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>From dhaut@level1.com Mon Aug 31 16:30:55 1998
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Subject: Raised Floor vs. Carpet
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>From dhaut Sun Aug 30 12:55:47 1998
To: brunberg, srice, engadm
Subject: Raised Floor vs. Carpet
Hi,
Thanks for the numerous responses on this topic. The responses were
overwhelmingly in favor of a raised floor. I have included most of the
responses below:
First, my question:
Hi,
We're designing a new computer room and I want to use the
typical raised floor ( 12 in high ) and put the cooling
system in the computer room and run the cold air underneath
the floor up into the equipment.
On the otherhand, the person who is building the computer
room wants to put anti-stat carpeting in and install a
conditioning unit on the roof. He refuses to want to put in a raised floor saying it's too expensive ...
The guy has no concept of computers. Cost is driving what he does.
( I have a quote for $25k for the raised floor with fire extinguishing system to meet code ). He says that he can
put in the antistat carpet for $5k.
So now I have to go battle this person in front of management
to get my raised floor. My question is ( finally ):
How many of you have raised floors in your computer rooms ??
In your minds, what are the advantages ?? ( To me it is
flexibility of moving equipment around, astetics, easier to
keep cleaner, some equipment MUST be installed on a raised floor ).
How many of you have anti-stat carpet in your computer room ??
Do you have any regrets ?? What don't you like about it ??
Anybody have cost comparisons for air conditioning units that
are inside a computer room vs on the roof ?? The roof unit that
this guy wants to put in is a 15-ton unit.
Thanks for the help and I will summarize.
Dave
Now the replies:
i've never liked raised floors. i'd rather have a mess of cables i can
see than a mess of cables hidden under the floor :-). i wouldn't trust
anti-static carpeting at all, maybe you can meet in the middle with
anti-static tile? that's what i've put in to places i've had a hand in
and it works very nicely.
as for in-room vs. split-system a/c, i think i prefer the split-system.
easier to upgrade, work on, etc. if you go with the split system, make
sure they duct the returns to isolate that room.
Joe Pruett
joey@q7.com
why a raise floor -
1) some equipment NEEDS IT. (to keep cool).
2) easier to wire equipment. (wires under the
floor, not hanging from the ceiling.)
3) AC unit - on the ROOF? is this a 1 story?
AC units will eventually leak!!! DO NOT
put it above the equipment.
(note, the h2o ciller will need to be outside
somewhere.)
4) fire stuff -> pre-action h2o is affordable.
do NOT go for H2o live in the pipes if you
can afford it.
5) get a good sensitive fire dectection system.
6) a professional computer rm reflections on the
professionalism of the corp.
7) carpet - well, I dont care much for one...
although walking on hard flooring all day
can be painful.
8) electrical wires under the floor (flexible conduit)
can easily be rearranged to accommondate new equipment
(make certain you've got gd electrical - an
pdu with an isolation transformer is best :-)
good luck
matti siltanen
matti@fugue.jpl.nasa.gov
To be blunt, any carpet ALWAYS ends up looking like shit in an environment
like a computer room. It gets torn, pulled up, threadbare, it's a stupid
idea. So where do you run the cables? Where do you put the power strips?
Even if you get really mental with the rack mount stuff there's always the
little things that require a cable here or power strip there.
If you absolutely do not have the money then there's not much you can do. If
you have the money then do it right.
The cooling issue is iffy. In the old mainframe days it mattered. These days
most systems aren't setup to draw air from under the floor, usually just floor
level is sufficient. Usually most of the AC is on the roof anyway, all you
need is the cooling coils in the computer room. You definately should try to
get AC output on/near the floor, intake at ceiling.
Maybe you should give a little on the AC, and save the fire stuff for another
budget. Fight for the floor, that's the first best thing.
Good Luck,
I hate buttheads,
Rick
e18a186@avlisim.llnl.gov
Raised floor all the way. Static carpet won't help in a server room, besides
static isn't your issue in a computer room (you're not *making* processors,
you're using them). You need accessability. What are you going to do when you
need to run anohter line to the wiring closet? What about when you need to drop
a couple of 220 Volt feeds in for a new array cabinet? It's going to cost you a
hell of a lot more in the long run without raised floor.
