Containment Systems

The whole idea of cooling systems in a Data Centre is to keep the Servers and ancillary rack mounted equipment cool.

In a typical Data Centre, only 30% of the conditioned air actually gets to where it’s needed, the racks. The other 70% is getting mixed with the heated exhaust air from the racks and servers.

This means that a typical Data Centre could use 2.5 times more cooling than necessary and still have hot spots. 

Ten to fifteen years ago, most data centers had an average of 1 kilowatt (kW) per rack or cabinet. In today’s world rack densities can be up to 20 kW, and most expect this number to continue to increase.

Using containment to aid in Data Center Airflow Management can cut energy costs because if the hot and cold air cannot mix, the air conditioners don’t have to work as hard to get cool air to the front of servers. That can mean the ability to raise the temperature in the room and ramp down air handlers with variable speed drive fans, this then gives the possibility of introducing free cooling systems to save even more power.

The separation of the hot and cold air results in increased return air temperature back to the air conditioning unit. This improves the overall cooling capacity and provides colder air to the racks.

Did you know that every degree raised in the air conditioners set point = 4% savings in cooling costs. Data center containment solutions allow you to increase your set point by 4°C – 5°C.