r/sysadmin • u/No-Requirement8580 • 1d ago
Server room temp
I am not an IT professional. But my company is struggling with an old building. A poor design currently holds our roof solar panel inverters in a room that also holds our IT server rack. The inverters put off some serious heat. Previously the mini split burned up 3 coils. We moved to a small unit to cool the room 2 months ago. It worked great until it recently burned up. Moving the rack will be costly. Is there any chiller/unit that could properly cool this room? Moving the rack might be the best solution.
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u/TechMonkey13 Linux Admin 1d ago edited 1d ago
Have you thought about exhaust? At a previous company, we had a small office with a little closet with a rack with just networking equipment and no AC. It got super hot in there with the door closed. Building manager added a exhaust fan in the ceiling above the rack that just pulled air up and into the ceiling and that cooled the place significantly.
Just a thought that might help.
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u/No-Requirement8580 1d ago
I will look into that. Thanks for the suggestion.
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u/anonymousITCoward 1d ago
Actually this is a great thing to look into, in many commercial AC applications they recirculate the air, constantly pushing cooler air in, and moving warmer air out.... In your office you should be able to see the different vents
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u/rosseloh wish I was *only* a netadmin 1d ago edited 1d ago
Always worth checking this...Had a similar situation at my old job's location before we moved, the "server room" got pretty warm despite decent AC (covering the whole unit not just the server room). As you'd expect, it was all about letting the warm air get out. Popped a ceiling tile out and the room got 10 degrees cooler almost instantly.
This was a retail unit in a strip mall, not really a proper office - we tried to do things right but there's only so far you can go.
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u/samtresler 1d ago
I was thinking similar. Build an insulated enclosure for the inverters with an intake fan from the server room and an exhaust to .... literally anywhere else.
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u/mybrotherhasabbgun CIO 1d ago
I think this along with a self-contained AC rack might solve your problem without too much overhead: https://www.eaton.com/us/en-us/catalog/server-racks-enclosures-airflow-management/eaton-self-cooling-rack-enclosures.html
We had an AV rack that was in the control room for a video-conference connected board room. That AV rack produced a ton of heat and during any board meeting I half-expected to look back through the glass into the control and see my operators sitting there without shirts on, sweating their asses off. We upgraded to a AC rack and boom, problem solved.
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u/Edgeforce 1d ago
Yes, there are solutions for that. Check out Vertiv and Stulz.
https://www.vertiv.com/en-us/solutions/server-room-and-it-cooling
https://www.stulz.com/en-us/solutions/telecom-infrastructure-1
Hard to recommend much else without knowing further details.
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u/SpotlessCheetah 1d ago
Vertiv ftw. OP get your Vertiv rep in to help you with your datacenter room.
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u/LayerOneStaging 1d ago
Non IT person getting stuck with this is more common than it should be, so do not feel bad asking.
Two things I would do this week, before anyone quotes you a big project.
First, stop aiming for 65. That target is making whatever unit you buy run flat out until it dies. Most rack gear is fine at a steady mid 70s, and steady matters more than cold. A room that swings and cooks on weekends will kill gear faster than a warm but stable room.
Second, put a temperature sensor in there that can yell at a person, not just log it. Phone alert, email, anything somebody will actually see after hours. Cooling will fail again in a room like this, the question is whether you find out in 20 minutes or on Monday morning when everything is already cooked.
Longer term, you are paying to cool two heat problems that should not share a room, the rack and the inverters. Separating them, even just a framed and insulated enclosure around the rack with its own properly sized unit, is usually a smaller fight than cooling that whole room against the inverters all day. And if moving the rack is truly off the table, get a commercial HVAC company who does small server rooms to size it from the actual heat load, not another home unit. The home units are not built to run 24/7 and that is why you keep burning them up.
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u/xpkranger Datacenter Engineer 1d ago
A room that swings and cooks on weekends will kill gear faster than a warm but stable room.
This is why we've gone to mini-splits in most of our smaller computer rooms in Class A office space. They always turn the AC off over the weekend and it it just bakes everything in there.
get a commercial HVAC company who does small server rooms to size it from the actual heat load
I cannot upvote this enough. Fair warning, it won't be cheap. But it will be cheaper than extended downtime and replacing all your gear every 18 months.
