APC InRow Cooling for a small server room

Question

We recently added some hardware to our server room, and our 12000 BTU Mitsubishi Mr. Slim isn't cutting it (was undersized to begin with). Our humidity is also too low (~30%).

To meet our needs, plus have some margin for growth, we need about 36000 BTUs more cooling.

The room is relatively small (12ft x 12ft). We only have a single enclosed server rack (APC brand), but it is pretty well-packed with blade severs and SAN drives. There are also two open racks in the room for wiring and network switches, but the power requirements are pretty low there.

So, we are looking at cooling options. One of the suggestions on the table is APC InRow cooling.

Any experience with APC InRow cooling, particularly for a server room of our size?

How would you say the efficiency of an InRow system compares to a more traditional cooling system, like a portable Movincool A/C unit, or a larger Mr. Slim?

Any other options we should be looking at?

Answer 1

I think that to get the maximum benefit from the InRows you need to have a hot aisle/cold aisle setup, to ensure that the exhaust from the server rack is ingested by the InRow and cooled before being passed to the front of the server rack. Implementing this with a wallmount aircon such as the MrSlim is difficult as the inlet and outlet are designed for whole-room cooling.

Without hot aisle/cold aisle separation, I wouldn't expect the InRow to perform any better than a wallmount aircon of similar capacity. It's just that the InRow form factor makes it easier to create the aisles.

As an aside some (if not all) of the InRows support dual power supplies, reducing a single point-point-failure of a normal aircon unit.