What is the correct temperature for a server room?

Question

When I was working in our server room, I noticed that it was very cold.

I know that the server room has to be cold to offset the heat of the servers, but perhaps it is TOO cold.

What is an appropriate temperature to keep our server room at?

Solution 1

Recommendations on server room temperature vary greatly.

This guide says that:

General recommendations suggest that you should not go below 10°C (50°F) or above 28°C (82°F). Although this seems a wide range these are the extremes and it is far more common to keep the ambient temperature around 20-21°C (68-71°F). For a variety of reasons this can sometimes be a tall order.

This discussion on Slashdot has a variety of answers but most of them within the range quoted above.

Update: As others have commented below Google recommends 26.7°C (80°F) for data centres.

Also the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) has recently updated their recommended tempature range to be from 18°C-27°C (64.4°F-80.6°F).

However this article agains highlights that there is still no consensus on the subject. As mentioned in the article I would highlight that:

...nudging the thermostat higher may also leave less time to recover from a cooling failure, and is only appropriate for companies with a strong understanding of the cooling conditions in their facility.

IMO most companies would not have such a strong understanding of cooling conditions and thus it would be safer in a small business environment to be running the rooms a little cooler.

NB: It is important to note there are a lot more factors to consider in a server/data room than just the temperature, air flow & humidity for example are also important concerns.

Solution 2

Google's datacenter best practices recommends 80 degrees:

Raising the cold aisle temperature will reduce facility energy use. Don't try to run your cold aisle at 70F; set the temperature at 80F or higher -- virtually all equipment manufacturers allow this.

We run at 72, but then again I don't exactly trust our own room was designed with airflow in mind.

Solution 3

As others have said, somewhere in the low 70's F is good. However, it's even more critical to make sure the rack and the hardware in it can "breathe". If hot air is trapped in the rack - or in a server chassis - then the low ambient temperature won't really do any good.

Solution 4

18°C (65°F). Its a bit colder than it has to be, but if something fails it gives us a few precious extra minutes to react before it gets uncomforably hot.

Solution 5

All server rooms I've seen usually are between 20°C and 25°C but from experience I've noticed hardware is more sensitive to variations more than a given temperature. I've often seen hardware fail after a bump of, say 4-5°C, even if it is from 20 to 25.

So stability is a key, as well as air flow of course.

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Comments

[gharper]

Google is actually recommending looking into even bumping it up to 80°F for energy savings. There's a good article here: datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2008/10/14/…

[mundeep]

Thanks i'll update the answer to mention that, my original answer was more geared at everyday small office server rooms - where IMO more leeway in case of cooling failure may be required (or a greater focus on airflow etc..

[David]

Something important to keep in mind is that Google operates on an expected failure model - instead of expensive, fault tolerant servers like most companies have, Google instead uses highly customized fault tolerant software. Google fully expects its servers to die on a regular basis (but for the software to route around the failure). So in Google's costing model it may make sense to run their server rooms at 80 degrees, because the increase in (very cheap) hardware failures is easily offset by the energy savings. Are a few dead $6,000 servers worth some savings on electricity in your company?

[warren]

what's wrong with <50&deg;F? I'm curious, because I know a couple datacenters in 'extreme' environments just vent to the outside for cooling... and anyone remember Kryotech? the first company to get 1Ghz consumer PCsbut super-cooling the Athlon 600Mhz processors to -40&deg;

[LaikaN57]

Hi Justin, welcome to ServerFault. What you've written here is a fun anecdote, but it's not really a great answer to the question. An answer would have included things to consider and/or best practice recommendations. You might want to have a look at this: serverfault.com/questions/how-to-answer

[HopelessN00b]

That's pretty bad advice actually. Good thing the OP probably won't see it. But ignoring ambient temperature is a great way to turn all your servers into expensive door stops when you cool the room below the dew point and get water condensing on all the metal surfaces. I highly recommend it for sabotage operations, as it's devastating and virtually impossible to prove intent.

[HopelessN00b]

Don't do that. Answer a question 3.5 years later with nothing that isn't already in the other answers.

[user2297550]

Poor Justin, a decade later, a deserved upvote. Re what @quux said, there is no such admonition for another answer essentially similar to yours by @ Chopper3 nearby, which too just describes their situation too without "things to consider and/or best practice recommendations" and minus any interesting anecdotes (and useful points such as your cooling system not removing humidity very well). Welcome to stackexchange dystopia :v

[user2297550]

also better than @ gregd 's answer nearby, which too didn't earn @quux 's criticism