Data centers are moving to water cooling
Five years ago, the server rack had a power of about 5 kW, and today, with more powerful processors, already up to 30 kW. Accordingly, heat generation has grown almost six times. With the growth of server capacity, the problem of heat removal becomes more acute, and in the future the situation will only get worse.
Roger Schmidt (Roger Schmidt), chief architect of heating systems in the IBM server and workstation division, talks about the latest developments in this area. He says that the problem of heat dissipation has to be solved at different levels: from microchips to data centers. In large data centers, he says, there is great potential for water cooling technology, seemingly long forgotten.
Water-cooled data centers use thin hoses filled with distilled or deionized water, which removes heat. This technology was invented by IBM in the 60s to cool mainframes. It was used until the mid 80s of the last century.
The rebirth of the technology took place in 2005 with the advent of the Cool Blue product line. One such product was a $ 4300 Rear Door Heat eXchanger heat exchanger that connected to the back of the server rack. With a thickness of 10 cm and a weight of 32 kg, filled with water, this heat exchanger can absorb more than half of all heat from the server, that is, up to 15 kW.
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As shown in the video , from each heat exchanger go hoses, which are laid along the ceiling to standing next to refrigerators. Water is circulated through these hoses.
Similar devices for water and air cooling using thermosensors are also produced by Hewlett-Packard ( Dynamic Smart Cooling system ). According to some characteristics, they are even better than IBM products.
Although both companies compete, they agree on one thing: the owners of data centers will have to solve the problem of heat sink sooner or later. Water cooling systems have a number of advantages over air systems, the most important of which is the absence of mechanical fans, which tend to break, which create noise and which themselves consume a lot of electricity. Using a water system reduces energy consumption by up to 15%. In addition, water generally removes heat more efficiently than air.
In the coming months, IBM plans to launch new products in the Cool Blue line, although Roger Schmidt does not disclose details. It is possible that water will cool not only the back part of the server rack, but also the microprocessor itself, as it was in mainframes decades ago.
Roger Schmidt (Roger Schmidt), chief architect of heating systems in the IBM server and workstation division, talks about the latest developments in this area. He says that the problem of heat dissipation has to be solved at different levels: from microchips to data centers. In large data centers, he says, there is great potential for water cooling technology, seemingly long forgotten.
Water-cooled data centers use thin hoses filled with distilled or deionized water, which removes heat. This technology was invented by IBM in the 60s to cool mainframes. It was used until the mid 80s of the last century.
The rebirth of the technology took place in 2005 with the advent of the Cool Blue product line. One such product was a $ 4300 Rear Door Heat eXchanger heat exchanger that connected to the back of the server rack. With a thickness of 10 cm and a weight of 32 kg, filled with water, this heat exchanger can absorb more than half of all heat from the server, that is, up to 15 kW.
')
As shown in the video , from each heat exchanger go hoses, which are laid along the ceiling to standing next to refrigerators. Water is circulated through these hoses.
Similar devices for water and air cooling using thermosensors are also produced by Hewlett-Packard ( Dynamic Smart Cooling system ). According to some characteristics, they are even better than IBM products.
Although both companies compete, they agree on one thing: the owners of data centers will have to solve the problem of heat sink sooner or later. Water cooling systems have a number of advantages over air systems, the most important of which is the absence of mechanical fans, which tend to break, which create noise and which themselves consume a lot of electricity. Using a water system reduces energy consumption by up to 15%. In addition, water generally removes heat more efficiently than air.
In the coming months, IBM plans to launch new products in the Cool Blue line, although Roger Schmidt does not disclose details. It is possible that water will cool not only the back part of the server rack, but also the microprocessor itself, as it was in mainframes decades ago.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/5026/
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