As for AC. It's a lot easier to keep your machines cool with a raised floor.
Their is no way to focus the cooling with ceiling vents. With raised floor, you
can put your perferated tiles directly under the disk array and keep the disks
cool, forcing cold air directly into the cabinet. You can't do this with
regular floor.
As for whether the AC unit goes on the roof or in the room, I don't know. I'm
not sure it matters. On the roof you don't have to wory about it taking up your
server room, but I'm sure you loose some efficiency due to distance. Ours is
*kind of* in the server room. It's on the raised floor, but seperated from the
machines by a "temporary wall". In the room, you'll have to make sure that the
unit isn't generating much heat or it will become counter productive.
Good luck... I hope you win. Let them know that static isn't the issue...
I've had experience working in both environments (a computer room with
raised floors and one without). I found the biggest advantage of raised
floors was not having to worry about stepping on cables. The other advantage
is like you said, it looks a lot better.
On the other hand, raised floors actually made cabling more difficult in
some situations because we would have to lay all the wires underneath.
Also, if there's a lot of wires, over time, it can easily become a tangled
mess.
In my current workplace, we decided not to go with raised floors because of
the price difference. I think it was a smart move because the computer
room isn't too large and we positioned the computers in such a way where
we could lay the cables on the floor where people don't travel much. Also,
we find ourselves actually going into the computer room since we login
remotely from our offices.
- Steven.
steven@hawaii.edu
Dave-
We've got raised floor, lots of it. And HVAC on the roof, with ducting
both ceiling and underfloor.
It depends on how much equipment you're gonna have. If it's just a
couple racks worth, it's probably not worth it. But if it's many
systems, and you also have networking gear in there, then raised
floor is a good thing. Aesthetics, yes, but safety for people and
equipment as well. No tripping over cables to cause injury, and
accidental unplugging of critical systems. Plus, it allows the
graveyard operators to keep their beer cool under the tiles.. :-)
Derek
Derek_Schatz@amat.com
Dave,
I'm assuming that you'll be running the cables under the raised floor. Tell him to include with his quote
having wire trays ran above the equipment. It will not look nearly as nice with the trays and visible cables hanging
from them either. Also, with the raised floor, the layout of the floor is much more easily changed later compared to
fixed trays with cables hanging from them..... Good luck.
Steve Lockhart
sdl@inet-systems.net
Hi Dave,
I don't have any hard and fast rules but maybe some other insights...
Dave Haut wrote:
> How many of you have raised floors in your computer rooms ??
We have a raised floor!
> In your minds, what are the advantages ?? ( To me it is
> flexibility of moving equipment around, astetics, easier to
> keep cleaner, some equipment MUST be installed on a raised floor ).
I think you are on the right track. I (personally) would rather push a dry mop than drag an industrial weight
vacuums. Spilling something on a hard surface versus a carpeted surface is pretty straight forward... After a year
or so the carpeting is going to start looking pretty bad. ;)
Both options need to have the operational costs outlined. No matter how well a carpet is cleaned you *never* get
_all_ of the dirt and/or stains removed. And what about the steel casters or wheels going over the carpet and
ripping the heck out of it? What I'm getting at is it's not just the initial investment in the carpet but also the
ongoing replacement. :(
We really like the flexibility of putting "vent tiles" right under the piece of equipment. :) A lot of the systems
I work with have muffin fans throughout the box and draw air from the floor over the components and vent out the
top. Typically your return vents are near the ceiling because, well, it's a physics thing hot air rises. ;)
> Anybody have cost comparisons for air conditioning units that
> are inside a computer room vs on the roof ?? The roof unit that
> this guy wants to put in is a 15-ton unit.
My father in-law is an HVAC engineer and he rarely spec.'s a unit on the roof. Primarily because they're so darn
inconvenient to work on and you have to get a crane to install/replace them. HVAC tech's. are like anyone else if
they don't have to climb a ladder to do there work all the better.
Later.
Joel
jdwhite@chicago.avenew.com
Quick overview:
I'm a UNIX consultant, and I've seen well over a dozon datacenters. Other
consultants that I know have seen probably 100+. The datacenters that I've
worked in are generally for large enterprises, with UNIX systems ranging
the entire spectrum (ie, Sun Ultra 1 up to Sun Enterprise 6k and similar
systems from other vendors).
