Best way to insulate and protect computers

[skstark]

Built a 12 X 20 building, all treated wood, 1/2" OSB covered with HeartyPlank. Roof is same but covered with Tin instead. Need to finish interior, including insulation and/or vapor barrier, then cover with 1/8" paneling.

Building to be used as an office housing computers and servers. The climate in Charleston, SC is quite mild for winter but hot and muggy in the summer. Very humid and we live on the water.

Please advise your thoughts as specifically as possible, I'm not a handyman kind of guy. But I will complete this project properly with your assistance.

Thanks in advance.

Steve

[giddonah]

Computers and servers like dry cold air. The challenge with electronics is moisture and heat dissapation. Moisture will corrode connections which is obviously not a good thing. Also, processors, hard drives, RAM, video cards... prety much every component of a computer generates heat. The hotter they get, the less performance you get out of them.

You can overclock just about any processor, provided you can deal with the heat. As long as you can cool a processor enough, you can almost make it run at insane speeds. The thing is, the increase in heat goes up very fast. Some hardcore overclockers actually use water to cool their processors (they're mini cooling systems with radiators, pumps...)

Anyway, you want a processor to stay cool, and to do that you need to move air across it (pretty much every processor and some new video cards have fans that sit right on top of them for this). The cooler the air, the better it is for the processor. Most like to run in the 35C-50C range, but prescotts can get up to 70C without a problem. Obviously, 35C air won't cool a processor down to 35C, so you need the air to be pretty cool. A good server room will be uncomfortable in a t-shirt and will make you thirsty. Plan on a ton of insulation. If it's 100F outside and you need to get the room down to 50F, you've got quite a challenge, which is why most server rooms are on the interior of buildings.

Good luck with this, it sounds fun.

[skstark]

giddonah,
Thanks for the quick response. You're right about overclocking CPU's and the heat. That's what I'm planning.

Any idea what R-value I need and what type of combination of Insulation, Foamboard and/or Paneling to achieve my goal!!

HELP!!

Steve

[giddonah]

Well, you might get a response from some of the HVAC guys on this. I've read some of their posts saying you get a 20 degree drop from air conditioning, but I'm sure this can be done. Can you build an interior room for the servers? It would be much easier to cool the building to 70F or so and then drop a smaller room another 20F or so. I honestly wouldn't know how to go about this. If the HVAC guys don't stroll in, you might want to post in the other forum to get their input. Is this going to be a 24/7 operation? How tall is the building? How much room do you need for servers?

[skstark]

giddonah,
Again thanks for the reply.

Building is 2X4 on 16" centers for walls, 24" centers for roof and floor.
I have a 8000 BTU Windows AC, Building will be closed with extremely minimal entrance and/or exit. Have High Energy windows and door.

The room will be operational 24/7 but accessed from outside. I could build a smaller room and insulate the he** out of it. Haven't even thought about that! Might be a more workable solution.

Keep those ideas flowing. Often we are too close to see the most obvious!

Thanks, as always.

Steve

[giddonah]

I'm thinking of a couple zones. One for the server room and at least one for the rest of the building. The server room will also need a de-humidifier. Rabager's mantra is load calculations, and I think that's what will need to be done. From that you should be able to know how much insulation will affect the AC unit. Oddly enough, the server will need year-round cooling, since the building will need heat in the winter. Maybe you can just get cool air from outside in the winter.

Anyway, if 24/7 the servers will need a full-time system (even if it's just daily, it might be better to just keep it cool 24/7 anyway). It sounds like the building is all done. A raised floor would be really helpful with power and data/comm and probably head to the ceiling for the HVAC.

I think a few load calculations are in order, but I'd imagine you'll be best served with a two-layer arrangement with the server room inside the main building.

[giddonah]

Ok, you posted as I was typing. How cool does that AC keep your building? With 2x4 walls I'm thinking you might benefit from a little extra insulation; what's in them now? How well insulated is the roof? That will be a bigger factor for heating, but just a thought. I think a small room with it's own AC would be pretty easy to do. How many servers do you plan on running?

[skstark]

The only thing in the rrom will be computer equipment. My servers (4), UPS (2), Monitors (2) and standard office equipment.

Have no idea about ntemperature, it's an empty shell at this time. I will insulate and condition.

Steve

[giddonah]

Are these rack mount servers or regular cases?

