cirrascale's, a poway, ca based, high performance and cloud computing specialist, features a patented vertical cooling technology (vct) which allows 2x the rack compute density verses standard rack cooling approaches. the patented system draws air from the base of the cabinet, using the coldest air in the data center.
the vertical cooling technology actively draws air in from the base of a compute cabinet in a data center. the air can be drawn in from the front or the back but always from the rack base to take advantage of the coolest air. the technology works equally efficiently with raised or slab floors, blade servers or drive arrays. as air is pulled up from the bottom, fans in the center of the system drive the air up and across the various components.
cirrascale claims that compared to a typical 1u rack server deployment that needs an average of 30cfm of air per 1u for thermal management, their system with vct provides 3x that amount, up to 100cfm, allowing cirrascale's systems to have higher computational or storage density over non-vct systems.
another aspect to cirrascale's vct is air flow consistency. typical rack systems have uneven air flow up and down a computer rack, with a variation of 20cfm to 60cfm depending on component placement. with vct, isolating the air flow from the bottom to the top of the rack, air flow and volume are controlled and consistent. generally, a cirrascale vct system can have twice the density of a non-vct system at a lower deltat.
vct's benefits also inlcude reduced power usage and better mtbf. the invention does not rely on arrays of 40mm fans but instead uses larger industrial fans deployed throughout the rack. these fans provide a longer mtbf with more consistent and reliable airflow. an under 20kw rack using vct uses less than 15w of fan power per server for cooling. by comparison, cirrascale has found that a typical 1u server will use 60-80w of power for cooling. in observations at cirrascale, mtbf for systems with vct are 50% less than non vct systems.
for more information please visit: http://www.cirrascale.com/
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