I've seen raised floors that range from small, portable build-it-yourself
6'x6' floors, to raised floors that cover (almost) entire floors of
high-rise buildings. I generally work in the latter environment, so may
views will be skewed a little bit.
Dave Haut wrote:
> How many of you have raised floors in your computer rooms ??
I've seen 12+ raised floor datacenters. People that I know have
seen 100+.
> In your minds, what are the advantages ?? ( To me it is
> flexibility of moving equipment around, astetics, easier to
> keep cleaner, some equipment MUST be installed on a raised floor ).
If you are on the ground floor, the raised floor can give you some
protection and early warning against floods. You may not be able
to protect your cables and what not below the raised floor, but you
can help protect the large investment in your computer systems. Also,
I've heard of pipes bursting in the ceiling of the floor below a
computer room before, so even if you aren't on the ground floor
floods are still a possibility.
It is easy to run the multitude of cables that datacenter computers
need, including CAT5 & friends, power, etc. under a raised floor. In
my experience, when I need to run cable, I pull a tile, and toss the
cable closer to its destination, replace the tile, and repeat. I
assume that when using anti-static carpet that cables will be run
above the equipment, possibly in cable "trays." Running power cables
above the machines would be quite odd, IMHO, especially for larger
machines that require high-amperage 220V circuits. Also, most larger
systems (like Sun Enterprise 250, 450, and esp. 3000, 4000, etc..)
have cable management and power cables at the bottom of the unit.
> How many of you have anti-stat carpet in your computer room ??
I've seen 0, and I've heard of 0.
- djg
Daniel J. Gregor, Jr., <dj@gregor.com>
> How many of you have raised floors in your computer rooms ??
We have raised floors in both our computer rooms
> In your minds, what are the advantages ?? ( To me it is
> flexibility of moving equipment around, astetics, easier to
> keep cleaner, some equipment MUST be installed on a raised floor ).
Much more flexible, easier to organize the masses of cables in trays
underneath. We can easily modify airflow patterns to customize cooling
by simply switching tiles from not vented to vented, etc.
Downside was the earthquake mounts for the UPS's - had to go from
the concrete floor up to meet the UPS's.
> How many of you have anti-stat carpet in your computer room ??
None here
> Do you have any regrets ?? What don't you like about it ??
>
> Anybody have cost comparisons for air conditioning units that
> are inside a computer room vs on the roof ?? The roof unit that
> this guy wants to put in is a 15-ton unit.
We just recently compared 25 (?) ton aircon units both roof
and room mounted - the room mounted was *much* cheaper. In
addition, having it running in the room is noisier, but allows
us (who care the most) to notice when it needs new belts, it
having problems, etc. By contrast, our roof mounted aircon
units for general building ventilation units never get noticed
until they actually smoke.. I knoe we have caught some immenent
problems with the aircon in the server room.
> Thanks for the help and I will summarize.
>
> Dave
Good luck
Mark
Mark Fromm - Unix/E-Mail/Internet Systems Engineer
mfromm@physio-control.com
About every real machine room I have worked in has been a raised floor
environment (including the one I am in now). The benefits are cable
management, better cooling, etc. Carpet is a REALLY bas idea - have you
ever rolled a heavy piece of equipment accross carpet? Also, antistat
carpet has to be re-treated regularly or it looses it's antistat
capabilites, then you just have carpet. Simply put, raised floor is the
professional and correct way to do it.
As far as cooling capability, the size of the handler/ton rating should be
based on your environment (how hot does it get outside) and what is the
heat load your equipment put out (BTU's or watts) Computers convert almost
all electrical energy to heat.
Chris
Chris Liljenstolpe
cds@mcmurdo.gov
> How many of you have raised floors in your computer rooms ??
We have a six-inch raised floor in the computer room. Any higher, and
code requires fire suppression equipment, which raises costs. As it
it, there are already ionization detectors under the floor.
> In your minds, what are the advantages ?? ( To me it is
> flexibility of moving equipment around, astetics, easier to
> keep cleaner, some equipment MUST be installed on a raised floor ).
You can hide all the cables under the floor, or you can drape them overhead
(they'll need to be longer, too).