Second, put a temperature sensor in there that can yell at a person, not just log it.
I recommend RoomAlert 3S's. PoE powered, dead simple.
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u/anonymousITCoward 1d ago
Talk to the dudes over in r/hvacadvice, r/HVAC , maybe even r/askhvac. If that room was enough to burn out a mini split, the window unit was a futile effort. Also you may be trying to cool it too much, what was your target temp?
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u/No-Requirement8580 1d ago
The target temp was 65 degrees.
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u/Frothyleet 1d ago
You probably still weren't using the "right" solution, but that's totally unnecessary. The most important thing for equipment is stability - a stable 80F is way better for longevity than oscillating between 65-70, just to make up some numbers.
Some data centers keep their racks at 90+ degrees.
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u/anonymousITCoward 1d ago
Yeah so lots have answered, but here;'s my cautionary tail.
Our first server room we tried to keep between 50 and 60, that was do able, 5 2u servers small space and a dedicated split unit, but it the AC was always working, and needed more than its fair share of maintenance. As our needs grew we looked more seriously at the thermal requirements, at one point we almost tripled the server count so it got warm in there and quick. We talked to a fwe HVAC peeps and settled that we could run warmer, Like in the 80s, and we should move the air, at first it was some well placed box fans, pusihng the air from front to back then moving them circulating it around the room... in our next spot, our air handlers would exhaust the warm air from the back of the racks and push in the cool air from the front, effectively "across the room"
Now most of our infra is in a data center and we don't think about it... they do. Temp in there is usually mid 80s but it's moving a metric shit ton of air. The racks in the office get handled the same way cool air in the front exhaust s from the back, The temps are much cooler since it shares the thermostat with people.
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u/INSPECTOR99 1d ago
65 degrees is an unrealistic and totally unnecessary target. Get a 12 K BTU (WORTHY) mini-split (not CHEAP consumer trash) and set to 80 degrees.
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u/No-Requirement8580 1d ago
Small unit.
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u/OregonTechHead 1d ago
I wouldn't even use that thing in my house.
Call an HVAC company and do it right instead of continuing to waste money
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u/sryan2k1 IT Manager 1d ago edited 1d ago
You need to get an actual wall mounted unit meant for constant duty not this home depot special for your basement.
Edit: Also WTF this is single pipe. Your sucking all your conditioned air and blowing it out the exhaust.
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u/mr340i 1d ago
These actually work pretty well though. We use them when our building AC dies.
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u/sryan2k1 IT Manager 1d ago
They work until they don't. It's a fine temporary solution but why do you think OP has killed several of them?
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u/WWGHIAFTC IT Manager (SysAdmin with Extra Steps) 1d ago
100% duty cycle. It's sized to small for the load.
Operated within their specified duty cycle they will last a long enough time.
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u/MonkeyMan18975 1d ago
Yeah, we have one site where we burn through one a year, yet another site is on the original we installed during COVID.
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u/GhoastTypist 5h ago
We only use these as a backup and I've already gone through 3 of them.
I've gone through two wall mounted mini splits as well because they're not really built to handle constant uptime. Told my boss that and their exact words are, "it cools my home, should be good enough" we have two server racks and a network rack in a small room maybe 10' x 6'
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u/Livid-Setting4093 1d ago
The single hose ones are pretty inefficient and usually under 10k BTU. It sounds like OP needs something bigger.
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u/gonewild9676 1d ago
That's what they are for: temporary or auxiliary use. Not 24x7xforever service.
At a prior company we used a 3 ton heat pump to cool our 2 rack server room. Sounds like you'd be in that ballpark, but you'll need an HVAC pro to size it. Too small and it won't keep cool. Too big and it won't control humidity. Also don't get builder grade garbage.
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u/jcpham 22h ago
The single black pipe is exhausted hot air
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u/sryan2k1 IT Manager 22h ago
Which is pulling from the room.
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u/jcpham 18h ago
Are we even looking at the same picture
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u/zachlab 15h ago
ACs need to intake air from somewhere to blow over the condenser side. Single hose cheap ACs like this take room air, pass it through the condenser, and the heated air gets vented through the hose, creating in effect a vacuum.
Dual hose and hose-in-hose ACs exist to not cause this problem.
