temperature range of 20-25 °C (68-75 °F) and humidity range of 40-55% with a maximum dew point of 17°C as optimal for data center conditions.[5]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_center#cite_note-4 http://wistechnology.com/articles/4074/ Because the average temperature [in data centers] will rise from the standard 68 [degrees Fahrenheit] to over 85 F in about 8.6 minutes when a problem arises from, for example, a power outage or an air-conditioning failure, the staff in charge must be alerted and take immediate action, Sigourney says. With the critical shutdown threshold for most equipment is universally agreed to be at 85 F, the best response would be to use the automatic server shut-down capabilities included with AVTECH's PageR Enterprise software to eliminate risk by shutting down the most expensive and critical hardware when extreme conditions occur. and finally http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/03/23/will-server-warranties-get-hotter-too/ From: Murray Freeman [mfree...@alanet.org] Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 2:20 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS Like many companies these days, we're looking to reduce our expenses. With the hot weather almost here in the Chicago area, I'm being asked to up the thermostat in our server room, to allow it to get warmer and thus save some money. We have been keeping the temperature around the mid 70's, and I'm concerned about higher temps in the server room causing servers to crash or at least reduce their lifetime. What od you think is the maximum operating temperature for a room with servers? We humans are not in the room that often, so it's strictly a case of a safe temperature for the hardware. There's no need to determine how many servers I have or how large the room is, just the temperature necessary to safely operate servers. Murray ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
Re: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS
I've got a cheapskate boss so I've run them 95F+ for long periods of time. They're not properly rackmounted - due to our crappy and proprietary Panduit racks we have no choice but to use shelves - which may have helped them survive. Don't be surprised if you get warranty rejections from the excessive heat. Murray Freeman wrote: Like many companies these days, we're looking to reduce our expenses. With the hot weather almost here in the Chicago area, I'm being asked to up the thermostat in our server room, to allow it to get warmer and thus save some money. We have been keeping the temperature around the mid 70's, and I'm concerned about higher temps in the server room causing servers to crash or at least reduce their lifetime. What od you think is the maximum operating temperature for a room with servers? We humans are not in the room that often, so it's strictly a case of a safe temperature for the hardware. There's no need to determine how many servers I have or how large the room is, just the temperature necessary to safely operate servers. -- Phil Brutsche p...@optimumdata.com ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
RE: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS
I remember us talking about this a while back-as I recall, Dell's operating specs are higher than one might think (above 90 degrees Fahrenheit, I believe). Of course, just because a piece of equipment is technically spec'd to run at a high temp doesn't mean that doing so won't shorten its life. Because of that, we keep our servers running in the 70s. And as others have mentioned, humidity is an even bigger problem that typically comes with cutting back the A/C. John Hornbuckle MIS Department Taylor County School District www.taylor.k12.fl.ushttp://www.taylor.k12.fl.us From: Murray Freeman [mailto:mfree...@alanet.org] Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 5:20 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS Like many companies these days, we're looking to reduce our expenses. With the hot weather almost here in the Chicago area, I'm being asked to up the thermostat in our server room, to allow it to get warmer and thus save some money. We have been keeping the temperature around the mid 70's, and I'm concerned about higher temps in the server room causing servers to crash or at least reduce their lifetime. What od you think is the maximum operating temperature for a room with servers? We humans are not in the room that often, so it's strictly a case of a safe temperature for the hardware. There's no need to determine how many servers I have or how large the room is, just the temperature necessary to safely operate servers. Murray ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
Re: PROPER OPERATING TEMPERATURES FOR SERVERS
On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 7:34 PM, John Hornbuckle john.hornbuc...@taylor.k12.fl.us wrote: Of course, just because a piece of equipment is technically spec’d to run at a high temp doesn’t mean that doing so won’t shorten its life. Exactly. The specifications just tell you the temperature above which the equipment will not *operate*[1]. Do you feel lucky, punk? It's generally accepted that for computers, cooler == better, within reason. [1] Or at least, if it doesn't operate, it's not manufacture's problem; if it does, you're taking your chances. -- Ben ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/ ~