> How many of you have anti-stat carpet in your computer room ??
Nope. Extra friction for cabinet wheels.
We have a lab next door to the computer room in which we assemble and
configure workstations and PCs. It originally was carpeted. We had
it changed to tile.
I have seen carpeted-tile raised floor computer rooms. The tile lifter
is a different tool, with teeth, rather than the two suction-cups with
a handle tool that was designed for handling plate glass. (I have twice
as many of those as I need, actually, because we stole the ones from
the building we moved out of before we bought new ones for where we
moved into...)
> Do you have any regrets ?? What don't you like about it ??
If we had more underfloor wiring to deal with, I'd have liked a 12-inch
floor better. As it is, the thickest part is in front of the ethernet
switch, where all the 10Base-T cables dive under the floor. Everywhere
else is pretty sparse.
> Anybody have cost comparisons for air conditioning units that
> are inside a computer room vs on the roof ?? The roof unit that
> this guy wants to put in is a 15-ton unit.
We have a large unit inside the machjne room. I don't know the tonnage.
-- Jeff Woolsey woolsey@jlw.comI had the same battle with my last computer room install... and lost The roof AC broke and when it did work was too little, or leaked into the computer room. We now run the room with the doors wide open and have fans placed liberally around the room.... really great for physical security!
Similar problems with power and wiring. The cabling is all run in overhead trays. a mess at best. If you move stuff where there are no trays, you get wires to trip over.
> > So now I have to go battle this person in front of management > to get my raised floor. My question is ( finally ): > > How many of you have raised floors in your computer rooms ?? > > In your minds, what are the advantages ?? ( To me it is > flexibility of moving equipment around, astetics, easier to > keep cleaner, some equipment MUST be installed on a raised floor ). > > How many of you have anti-stat carpet in your computer room ??
At my last employer, we had a raised floor in which the panels were either anti-static carpet OR they were treated static conductive tiles (ie 1-2 MOhm per foot.....)
> > Do you have any regrets ?? What don't you like about it ?? > > Anybody have cost comparisons for air conditioning units that > are inside a computer room vs on the roof ?? The roof unit that > this guy wants to put in is a 15-ton unit.
Based on this experience, I would never do roof AC again. Also you want to _over spec_ the backup power and make sure there are plenty of quad-plugs with _long_ tails under the floor (the long tails allow you to move the power circuits where you need them) One of the biggest problems I ran into was that "my person" refused to listen to my power requirements and 1 week after the install with about 50% of my servers installed the backup power system was operating at 75% load. In the end we had about 4 minutes of up-time during a power crisis. :/
mgo owens@xylan.com
Dave,
Go with the raised floor. It creates more dust and is more epensive but:
1. If cables are to be on the floor then you risk people tripping over them and it will happen. 2. If in the roof you have to worry about interference generated by electrical wiring which means all cable will need to be encased in an isulating conduit. This, as machines are moved, becomes much more expensive. This does not address the issue of moving data cables around live wires. 3. Air flow and cooling really needs to get under the machines to be effictive. Talk to any of the air-conditioning companies for a long description and reasons.
These are my three top reasons. You can easily flesh out more around this. I have used this as my starting point in the past so it should help you.
Good luck, David Evans djevans@au.oracle.com
Hi Dave,
I just installed a computer room for our unix systems. And the gentlemen building the room is correct, a raised floor is more expensive than just carpet. However the benefits of a raised floor I feel outweigh the cost in the long run. I don't know how much my floor cost (different budget) but your figure sound similar to what we paid.
With the amount of change that goes on during the course of a computer rooms life a raised floor allows the change without the visible signs.
Cabling is a requirement of a computer room. Where does this gentlement invision running the cables that will connect the computers as well as connect to all the users that need to use them.
Cabling is a very messy procpect at best. I'm convinced that there is no easy way to cable neatly. A raised floor will help in this matter by hiding the cable (its still kind of messy under there but you only see it when you move equipment).
As far as the AC I really didn't have to worry to much about that since my computer room is off of the main computer room. I have a dedicated unit on the other side of the wall forcing air under the floor. The advantage to under the floor AC is that you can eaaily redirect the AC to where you want it based on the needs of the equipment.