Either way, it's not a lot of stuff. A small insulated closet would work. Can you place it away from the exterior walls? I would try to put an office between the server closet and the exterior wall. Damn shame you're down in SC, I'd love to work on this. Sounds awesome.

I think you can get away with something like a closet 3 or 4 feet deep and 6 feet wide. That will give you room for shelves to put the equipment on and still be able to stand in there. If you're really tight on space, then you can theoretically make it as small as the equipment, but I'm not sure if there are any codes for this. There are commercial networking guidelines for this sort of thing, but I don't think there are official building codes. I can actually look up the guildelines if you're interested (I don't have the book with me now though). I'm imagining a small cabinet with either a super small air conditioner built right into it (treating the rest of the building as the exterior) or a couple of lines running to it with a condenser outside. The second solution would require an HVAC pro though, to get the thing installed right.

[skstark]

I was intending on adding visqueen over 3" of insulation covered with about 1/2" paneling. Exterior is 5/8"s OSB and then HeartiPlank.

I know all about computers, networks and the Internet but I'm lost here.

Any details regarding any specs for the items listed in the first paragraph, will be greatly appreciated.

TIA

[giddonah]

Well, if those exterior walls will get the building in the low 70's, then a small room made with the same materials would be pretty good. Then just a small A/C unit to keep it cooler than the main space. I'd also add a dehumidifier to it, or just some dessicant that you replace/restore periodically. It doesn't sound like a big deal. You'll probably spend more time trying to figure out where to put it. And since the building isn't that huge, it doesn't matter about cable length for your network either, so you can pretty much put it anywhere. I bet a small window unit built into the wall would work well, except I wouldn't want it next to my desk :lol:

And Note that I said use the same materials as the exterior walls. You don't want the humidity from outside getting into the building, and you don't want the insulation from the building getting into the server space. Treat the server space just like a building. You want to keep it's environment separate from what's outside it's walls.

[Crash13]

I hate to sound like a prick, but that's just flat wrong about computer performance. Computers don't perform any better if they are cooler. That's like saying my car makes more power when I put premium gas in it. Computers perform better when you clock them higher. Clocking them higher produces more heat. Eventually if you produce enough heat, you will overheat the chip and transistors won't fire, then your performance goes to 0. Do you already have your servers purchased? What brand chip are they? Xeon or Opteron? I hope you're going with Opteron-based servers otherwise there's no point in overclocking. Personally if this were my server room I'd do one of two things:

1 - Use as little insulation as possible to get lots of air infiltration and then install a dehumidifier

2 - Use some kind of spray insulation packed very tight and seal the room completely. Then install a dehumidifier and a couple vent fans to circulate new air.

I really don't think bringing your ambient air down 20 degrees F will make much of a difference in your overclocking attempts. Opterons can run stable at temps as high as 65 C (149 F). Chip overclockability has more to do with the stepping than anything else, which is basically all luck. Unless you buy your chips from a store that actual gives you the steppings. Even then, there is quite a lot of variability in chips with the same stepping.

[giddonah]

That post might have made some sense on devhardware.com but here he's just asking how to keep his servers cool. And no, they don't perform better if cooler than at normal temps, but they do perform worse when they overheat, as do all electrical devices. So, they do in fact perform better when cooler than overheated. So if you don't want to sound like a prick, don't try to tell people they're wrong when the difference is semantics. Flat wrong? Hardly. And in fact a car does produce more power if you put premium gas in it, proving my point. I'd like to see you try to run a ferrari on 87 :roll: .

Gee, lots of air infiltration, great. And you propose lots of humid air at 70F to cool a server room? These aren't plants champ. They don't need fresh air, they need cool air. Insulation and an AC is what you want to do. You do need air movement, but the AC will take care of that. BTW, how many server farms have you worked in?

Bringing ambient temps down won't help overclocking? Have you ever overclocked anything? Do you know anything about thermodynamics? I don't think I'm the one you want to attack on these subjects. Stepping? You can argue that any one of ten different factors will limit your ability to overclock, and as I have said, he's not even asking about overclocking. This is a construction forum, he's asking how to cool his computers. Please. :roll:


Edit: Actually, on devhardware you'd get flamed for pages for saying stuff like that.

[bkrahmer]

I gotta git on yah, giddonah, for the bit about octane. :) High compression engines which state that they require higher octane gas do require such, because if they don't get it, they will knock, the knock sensor will detect this, retard the timing, and reduce performance. Normal engines, like you might find in a Ford, will NOT get any better performance with higher octane gas.