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u/sryan2k1 IT Manager 5h ago
You are literally sucking out the air you just cooled down and throwing it away on a single pipe unit.
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u/SpaceGuy1968 1d ago
That's your answer there......you need mini split and I would also put an emergency temp set exhaust fan.
We had a smaller server space with s mini split and one time the Split didn't come back on after a power outage (we moved the mini split into the generator after this)
A temperature switched exhaust fan saved the servers..flat out saved them because it kicked in (and it was by no means cool but it bled the high heat off the ceiling) this thing mounted in the ceiling can bleed off high room temps, that was enough to keep our systems from burning out from the heat.
I have always requested a ceiling exhaust with a temperature switch in all the builds I have done over the last 20 years. I only needed it that one time, but it is required if I have a say
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u/CatchUnusual7909 1d ago
never had to deal with a solar inverter cooking a server room before but i've seen some diy setups that shouldn't exist
that picture is wild, looks like a window unit just jammed in a hole with some cardboard around it. no wonder it burned up, probably cycling nonstop with zero airflow management
if moving the rack is off the table for now might be worth looking at a proper ductless split rated for server rooms, they handle constant load way better than residential units. but even then you're fighting physics with those inverters dumping heat in the same space
long term that rack needs its own room, seen too many places try to bandaid this exact problem and it always ends with fried equipment
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u/mountain_bound 1d ago
I recommend the TrippLite SRCOOL 12K. I've used these in a number of places where chilling wasn't gong to come quickly but you need a solution be mobile, affordable, and fairly reliable. It's like what you have now but a lot better. I spent 20+ years managing IT in closets just like you show here and think you should look at one.
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u/marklein Idiot 1d ago
HOLY SHIT. That thing is your problem, get a real air conditioner. A properly sized mini-split could handle that no problem. Consult an AC installation company for proper sizing.
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u/Apprehensive_Bat_980 1d ago
Damn, never seen this before. Put everything in the cloud lad.
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u/NailiME84 1d ago
If they aren’t going to invest in a proper server cooling solution no way they spend the money on a cloud solution.
Besides even if they move stuff to the cloud they will still need to cool the solar inverters
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u/DonkeyTron42 DevOps 1d ago
Those are going to create negative pressure and suck a lot of dust in the room. A mini-split would be much better.
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u/FlounderStrict2692 1d ago
How can this stuff burn Up in 2 month? Even If it's running 24/7, this is insane.
Anyways: Check the Inverter Data. Take 10% of their power. Add power consumption of your Servers. This is how much cooling power your ac should Provide. Don't use childs toys for Industrial Work.
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u/BadSausageFactory beyond help desk 1d ago
Move the rack to a room with AC and a second backup unit that doesn't have to run all the time. You are fighting an uphill battle to put a heat exchanger in a room with another heat exchanger and expect the third set of heat exchangers to work properly.
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u/somethingblerg 1d ago
You should be able to accurately calculate the total BTU of your equipment thermal load and get a system sized to properly cool that space. There may also be a need for focused ventilation in addition to the room cooling that is provided. Just guessing that your spot cooler there is not designed to have the capacity to fully mitigate the BTU being emitted from all sources contained in that room. We checked the manufacturer specs for all gear in our rack and installed a mini-split that was 3.5 ton for our MDF closet.
Simple calculator that might help:
https://patchify.app/tools/rack-cooling-calculator
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u/lelio98 1d ago
You could try cooling just the rack with the small unit and not the entire room. Use blanking panels on the front of the rack (or foam core board) and plastic sheeting to isolate cold air to the front of the rack. Seal it fairly well so cold air is isolated to cooling the equipment. The cool air will then pass through the rack and exit through the rear.
I would also try to exhaust the hot air from the room and bring in cool (or relatively cool) air from a conditioned space.
Also, look at the temp ratings on your equipment. They can probably run just fine at relatively high temps. Equipment does not need to be run in a cold environment.
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u/Professional-Heat690 1d ago
Setup from hell. The minute that single unit falls the entire rack overheats and things will fail.
Get a professional in and stop messing about with expensive kit you have invested in and are trying to protect and keep running so you don't kill the business.