As far as equipment goes I'm not sure where we got our racks but our furniture came from NetCom3 www.edp-usa.com. Its not as nice as wright line but its about a third of the cost and looks pretty good. Some ran off with my floor brochure but I have one from EDP Floors in Timonium, MD (301) 252-4423.
I really think you should persue the raised floor and plenum AC under it. I beleive that doins so will add to the flexibility and usability of the room and give it a longer life. Plus you won't have cables everywhere which might be an OSHA hazard :)
------------------------------------------ Chuck Duerson chuck@duerson.com
I have raised floor & it's great. One benefit you didn't mention is the wiring. We run all our cables under the floor in troughs which makes for easier cabling than through a drop ceiling and no tripping on them if run on conduit on the floor. Michael mcook@uswest.com
Hey,
We have a 12" raised floor in a computer room 55' by 30'. The room holds modems, an impact printer, laser printers, by my estimate 40+ computers (some refrigerator-sized), a PDS, a UPS, and air conditioners by one wall. In short, some really huge shit. But it's all here. With such a wide range of equipment and all the peripheral racks, cables, and power supplies, I can't imagine anything but a raised floor. It's not a convenience (something this guy is sure to label it), it's a necessity. Here's some good points.
1. Simple Physics - moving air underneath the floor is better; hot air rises. This guy is truly a moron if he thinks he can cool a room better from the top than the bottom. Plus, the power and data cables _need_ to be cool as well, it makes better sense to arrange them neatly under the floor and provide them with the coolest air at the same time.
2. Cleanliness - a clean area will preserve the integrity of the equipment. You can mop a tile floor, replace individual tiles, and easily fuck up a carpet. I sure wouldn't want a moldy carpet underneath a $90,000 computer. And the smell of an old carpet (like the one in my office :)) is just wrong.
3. Moving - it's much better to move a VAX around on a tile floor, you're less likely to drop it.
4. Modulation - a raised floor is typically mudular. Flexibility in the computer room is essential since virtually every piece of equipment will be gone after ten years and the room needs to be able to accomodate that. You don't want _anything_ unforgiving or permanent in the computer room except the walls, vents, and fire extinguisher. What happens when you need to replace the carpet? Everything goes down and gets moved out for three days?? Just saying "replacing the carpet in the computer room" sounds terrible. Replacing a single tile is the way to go.
The one thing I've found that's wrong with our floor is that the laminate on the tiles will sometimes shear off as one lifts it with the suction handle. No big deal, super glue fixes that.
Oh, and if you're on the second floor or higher, I'd put in a dumbwaiter. We have one here and it's the coolest little thing.
Good luck to you!!
-adam unix/nt sysadmin university of denver adam@du.edu
Dave, Raised floor definetly! The cold air pushes the hot air pumped out by equipment to the ceiling, period! Also, what is going to support a fifteen-ton unit on the roof? Also, ask him why in God's name would you want to push hot air down onto already hot equipment?! A plus in your favor: Get the HVAC technician/contractor in and make the point for you. We have raised floor. Electro static carpet is fine for office areas but not computer rooms. Idiots like that should be shot! Regards and Good Luck, Denny email: dkeller@ddc.dla.mil
I can't tell you much, but I work on a raised floor and think it's grand. We have about $1 billion of hardware on the floor so for us the point is moot, but the raised floor helps us cable and power the devices easily and without cabling "adventures". The floor is anti-stat, but not carpeted. I can't see anyone who is installing a med-large server room doign anything but a raised floor. it's just so much easier to service.
Mike Evans <mevans@inficad.com>
> How many of you have raised floors in your computer rooms ?? > > In your minds, what are the advantages ?? ( To me it is > flexibility of moving equipment around, astetics, easier to > keep cleaner, some equipment MUST be installed on a raised floor ).
We have a raised floor in our main computer room here, at Florida Community College at Jacksonville (FCCJ). We have a mainframe, MANY MANY NT and Netware based servers, some Sun's and some other systems running SCO and Linux. The main advantage I see is for manageability. It is so much easier to be able to move equipment around, and to move around the equipment! Also, as far as cooling goes, raised floors are much better. Here's a prime example. We put just about everything on racks here. We got a new small row of systems that got racked, and the corner of the room that they were in were getting hot.. so, we just pulled up a floor panel and put a vent there. If we had a ceiling based air unit, we'd have to have a contractor come out and redo the air ducts, which costs $$$!