I prefer oil burners myself.

[giddonah]

That's exactly my point. I'm not talking about running a stock processor at 5C to get more performance out of it. I'm talking about running an overclocked processor at 50C, or keeping a stock processor from reaching 120C. Notice I didn't talk about putting 87 in a Ford, I used a Ferrari because that's exactly the difference I'm talking about, high performance. And if you're choosing between 50 octane and 87 octane for a Ford, then the higher octane would get you better performance. It's all relative to what the thing is designed for. So I can in fact argue that higher octane would make a Ford perform better. Maybe I should be more specific in the future to avoid any possible confusion on anyone's part. I just assumed I was fine on this since skstark already knows about computers. I never would have guessed this thread would have ended like this. :?



Edit: Oh yeah, thismorning I was reminded of dust. You'll want to filter the air inside. Dust collects on fan blades and heat sinks making them less effective (like a nice little blanket).

[bkrahmer]

Oh, giddonah, cheer up! Don't be so grumpy. That's grumpy's job! :)

[skstark]

Dust! Darn it, I knew I would overlook something. Any suggestions on dust control?

OK. So insulate to what r-value? Do I need a vapor barrier and can I put that on the interior walls?

Was planning on covering with furring strips and wallboard.

Will basically duplicate on the "server closet" portion of the space.

Wanted to maintain full ceiling height so was planning on same for roof. Is there a better solution?

Thanks to everyone who has responded, this "Computer Wizard" knows little about these things!!! :--))

Steve

[bkrahmer]

If the server room is enclosed, the walls are painted, the floor isn't carpet, and there isn't normally people in there, there won't be anything to generate any dust. My computer at home is in a carpeted room, we have a cat, I occasionally smoke in the room, and only have to clean my fans about once a year. I wouldn't worry about dust if I were you.

[giddonah]

Yeah, if you only have one spot in the whole building that isn't carpet, it's this space (ok, two including the bathroom). You can put a vapor bairrier in if you want, there won't be anything inside creating moisture and with a dehumidifier (or dessicant) you will only have moisture wanting to get inside. You won't need a lot of dust control. Dust will only get in through cracks and when you open the door. I would just count on checking the ac filter peroidically. As I mentioned before, I'd build the walls exactly like you bilt the exterior walls, but with sheetrock instead of siding. Same R value and vapor barrier.


I don't mean to be grumpy, I just don't like people telling me I'm "flat wrong" when I'm right. :wink:

[Crash13]

Giddonah, I must no thave been clear enough in my explaination because you took what I said the wrong way. A car that calls for 87 octane gasoline will not produce anymore power if you fill it with 93 octane. This is parallel with computers. A chip that can run stable at full load at 70 celsius will not produce anymore flops at 40 celsuis.

[giddonah]

Then you're not reading my posts, because that is exactly what I've said.

[skstark]

Great. We all agree and are heading the same direction.

Thanks for all your input!!

Steve

[Vector]

One little thing to add.

Computers don't like it dry. Dry causes static electricity problems. Every server room I've ever constructed or managed actually had humidifiers to add moisture after the A/C had dried the air out.

[skstark]

Vector,
Thanks for the post.

Add humidifier!

Steve

[giddonah]

But in this case, the air surrounding the area is going to be hot and humid. That's a disaster waiting to happen when you cool that air on electronics. The moisture held in the air at the higher temps condenses when the air is cooled. It is true that you don't want it so dry that static is a problem, but here, you're not starting with cold Minnesota air which is dry to begin with.

35F air at 40% humidity turns into 30% humidity at 50F

90F air at 70% humidity turns into rain at just under 80F, and you still have 30F to go.

[Maarkr]

My 2 cents: Don't overclock; consider the separate server room--no windows or outside entry; keep the server room cool (have AC for summer, keep it on the north side of the building) and dry (some humidity control)...you'll be fine.

[rbisys]

Greetings,

Installing a low eff insul's such as FG, Cel or foam are not going to help. If fact FG can actually increase heat flow down. The other problem is condensation in FG or Cel which can increase heat flow 50 -70%.

So not only is the equipment creating heat, it's absorbing it from the structure. And then you have the insul moisture being driven in by the high wall and ceil'g temps.

What you need is the same type of insulation NASA uses on their space vehicles, radiant barriers.

If you e-m your address I'll send you a manual and mnfrs where you can get these materials. No moisture, excellernt VB. It's inexpensive, easy DIY.