What's 1 day of downtime cost, 2 days? How long to replace failed kit, the numbers justify the investment here.
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u/silkee5521 1d ago
Talk to a commercial HVAC contractor who specializes in data-center or mission-critical cooling.
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u/leftplayer 1d ago
Enclose the aircon and the rack into its own space. Use well insulated walls and make sure nothing can escape. That way the aircon doesn’t need to work that hard.
Or… leave everything as is and get two good quality split units and set them to a mid-level temp (around 24degC). The mistake most people make is to set them to 16degC then complain of ice forming on the coils.
The cooler air will also help the inverters. When inverters get hot they lose efficiency.
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u/Main_Ambassador_4985 1d ago
Calculate your average BTU/h load based on smart PDU or logs on device power supplies.
The inverters should have power use metrics that can be converted to BTU/h
Size the A/C to cover the average load with 30% extra.
If my memory still works, 12,000 BTU/h is 1 ton of A/C
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u/BeerNecessitiesCDN 1d ago
Vertiv used to make the Liebert MCR Rack (they might still do) , its a rack with a built in AC. has alarms and backup cooling fans in case the AC dies. we have owned ours for 10 years or so and it has worked very well for us.
https://www.vertiv.com/globalassets/products/facilities-enclosures-and-racks/integrated-solutions/liebert-mcr-mini-computer-room-enclosure-brochure_00.pdf
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u/VR6Bomber 1d ago
A mini split is okay as a backup but not as a primary means of cooling a heat load. A mini split doesn't remove heat, it just blows in cooler air.
A heat load needs a ducted/drafted unit like a liebert challenger or similar to pull the heat away from the rear of the rack and supply cool air to the front..
You need to find a precision HVAC company, not another minisplit.
Consider humidity as well. you need to have 40-50 percent to keep static down.
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u/Humble-Plankton2217 Sr. Sysadmin 1d ago
My first job in IT 25 years ago included emptying the condensation bucket for the window A/C unit that was put in a cutout in the wall in the server room. The hot air and condensation tube went into a utility closet behind the server room that did not have a floor drain. I had to carry the bucket to a nearby toilet.
Good times!
My server room now has a wall unit that also drains and vents into a small space behind the wall, but instead of a bucket it's a giant trash can that naturally evaporates.
the more things change, the more they stay the same
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u/ruffian-wa 1d ago edited 20h ago
Yeah as people are saying those portables are not efficient at all. In fact they're notorious for kicking out more heat than they cool. You can help it along a bit though by wrapping the vent pipe in a thermal foil blanket as that'll keep the heat contained as that's where most of the heat is exothermically disappeared.
You want a wall mounted split with an external condenser unit outside.
I would also put some sort of heat extractor in the roof itself as well like a Whirly Birds.
Also move the inverters. Get a sparky in and just shift them. It's easier to do that than move the whole rack. Inverters are technically meant to be Installed external to the building not inside.
Also get yourself an APC Netbotz 250 and set it up to scream if the temp jumps above 30 deg (C)
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u/No-Requirement8580 1d ago
Rack
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u/hfxfordp 1d ago
Everyone's tolerance for "costly" is different, but based on that picture, that's not a very complex IT environment to move. Obviously that picture doesn't capture all the nuances, but I'd at least price up a move to compare.
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u/trusound 1d ago
My first thought was move the rack. After seeing the photo it’s absolutely the best move
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u/JaceBelerenApologist 1d ago
Move the rack. This isn't a complex move. It can be done in a couple of hours on a weekend.
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u/coolbriguy 1d ago
Moving cool or similar make heavy duty portable ac units for your use. Not cheap but they last.
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u/Curtis_Low 1d ago
Without knowing if you have any power supply constraints, limits with water drainage, or what your walls are or beyond them it will be hard to say. Seems like a good time to bring in a couple of commercial HVAC companies to take a look and offer possible solutions.
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u/urM0m69p3nis 1d ago
I think I saw it already mentioned, but an exhaust fan would help. A dual hose portable ac would be better than what you currently have.
We have a few clients in a similar situation and tripp lite makes a rack mounted ac that has worked well for our use cases, but it does need to be vented externally.
