Looking for computer room air conditioning? A regular air conditioner might not meet your data centre’s cooling requirements. In fact, a single set of servers in a data centre can produce more than 100-degree Celsius temperature while operating. That’s the same temperature as boiling water, so you could probably imagine how high the temperature will be if the whole data centre is left uncooled. This is also the reason why a normal air conditioner will not be sufficient to cool down your servers. Thus, the rise of precision cooling systems namely CRAC and CRAH.
How do these two differ?
CRAC
- CRAC stands for Computer Room Air Conditioning
- It works similar to the typical air conditioning system we have at home and in the workplace. Their cooling mechanism works when air is blown over refrigerant-filled condenser coils. The chilled air is then expelled and dispersed in a given space.
- They have a compression and expansion system built into the unit.
- The warm air is expelled from the room through a mixture of air, water, and glycol mixture.
- CRAC is often smaller in size than other precision cooling systems, this enables the user to install CRAC on raised flooring to effectively cool down the whole data centre using the law of thermodynamics.
CRAH
- CRAH stands for Computer Room Air Handler.
- It works similarly with air handlers on skyscrapers. It uses chilled water instead of refrigerant. The air will be blown to the pipes containing chilled water to give off chilled air into the room.
- CRAH does not use a compressor to produce cool air. This entails that it will consume lesser energy compared to CRAC.
- Chilled water is supply to the unit through “chillers”.
- CRAH can be large and may require more space. They are often placed opposite the server units to directly provide chilled air to the working computers.
Which one should you install in your data centre?
There are various considerations when choosing between CRAC and CRAH for your data centre. Although both of them shares the same function, they differ in size and cooling mechanism. The dimensions of your data centre, the number of servers, and the budget for computer room air conditioning installation must be considered before choosing which of the two you would want to install.
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