Product Topics:
GreenDEF™ Coolant
Example 24 Rack Install
Cable Management
How We Save Energy
Other Technical Advantages
GreenDEF™ coolant:
GreenDEF™ coolant is a specific mineral oil formulation that has optimal material properties for use in cooling servers. It is chemically stable, clear and odorless, low priced, has low flammability, is safe for human consumption (alternate formulations of mineral oil are sold for ingestion), and is generally not considered an environmental threat.
GreenDEF™ coolant can store 1,200 times more heat by volume than air, and is less electrically conductive than PVC or dry wood. 1,200 times means that the same amount of heat can be stored in a 10×10 foot room (need a third dimension for volume) of air as a cube of coolant 3.43 inches on a side.
Those familiar with power plants and power substations know that electrical transformers above a certain voltage are cooled with “transformer oil” (a mineral oil formulation) or another non-conductive fluid. Used since the 1920s, oil cooling has long been considered the standard, having replaced air cooling in most high heat density applications.
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Example 24 Rack Installation
One pumping module is used for approximately 100kW of server power. The pumping module contains pumps, filters, and either a coolant-to-water heat exchanger or an optional coolant-to-air radiator. Pumping modules can be located in the data center periphery, or under an existing raised floor, if floor space is at a premium.
By eliminating the need for a hot aisle and putting racks back to back and side to side, rack density can either stay the same or increase, even though racks are situated horizontally instead of vertically. The CarnotJet also does not require raised floors, CRACS, or air-flow engineering.
As shown on the home page, a 24 rack install will take 24-36 square feet per rack.
Cable Management
Click to enlarge
Power and Ethernet cables are organized in a thoughtful fashion as shown to the right.
- Wiring connected to back plane before server dropped in
- Integrated guides align and segregate wires as server is lowered
- Some new blades have Ethernet, PCI, and Infiniband connections on front plane
- Coolant actually enhances electrical connections
How We Save Energy
CPUs operate reliably at 75° C, and hard drives are reliable at 45° C. Our coolant at 40° C will keep the hard drives below 45° C, and the CPUs below 62° C, a full 13° C cooler than normal. Coolant at 40° C requires little energy to keep at that temperature, unlike the typical method of using chilled water cooled to 10° C to then cool air.
Other Technical Advantages
- Disaster Recovery: In the unlikely event of a total cooling system outage, the servers can run for 1-4 hours before overheating because the coolant holds much more heat by volume than air, enabling a repair or controlled power down.
- Hard Drive Vibration: Normal server vibrations are cited as causing up to 50% of read/write failures in hard drives. Since the fans are removed and the hard drives are surrounded by dampening fluid, most all of these vibrations are eliminated.
- Water Consumption: Low water consumption model available to nearly or fully eliminate the use of water in the server cooling process.
- Flexible Installation Sites: One current installation is on a loading dock outside a major data center. GR Cooling’s product does not require raised floors or other specialized infrastructure. A roof, a level floor, and electricity are essentially all that is required.
Product Contents
GR Cooling’s product comes complete with everything save for the final heat exchanger which can be an evaporative cooling tower, a chilled water loop using the return water, or an optional coolant to air radiator. The product includes:
- Complete server modifications such as hard drive encapsulation and fan removal
- Rack and Pumping Module with redundant pumps
- Integrated server rack rails
- Computer controlled primary cooling loop, with sensor monitoring, logging, real-time diagnostics and email and SNMP alerts