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Cold Climate Datacenter
  (+4, -1)
(+4, -1) 		  [vote for,
against]

Here in Canada it gets -30 C on a regular basis. Why heat the air to +25C (increase of 55C) only to have it cooled back down to +10C baffles me. I'm sure at around -45C ambient temperature you could do some serious overclocking if you wanted.
If the halfbakery was hosted in one of these - it would speed up considerably during the winter (due to overclocking). And slow back down to regular speed during the summer - unless there was a sister datacenter for loadbalanding in the southern hemisphere of course.
—ixnaum, Dec 30 2005

for bristolz Dark_20Side
See discussion here. [DrCurry, Dec 31 2005]

Facebooks' Cold Climate Datacenter http://www.cbc.ca/n...r-farm.html?cmp=rss
...looks like I was onto something [ixnaum, Oct 29 2011]

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       I don't get the bit about +25C then +10C - please expand on that. As for the idea, it sounds good to me. It would be energy efficient, and have a built in safty feature of functioning even if the A/C breaks down.
—Worldgineer, Dec 30 2005
   

       I'm assuming ixnaum is referring to the outside air being heated to room temperature (25C) as it comes into the building, then being cooled back down to data center temperature (10C). Which is clearly wasting energy somewhere.   

       But do data centers really work like that? The coolers for the ones I've seen draw their air directly from the outside in the first place.
—DrCurry, Dec 30 2005
   

       I can't think of a reason to heat it all the way to +25. Sure, above 0 to protect against freezing. Or colder then reheating to remove moisture (though only at warmer temperatures). But up then down? Not likely unless it's a bad design or is designing for something that I'm missing.
—Worldgineer, Dec 30 2005
   

       When you're in Canada, no one can hear you freeze.
—reensure, Dec 30 2005
   

       All the datacenters I've seen (3) seem to share the air supply with the office building as a whole ... but I'm not 100% sure about that.
—ixnaum, Dec 31 2005
   

       Put them in orbit, perpetually on the dark side.
—bristolz, Dec 31 2005
   

       I don't think you can do that (someone was discussing it somewhere on another page).
—DrCurry, Dec 31 2005
   

       Um, why not?
—bristolz, Dec 31 2005
   

       Perfectly doable. You just have to pay the bill.
—humanbean, Dec 31 2005
   

       I think what [ixnaum] means is that in PARTS of Canada it reaches -30 C on a regular basis. My part of Canada (quickly checks historical records) has NEVER been that cold.   

       <So much for perpetuating the myth that Canada is populated by eskimos living in igloos. And we don't have polar bears wandering the streets, either.>   

       I'm sure there are parts of Minnesota or North Dakota that reach your desired temperature for cooling (and nobody expects them to have a large resident penguin population).
—Canuck, Jan 01 2006
   

       No one expects penguins north of the equator.
—bristolz, Jan 02 2006
   

       There is a bigger problem removing waste heat in space than on earth. Since there is no ambient atmosphere to dump heat into, everything must be cooled by radiation. Satellites usually have complex heat pipe systems built into the solar panels.   

       I say let the data center double as a furnace in cold climates. That way no energy is wasted at all.
—Aq_Bi, Jan 02 2006
   

       //I think what [ixnaum] means is that in PARTS of Canada it reaches -30 C on a regular basis//   

       Yes that's what I meant ... actually this year is so weird - extremely warm compared to past years .... there goes the whole cold climate server economy.
—ixnaum, Jan 06 2006
   


 

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