Comments on: Dell to sell advanced cooling systems for servers

Emerson Network Power says its cooling technology is more energy efficient than more traditional systems.

[limefan913]

For those of us geeks with our own small server racks...

How loud are we talking. Noise from fans sound like a 747 taking off...

[fred dunn]

You Still Have Heat to Get Rid Of, even more...

This technology may be good for "hot spots" but in itself it is not 100% efficient so you will wind up with more heat to get rid of than passive cooling.
You also have to consider that situation that the more complex your cooling system gets the more likely it is to fail.
It is analogous to using peltier cooling for CPUs and North bridges, when they work they are great, although you still wind up have to get rid of more heat than just the CPU or NB is dissipating since they are nowhere near 100 percent efficient either.
Also if your peltier fails then you have absolutely no heat dissipation at all and either a server shutdown at best or a server meltdown at worst.
This should ONLY be considered for overclocking extremes since it is a costly and high maintenance means of cooling, not to mention the environmental aspects.

[XD-Guru]

I know this is old but for one, noise shouldn't be a concern for a real data center, you are not in there to write a book. The XD system is really an amazing design that works and has dominated the scene.

As far as Freds comments, I don't think you really understand how the system works. It's made for hot spots and "Extreme Density" thus the name XD. It removes sensible heat coming from your servers.

Liquid refrigerant is piped to coils that absorb heat into the coils above or next to the racks. The refrigerant is always 4-6*f above dew point there for you will never have condensation from the system however it is still fitted with leak detection to ease your worries.

The system is also very reliable and redundant. In the event of pump failure, a second pump kicks on in seconds to keep refrigerant moving. On the condensing side there is a heat exchanger and four compressors divided into two circuits. They work as a pair, based on load.

The system uses 407C on the condensing side and 134A on the evaporator side. This system isn't a stand alone cooling system either, you must have primary cooling to maintain a constant temperature and control dew point. Without the system wouldn't work.

Also, there is basically zero maintenance on this system since there is no humidifier and it's not used to dehumidify. A few PM's a year, checking amp draws and pressures should keep you ahead of any problems.