Another problem computer rooms face is power outlet shortages and bad placement. With raised floors, you can easily get power to where you need it, without tearing everything up to rewire!
I would have to think that the continued operating cost is much much lower for the raised floors. Also, the guy proposing the antistatic carpet is missing the entire point of the raised floors!
Good luck! Hope you get your raised floors!
dstringf@fccjmail.fccj.cc.fl.us
>How many of you have raised floors in your computer rooms ??
==== count me in --suspended ceilings too
>In your minds, what are the advantages ?? ( To me it is >flexibility of moving equipment around, astetics, easier to >keep cleaner, some equipment MUST be installed on a raised floor ).
==== does the carpet guy guarantee that the carpet tiles or carpet will stay static free no matter what? Or is he just offering an antistatic coating? What about fluff coming off of the carpet? How will you stop heavy kit becoming bedded down on carpet and proving harder to move (even on castors).
vinyl[?] tiles are infinitely better than carpet for clean computer rooms for the reasons that you allude to.
>How many of you have anti-stat carpet in your computer room ??
no. We let the developers have their test racks in caroeted areas, but the heavy stuff stays in a vinyl tiled room
>Do you have any regrets ?? What don't you like about it ?? > >Anybody have cost comparisons for air conditioning units that >are inside a computer room vs on the roof ?? The roof unit that >this guy wants to put in is a 15-ton unit. > >Thanks for the help and I will summarize. > >Dave
=== good luck, i hope you get a good solution. SG@datcon.co.uk
Hi Dave,
I worked in both environments, with and without raised floor. Currently in my computer room (pretty small one) I have no raised floor, and have no problems so far. In my mind the absense of the false floor brings a lot of problems with cabling unless your computer room is as small as your bathroom ( like mine now :-), and you have all computers lined up against the walls.
I saw several places with floor mounted aircon. There were two systems. One with individual feeds for each computer (you loose an ability to move the equipment around). Another one - with common air feed under the raised floor. I'd say that both of them are pretty good dust collectors. You better have air filters if you do not have individual feeds.
In addition to that, warm air, as we know tend to go up, so having aircon on the ceiling is a good idea. Otherwise you have to blow cold air very hard.
If I had money, I'd set up both, aircon on the ceiling and raised floor, which makes all cable connections much-much easier.
I am afraid, I have not improved your position very much.
We've got a raised floor and wouldn't want to live without it. To me the primary advantages are
1) Reconfigurability (although this is a bit overrated since power cables and data cables tend to be "cut to length").
2) No power cables to trip over; they're under the floor.
3) No data cables to trip over; they're under the floor.
4) Things are easier to clean since the cables aren't in the way. (We damp- mop the floors to keep the dust under control. Mind you, it does get under the floor and you cannot clean it out from there.)
But the disadvantage almost match. If you let it "build up" then recovering cable from under the floor is a problem. And to really make use of underfloor power cables, you need a power distribution box in the machine room; outlets in the wall just aren't enough. And 10baseT cables under the floor are a real pain to pull out.
>> Anybody have cost comparisons for air conditioning units that >> are inside a computer room vs on the roof ?? The roof unit that >> this guy wants to put in is a 15-ton unit.
No cost comparisions but I'll point out that even in-room air conditioning systems need chillers on the roof or some way to vent the warm air... We've got a big Air Conditioning unit in the machine room that pushes air under the floor but the chillers (heat exchangers) are on the roof. Mind you, we overplanned.
If your machine room is expected to hold large numbers of "large" machines, then a raised floor is a good idea. But if your room isn't that large, just going with tile floors is as good as anti-static carpet. Except for the mess. (It's a personal thing but I really hate carpet in conjunction with computers. The idea of having to run a vacuum in the same room as my computers scares me.)
-- magi David Wiseman, Network Manager e-mail: magi@csd.uwo.ca
Dave, The raised floor is really the only thing that I have seen at customer installations. Several advantages from my point of view are:
1) Easier to add more equipment as power and network cabling can be run underneath the floor fairly simple.
2) If you plan to buy the equipment that is a must for raised floor, then you have no choice.
