Typical Data Centre Power Requirements

This topic was created by Killing Time .

  1. Killing Time

    Typical Data Centre Power Requirements

    Most written articles reference the high power consumption requirements for data centres given the high density of hardware and its cooling requirements. Clearly though, over the past few years the industry has moved towards higher processor performance per watt.

    I recently read an article from 2008 which set a typical data centre power requirement at around 5 MW per 50,000 square foot. Here we are five years later, presumably this will no longer the case given processor advances and improved cooling strategies? Does anybody have a more up to date estimate of typical power requirements with respect to area or possibly a recent case study?

    Any comment would help enormously on a project I am currently working on.

  2. Prof Denzil Dexter

    I can tell you I manage 2 data centres totalling 14,000 sq foot. first is 8k sqf and has 950kw, (completely utilised) and the second is 6k sq foot and has around 900kw (80% utilised).

    I guess your figured are there or thereabouts.

    This doesn't include cooling which is powered separately and managed by the host.

    So i'g guess your figures are reasoably there or thereabouts. Worth noting that in our larger smaller DC, we have loads of power and no usable space, and in our bigger DC we have loads of usable space and no power.

    its worth bearing in mind that although some devices are becoming more power efficient, the majority of kit is only ever utilised at 10% tops. so if all the kit was running full throttle, temperature might become an issue.

    Alos, bear in mind that old, inefficent kit is still a bugger to remove when the unix guys love its reliability (i/m looking at you, RS/6000)

  3. Killing Time

    Thanks for the feedback, the subsequent digging I have done hasn't contradicted these figures so far. As the potential project I am looking at is new build I am fairly confident the legacy kit shouldn't be an issue.

    1. jainpranav

      Still Dell having a problem or all issue are cleared...

      1. rhianna

        hi

        Why did the FTP/FTPS/SCP thing not work out?

        Did you try adding HTTP/HTTPS/WebDAV to the server which you setup to do FTP/FTPS/SCP?

        From the sounds of it (if you know how to setup and run an FTP server) you should easily be able to add HTTP capabilities on the front end of it. It's just a bit more configuration.

        -------

        Lily lara

  4. rhianna

    Why did the FTP/FTPS/SCP thing not work out?

    Did you try adding HTTP/HTTPS/WebDAV to the server which you setup to do FTP/FTPS/SCP?

    From the sounds of it (if you know how to setup and run an FTP server) you should easily be able to add HTTP capabilities on the front end of it. It's just a bit more configuration.

    ------------

    Lily lara

  5. This post has been deleted by its author

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Going Dutch

    El Reg recently did an article on servers as radiators.

    Maybe a distributed system throughout your building could negate cooling requirements by removing the need for air-con and cheapen the building heating / cooling bill?

    Also free up some valuable office real estate.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/25/dutch_companies_try_warming_homes_with_cloud_servers/

    Network patching and tampering would be a pain though.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Going Dutch

        With distributed heating they can alway open a window.

        The servers need to be on to complete a function but the heat produced can be either kept or vented. With a distributed system you won't have to worry about the cumulative effect of having more heat than you can effectively disperse. If designed right, the air flow from the servers could be used to "pump" fresh air in by function of convection.

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