It would sure be nice if along with choosing to order servers with DC or AC power inputs one could choose air or water cooling.

Or perhaps some non-conductive working fluid instead of water. That might not carry quite as much heat as water, but it would surely carry more than air and if chosen correctly would have more benign results when the inevitable leaks and spills occur.

Of course, my chemistry is a little rusty, so I'm not sure about the prospects for a non-toxic, non-flammable, non-conductive substance with workable fluid flow and heat transfer properties :)

A close second might be liquid cooled air tight cabinets with the air/water heat exchangers (redundant pair) at the bottom where leaks are less of an issue (drip tray, anyone? :) )...

Less practical but more fun to contemplate would be data centers pressurized with a working gas that offers better heat transfer than oxygen/nitrogen and no oxidation potential. Airlocks and suits for the techs, but no fire worries ever. Heck, just close the room and inject liquid nitrogen under the raised floor to be scavenged overhead and re-compressed, chilled, liquefied and sent round again. Reserve cooling for power outages is just huge dewars full of liquid nitrogen :)

Not so serious today,

-Dorn

On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 8:31 AM, Alexander Harrowell <a.harrowell@gmail.com> wrote:

I still think the industry needs to standardise water cooling to popularise it; if there were two water ports on all the pizzaboxes next to the RJ45s, and a standard set of flexible pipes, how many people would start using it? There's probably a medical, automotive or aerospace standard out there.

On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 12:23 PM, Leigh Porter <leigh.porter@ukbroadband.com> wrote:

$5

Adrian Chadd wrote:
> This thread begs a question - how much do you think it'd be worth to do
> things more efficiently?
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> Adrian
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