Liquid cooling a server?

[StuntmanLT]

Hi guys, this is my first post so don’t be too harsh on me :)

Ok I’ll get to the point. I have a couple of friends who are administrating some servers and we had an idea to offer the owners of the servers to change the cooling to water cooling. I have a little experience with water cooled systems (one system) by when I try to think of a business proposal I stumble in to some problems.

The main problem is the parts. Te only things that fit are water blocks and tubes. The main problem that I think why no other parts fit is that there must be one loop (or at least something close to it) to cool more then one server.
First problem is the pump. There are some server rooms that are in the middle of the building and if I wanted to exchange heat with outside I would need a pretty powerful pump(s).
Then there are the radiators. I think I would need one (or more then one) big one because buying a lot of small ones is economically unjustifiable and I read some time ago on this very same form that standard radiators (let say from a car) doesn’t work very well with PC water cooling.
For a fan to blow away the heat from the rad(s) I was thinking about some industrial fan to fit the radiator you guys would suggest.
Next there is a reservoir. For that I was thinking about something custom made. Can someone link me to some reference about the amount of liquid needed to cool 1degree or something like that?
And the there is a monitoring system. It should monitor temperature, flow rate, and possibly fan speed. I believe it should be automated and work with Windows and Linux.

So to sum it up what would you suggest for these parts:
Pump
Radiator
Fan
Reservoir
Monitoring system

Also does any one know or heard about any water cooling solutions for a rack mounted servers or even rack enclosure?

Thanks

[Church]

Watercooling a Data Center thread (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=246381).
In general - not worth it.

[StuntmanLT]

Thanks I’ll read that through.

[MadHacker]

I remeber reading somewhere that they had a data center beside a swimming pool. they watercooled the datacenter and used the heat to keep the pool warm.

[individual]

really? what would they do about chlorine/salt. have to be some very specific components or even all custom made blocks.

[Boulard83]

For the pool trick :
You can use a water/water exchanger to cool the PC. Using the heat from the distilled water from the PC LOOP to warm the water pool.

[TJ TRICHEESE]

the rackmount koolance erm-3k4u5 could be the solution for you

[StuntmanLT]

I read somewhere that Liquid cooled DC provided heat for a neighboring kindergarten but I’m not interested in such big projects (at least nor at the start). I am locking for a solution to cool a few (maybe up to ten) servers in a small confined room not using an AC unit but simply exchanging heat with outside.

[Gilhooley]

Waterblocks, no. Server rack, yes. This is how the big dogs does it:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00600082/c00600082.pdf

[gmat]

You can have fully watercooled racks from the big names (IBM and such). Those are integral solutions though, you wont do a custom job there...

[meanmoe]

In the thread linked in post #2, google's mass cooling solution was brought up... Essentially, they have sealed shipping containers filled with machines, they then use a heat exchanger/radiator inside of the shipping container to pull heat out of the air, but the servers are air cooled. Chilled water is pumped to all of the containers.

On a small scale, using this method, you would have a perfect excuse for a bong cooler... (always wanted to build one of those). Good luck trying to sell it though (suggestion : s/bong cooler/cooling tower when talking to customers)

[Serpentarius]

I read somewhere that Liquid cooled DC provided heat for a neighboring kindergarten but I’m not interested in such big projects (at least nor at the start). I am locking for a solution to cool a few (maybe up to ten) servers in a small confined room not using an AC unit but simply exchanging heat with outside.

watercooling server is a serious business, dude ... not for hobbyist forums. the word "reliability" carries a significant meaning for servers than home pcs.

not just the setup you'll be thinking, you'll have to draft the design for maintenance. flushing/draining without turning the server off.

maybe you should gather reference materials from HP, IBM solutions to help developing your idea. it'll be better if you had used one or two before. it's not easy to step in ... how bout thinking of teaming up with koolance? a contractor is not that bad, R&D is tough ... lol

[Church]

I see same stuff mentioned/discussed all over again. Maybe some mod can merge threads to lessen possibility of it?

[nlancaster]

He is not talking about cooling a data center. Sounds more like he is talking about cooling a home server setup.

Koolance builds rackmount server solutions.

http://www.koolance.com/water-cooling/product_info.php?product_id=372

As TRICHEESE mentioned, This one is good for upto 5 independent loops. and 3kw of power. Also if you put some radiators in the crawl space you could use this unit to cool the air in the room. Put it at the top of the rack, and as long as the remote radiators are cooler then the internal radiator it will cool the room.

[Church]

.. AND how in previous thread was already mentioned - koolance solution had some drawbacks. - eg. it used aluminium rads, and was orderable only in large volumes. = not aplicable for home servers unless it's millioner home. :)

[Kibbler]

I try to think of a business proposal I stumble in to some problems.For the benefit of the owners I hope "lifetime support and maintenance" is part of your business proposal?

It's hard to tell what kind of scope you're talking about, in terms of how many servers, how important is uptime/downtime, budget, etc. Is it a rendering farm or a corporate blade cluster or an elementary school computer lab or what?

So the safest answer is no, it's not worth it. And unless you're confident enough of your experience to provide "lifetime support and maintenance," don't bite off more than you can chew for now.