* HP shows off Active Cool Fans
HP last week previewed technology that will let its blade servers run cooler and with less power.
HP’s Active Cool Fans will appear in blade servers this summer. According to HP, fans used in remote-controlled model airplanes inspired the technology. The company will investigate whether other servers and devices in the data center could implement HP’s Active Cool Fans design.
A 1U high server with the Cool Fans design will consume 20 watts of power to run the fans. Present 1U rack-mounted servers use about 60 watts.
The Cool Fans design uses an electric ducted fan – in this approach, air in the data center is routed through the server, which has sealed ducts with fans to keep the server components cool. Air is then expelled out of the other side of the rack.
According to HP, Active Cool Fans offers quadruple the performance of present systems, while only using a third of the power to run its fans.
The design, which will allow HP to release denser blade servers, was conceived by an HP vice president who is a model airplane enthusiast. He asked mechanical engineer Wade Vinson to check the design out.
Efficiently cooling blade servers and 1U rack-mounted servers in data center rack is becoming increasingly important. Power and cooling issues have provided a barrier to adoption.
Vendors such as HP and IBM have liquid cooling technologies for their rack-mounted servers. IBM’s Cool Blue technology – its eServer Rear Door Heat Exchanger – camps on the back side of the rack to cool it. The Sun Fire T2000 uses Sun’s Cool Threads technology to run cooler.
Recently HP formed the Green Grid with AMD, IBM and Sun to help IT deal with heat and power issues in the data center.
