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Just as the Cray supercomputers used liquid cooling as ever more powerful and heat generation semis come to market, liquid cooling may be the future to increase density and maintain optimum, even operating temperatures that will be required. Any thoughts or comments on this are appreciated.
Server immersion cooling technology from bitcoin specialist Bitfury is coming to the data center. LiquidStack launches today as a stand-alone company looking to address growing...
I don't know, but when I worked at Lawrence Livermore Lab I believe the Cray was cooled with fluorocarbons. It was like a set of aquariums in a semi-circle with boards instead of fish. It was quite large, at least six feet in diameter, and just as tall if my memory from thirty years ago is correct.
Many bitcoin mining centers use immersion cooling. Essentially the computer is completely immersed in mineral oil, the mineral oil is continually circulated and cooled to a set temperature. I could see something similar at datacenters.
Many bitcoin mining centers use immersion cooling. Essentially the computer is completely immersed in mineral oil, the mineral oil is continually circulated and cooled to a set temperature. I could see something similar at datacenters.
Immersion cooling does not require much power, but capital costs are high.
Data centers need to strike a balance between being in an area where cooling demands will be naturally lower, low power prices, local availability of talent for administration and maintenance, and colocation to customers.
To be clear, any “extra” cooling scheme, is only successful if the “extra” thermal resistance is more than mitigated by subsequent thermal resistors.
For example, adding a heat pipe between a heat source and a heat sink increases the overall thermal resistance, unless the heat sink thermal resistance is improved by such heat pipe by an amount greater than the heat pipe resistance.
Liquid cooling using water in HPC and datacenter racks are already a standard technology. The blades have the integrated radiators with piping and you can even replace blades without cutting the water supply. The overall heat extracted can then be injected in climatisation or other energy saving schemes, but still there is a cost to pay. It is amazing the silence in new centers compared with the jet engine noise of air cooling in older ones. An original solution proposed by Fujitsu that I saw demoed but I am not sure if it is really applied, is to just plunge the blades withouth radiators in a bath of a special fluorocarbon. The rack then looks just like an acquarium with bundles of cable going in/out.
datacenterfrontier.com