3) I'll repeat the one that you have for keeping it clean.
The only disadvantage that I can see to the raised floor is that they are always very noisy with the air conditioning unit right there. If you plan to do work directly in the computer room instead of from remote terminals, than this might be a consideration. You might want to see if there is a way to keep the raised floor and cut down on the noise.
Hope this helps, Marco Greene cmgreene@netcom.ca
Just have some comments that are not very well organized:
Get the raised floor. One of my clients got a deal on raised floor and bought it used. This worked out very well and cost a fraction of the cost of a new floor.
Never tried anti-static carpet. The dust, fumes etc. given off my carpet is not appropriate in a computer room with air being blown all over the place.
A/C: You must use some kind of split unit - right? I would recommend the type that heats water and you move the hot water out of the computer room. You can throw out the hot water, or recycle it via a chiller type system. Consider a backup glycol (?? spelling) based unit with lower capacity. Also install a temp/monitoring device: I recommend the site monitor product from Liebert (19" rack mount, SNMP, ethernet, serial, temp sensor inputs, uncomitted inputs/outputs - prefers to be attached to a Leibert Unit).
One other product your *must* checkout:
Abstract: DataPad. Network Protection. Uninterruptible Power Supply, Conditioning And Distribution. Why Leave Protection Behind. When You Can Put It Below?. Computer and Network Protection In A Flexible Footprint Modular Computer Support System Undersurface Protection Air Conditioning and Filtration Uninte.....
http://www.liebert.com/products/english/products/netpwrpr/datapad/60hz/bro_16pg/html/sl_16000.asp
One of the biggest problems I've seen first hand in computer rooms is cooling. Even if you get the "good stuff" you still have to rely on the people who install it to do a good job and look after the details. This type of help is very very scarce in the HVAC industry, where anyone with a wrench, uniform with their name on it, becomes an instant A/C Expert! Sorry to generalize, and I know that there are exceptions, but this is going to be your biggest problem with building a reliable computer room.
I've seen more A/C installations screwed up... and the problems/failures (where the A/C stops working) are a result of sloppy work during the installation. The real problem is that they don't become obvious until the cooling equipment fails for the first time!
OK: Here is an example: Computer room has aging split system with a glycol based backup system. Due to the age of the "main" system, it is assumed that it will fail, but the backup unit will come online.
Failure Scenario: Main A/C fails after power bounces a couple of times (typical failure mode), computer room goes on backup/diesel power, Backup A/C unit comes online and goes offline after about 2 minutes. Why? A/C contractor installed a condensation collector "bucket" on a cooling pipe with a small sump pump and a limit switch when the bucket was full. The bucket was nearly full, sump pump was not wired to go over to backup power, the bucket fills up and shuts down the backup A/C. Needless to say, no-one knew about the bucket, where it was etc. (its in the ceiling over a corridor!) There was no indicator to show the state of the limit switch. Failure modes were never considered. System was a typical addon after the initial installation ("Hey, this pipe is dripping water...").
Let me know if you find this useful. The Liebert DataPad is a really excellent solution. Let me know if you decide to use it.
Al Hopper Logical Approach Inc, Plano, TX. al@logical-approach.com
The best thing about raised floor....you'll never lose a computer system from heat shock. Air is consistently moving. The ceiling and walls(sometimes) are the return plenums the supply is from the floor. Liebert makes a respectable computer room AC.
1) For Phone Systems, I heard that some PBXs have thermostats inside so if the internal temperature rises to above a 80F then the switch goes out of service or the warranty is voided by the manufacture.
2) Adding cooling ducts above the ceiling requires an AC guy to work new ducts into the ceiling.
3) Adding cooling vents to a raised floor any operator can move the vented floor panels around. As you computer room floor plan grows or (especially) changes is the potential savings in cost.
4) I would recommend two 10ton AC units because if one fails (they always do) or a need Preventative maintenance would reduce your AC capacity to one or NONE.
5) Carpet is nice but only for raised floor NOCs in my view. Computer rooms should be flooring, carpet holds most of the dust and dirt. If there is every any drywalling done the computers will eventually find it and suck it onto their boards.
\\\\\\ Ralph A Cumberland mailto: cumberlandr@eci4value.com
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