New trends in Data center cooling: Immerse the server in oil

For hardware enthusiasts, they often use extreme cooling schemes, including recycled water cooling, and all the hardware immersed in the oil, and even the Peltier cooling (semiconductor cooling film) method.

Some DIY players who pursue the overclocking world record also use dry ice or liquid nitrogen to ensure they don't have to worry about the hardware being too hot to stop working when they're at extreme overclocking. In fact, sometimes the processor stops working when the temperature is too low, such as the Core 2 http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/38398.html ">extreme QX9650 will automatically power off at 60 degrees to 90 degrees.

The extreme heat dissipation method does not apply to enterprise data centers

With the advent of the data explosion era, the data center also put forward higher requirements, in the limited space to stack more server hardware. The addition of cooler has also led to problems with electricity and costs.

Such a situation has also been prompting companies to explore better ways to dissipate heat, such as all the hardware submerged in oil or liquids. Because the hardware is completely immersed in it, the oil cooling can better export the components and the thermal energy of the hardware facilities.

The oil-cold way looks much like a homemade aquarium computer. All the core parts, including CPU, motherboard, memory, graphics card, hard disk and power supply, are soaked in the non-toxic organic solution "corecoolant" made of food grade raw materials. And the oil-type heat dissipation and water-cooled will be equipped with a pump-cycle device (this is similar to water-cooled). In contrast to wind-cooled, oil-cooled or water-cooled water has greater specific heat capacity, which means that in the same case the oil or water cooling can absorb more heat than the wind cold.

Due to the size of the reasons, in the field of the server oil cooling and the individual there are many different. Data centers require large radiators and heat-exchanger cooling devices that use electrically non-conductive dielectric oils.

Compared to the use of the hardware to heat the air, Hardcore computer food grade raw materials made of non-toxic organic solution core coolant than in the air thermal efficiency is 1350 times times higher. The Fluorinert of 3M is another popular option, which is much more efficient than air.

Today, some companies, such as Green Revolution Computing, allow companies to immerse blades completely vertically in the oil-cooled devices they offer. The heat is then carried out through the pump-loop device.

Green Revolution claimed that their oil-cooled approach would reduce the cost of conventional heat dissipation by 95%, and that it would have a 10%-20% decline in electricity consumption.

IDC's research report points to the cost of power and cooling in half the costs of spending on hardware. On the 2011 Green Data Conference, they said the datacenter cooling system accounted for 40% of the total power consumption in the data center.

A recent study by Intel has also shown that liquid cooling is more capable of maintaining High-performance computing server temperatures.

Although oil cooling can provide a higher cooling efficiency and allows the server to be quieter and denser to run, there are also some problems.

The oil cooling method causes the hardware to weigh much more than the average data center server, which requires the floor to withstand enough weight. In addition, the initial cost of installing the pump radiator and the necessary connection piping is very expensive. Furthermore, full immersion in oil-cooled equipment means that hardware devices will be difficult to upgrade, requiring additional technical training.

The use of oil-cooled heat in areas where the world is wetter and hotter will be more efficient and energy-saving than air-conditioning systems.

With the continuous improvement of oil cooling technology, more and more companies to introduce their own solutions. In the future, the oil cold may replace the existing way of becoming a new choice for the data center. (Li/compiling)

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)