Around the world these days some of the largest energy consumers are massive computer systems. If you are running a large server system for a company, or even if you use multiple high end computers at home, you will want to know what you can do to keep your computers operating at an acceptable working temperature and humidity, and what types of computer room AC design you have at your disposal for your server room air conditioning.
In this article we will specifically address the issue of computer room air conditioning design or how to use a portable air conditioner to secure the right working temperature of your computer center, either in your home, or at the office.
We will focus here on three components of a solid computer room air conditioning system: A portable air conditioner, The (optional) raised floor, and The alert system.
Portable air conditioner
Often when running a computer room you will find that the central air conditioning system is simply insufficient to remove the adequate amount of heat from the computer room. The computers are packed in tightly and generate large amounts of heat. On top of that the computers are temperature sensitive and will malfunction when the certain ambient temperature is exceeded.
Using a supplemental portable air conditioning unit is a viable solution for a server room. Working in conjunction with the central air conditioning system, portable AC can be just as powerful if not more, and can be brought to a place where the heat needs to be removed from, such as near the computer rack. The flexible air ducts can lead either out the windows or they can lead back into the air conditioning ducts. Optionally, the flexible ducts can be guided under the raised floor. Using raised floor in conjunction with the room air conditioning units may be optional but it has many advantages.
Using raised floor in computer rooms
The portable air conditioner will work just fine without the raised floor. However, the flexible air ducts coming in and out of the portable AC unit are quite unsightly. Using raised floor as a part of the design will allow flexible air ducts to run underneath the raised floor and will at the same time provide the space to tuck electrical cables in as well, making the computer room safer and making it easy to move in it.
Alarm system
When your computers are running enterprise critical applications, it makes sense to employ the elevated temperature alert system. The system is designed to page, or send an email or a text message to a responsible person whenever the temperature in the room exceeds a certain threshold. This can provide time for the person to get into the server room, diagnose and correct for any server room air problem before the servers go down causing financial hardship to the company.