Data Center Layout
 

I'm building an office building for a client who's never had a clean sheet of paper to work with.

The design engineer is hopeless so I've turned to PPOT.

A server rack is 600mm wide (23.6") . If I have (5) of them, is my server lineup 3000mm or do I need to allow for spacing between the racks, side to side?

Since I'm in the US, my thinking is that if I allow 24" for each rack, I should be fine. Thoughts?

Depends on the rack and how they fasten to the floor and what type of air flow restrictions between each rack to start.

Racks or cabinets?

No spacing between the racks if they are standard 42u racks with front and rear doors. If this is raised floor be nice and give them a cool row in front and a hot row behind.

90% of our racks attach side to side with no space in between. The rest need front/back/and side access.

There is also the air flow consideration. Cold air in the front gets drawn through and makes hot air to the back.

And how about power? Is that part of your plan?

Raised floor weight considerations?

Wow, I expected fast but not 4 replies in 15 minutes fast.

They are a mixture of cabinets and open racks, floor mounted, no raised floor. I'm good with spacing front to back, we've allowed 4 feet between rows for the cool aisle and 4 foot plus on the back. My concern was the side clearance. I know some of the owners existing equipment will need side access but that will likely figured out on the fly. The room allows for 100% growth over their current footprint.

We should have plenty of power, the racks are fed with 50+ 30amp dedicated circuits, PDUs are by the Owner.

We're using Leibert CRV 600s for cooling, they're located approximately half way down the aisle, so I wanted to make sure I located them in the room properly without wasting any space.

4' between is going to be a little tight, bump that up if you can. Standard server is ~30" deep. Add in the door and extra few inches at the front of the cabinet and you have ~1' for you or a server lift. Or, you'll always need 2 folks to rack equipment.

Data Center Layout
 

Like anything, its a balancing act, the footprint of the room is defined. If I make the cold aisle wider, I steal from the hot aisles and there is other infrastructure (fire suppression, structural column and tech desk) that chokes down the hot aisles making them effectively narrower than the 4’-6” width they’re laid out to.


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Just move to the “cloud” :)

Remember there is always going to be someone adding or moving cables. Could be front or back. And there will be lots of cables. If space is too tight the person could bump something they shouldn't.

AWS is cheap. You can checkout but you can never leave.

You allocated any space in the racks (or room) for expansion?

Yes, assuming no side access cabinets we have room for 16 racks and currently using 8.

That’s why I didn’t want to choke down the hot aisles.


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