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u/friedITguy Sr. Sysadmin 1d ago
Mini splits and your normal home A/C units are not designed to run 24/7. Typically, you will want two of those units with a centralized controller. Only one unit should run at a time and the controller should switch primary units every so many hours.
Datacenters run specialized units that are designed to run 24/7. Liebherr has been the OEM for all the datacenters I’ve worked in, but I’m sure there are more.
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u/WiscoDJ920 1d ago
Move the servers, maybe leave switches in there if they can handle the temp. Run a couple fiber lines to the new location and you have a 10gb link between the two spots. Anything new goes to the new location. Budget to make a full cross connect patch panel to get the switches out.
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u/newtekie1 1d ago
The answer is overkill. Lots of cooling. Most of the cheaper AC systems are not going to be designed for constant duty cycle. And they are too small for the heat load in the room so they just run constantly. Which is why they are burning up. Get a mini-split installed that is way oversized. Whatever the old unit was, at least double that. If it was a 12k btu unit, get a 24k at least or whatever.
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u/LilMeatBigYeet 1d ago
This falls more under facilities management rather than IT, contacting HVAC techs should be the first step
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u/Greatoutdoors1985 1d ago
This needs a designed solution. Every piece has a btu rating that it will output. Add all of those up and then add 25%>. That's your minimum BTU capacity you need to manage. Then either add 2 units of that capacity (one as spare because HVAC will always fail eventually), or purchase 3 smaller units sized at 50% of the capacity needed so that one can fail and you are still served by the other 2.
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u/WWGHIAFTC IT Manager (SysAdmin with Extra Steps) 1d ago
Whatever you choose, temporary or not, MUST be sized for the load. Or you will keep running 100% duty cycle and killing them.
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u/SurveyCareless5063 1d ago
We have the same setup We rent a floor and the floor we are on doesn’t have separate AC per room so if we choose to cool the room for the servers it will be cool for the employees outside. We have a floor below that doesn’t have this issue but our system admin who is my manager wants it to be in the same floor they are l looking for different setup. Side note we can’t install separate AC we had multiple meetings with the owners of the building. The problem the servers we have cost over 100 thousand but I am on my I am leaving the company so I don’t care.
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u/SirLoremIpsum 1d ago
Is there any chiller/unit that could properly cool this room?
You need to be talking to HVAC people not IT people.
This is not a sysadmin task this is for qualified air con people. You provide the specs they will provide the details.
Pay for professional assistance that is outside your remit.
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u/Sintarsintar Jack of All Trades 23h ago
I couldn't get a hvac company to quote a proper system so after 3 different companies tried to put a simple 8k btu mini split that that would never cool the heat load i specced a proper system out and gave them the damn part numbers to order they thought i was nuts putting two 36k btu air handlers in a small room.
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u/pdp10 Daemons worry when the wizard is near. 1d ago
In a small "server room", sometimes just putting a ventilation grille in the door makes a big difference. Of course, that will heat up the rest of the building, and has implications for which HVAC can be turned off during off hours, but TANSTAFFL.
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u/EvilPizzza 1d ago
Hire an HVAC company to install a minisplit. We just had ours replaced recently after 10 years. It was about $8,000 for the unit and installation
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u/RansomStark78 1d ago
Due to cost issues
Try a casette type ac.
A proper chilled water system is best
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u/FarToe1 16h ago
the mini split burned
/the/ ? Just one? What happened when it died those times?
Should be three independent coolers to meet one demand, so that you can have one in maintenance and still have a failover that's running. And they're going to die less often anyway through lower demand.
But yeah, you already know the problems and what options you have. We don't know your budget or restraints or how much rewiring involved in moving your rack. Not sure what we can add.
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u/Sad_Recommendation92 Solutions Architect 4h ago
Chillers are generally a consideration if the building has an existing chiller system then you could tie in CRAHs to the chiller loop. Do you know if there was any design planning done in terms of this being a datacenter, typically you'd do something like hot aisle containment or cold aisle containment, other factors are important like differential pressure you want essentially proper weather stripping so that the air your CRAHs or CRACs are putting out is as dense as possible to maintain positive pressure. You'd also want to make sure there's some kind of exhaust manifold ideally in the ceiling so that hot air has a place to go.
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u/Kuipyr Jack of All Trades 1d ago
Legitimately contact an HVAC professional.