Know The Benefits & Risks Of Bumping Up The Heat

There’s still no answer to the debate over the right temperature for a data center. There are only degrees of “it depends.”

Why is that? You may be asking: “Hasn’t ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers) set the standard?” Not really. For many years, the society’s suggested temperature range for data centers was between 68 and 77 degrees Fahrenheit. But in 2008, the ASHRAE changed that range to between 64 and 80 F. And the major data center players have been experimenting with the higher side of temperature. Dell, Google, and Intel, for example, have been trying higher temperatures or decreased humidity control in an effort to determine sweet spots for protecting their equipment without unnecessary energy costs.

But no matter what ASHRAE or big data center players say, there is also the rest of the data center world—the managers with three-server closets or larger server rooms—who would rather err on the side of caution. Many of the server rooms across America are set for a temperature between 68 and 71 F, not because the manager has necessarily researched the right temperature, but because he knows it’s safe and is sticking with it. 

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