OPENXTRA Environmental Monitoring Solutions

Recommended Server Room Temperature

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An exploration of the recommended server room temperature and the issues surrounding maintaining the recommended temperature. Figuring out the right temperature to run your server room at can be tricky, you don't want to run the server room too hot and potentially damage equipment, but you don't want to run it too cold and waste electricity and therefore money. Just what is the right temperature for a server room?

Server Room Temperature

Rack and Room Environment Monitors

Computer and networking equipment is designed to operate within a fairly narrow temperature range. To ensure reliable operation and the longest possible life from components you need to ensure that the temperature stays within that band.

Even a few degrees too hot can blow a server chip.

The cost of a catastrophic server failure can be considerable. Think how much money you would lose if your servers went down. There is the cost of replacement, but think also of lost e-commerce business, lost customer details, wasted staff time, and all the other associated costs.

What temperature is right?


How do you maintain the right temperature?

Purpose built server rooms are well insulated for fire precaution reasons and air conditioning is essential. In many companies however the maintenance of the air conditioning is separate from the running of the servers. If the air conditioning fails you might not be the first to know. You may even be the last.

Even if everything is working the temperature may fluctuate during the day, from season to season, and there is always the possibility of localized hot-spots around equipment giving off lots of heat.

Don’t be tempted to think that just because you have an air conditioning unit that is up to the job that you are safe. People working in the server room sometimes switch the air conditioning off and forget to turn it on again. Sometimes they leave doors open. Servers run hotter at some times of the day than at others, air conditioning systems sometimes run at lower power at night etc.

What if it’s night time, your air conditioning is running at low power, and your webserver suddenly starts to work hard because the west coast has woken up? Now your machine heats up and your air conditioning can’t cool it enough. Exactly this scenario has been know to happen. Many intermittent faults and slow downs can be traced to overheating.

Replacing old equipment can introduce a new set of problems. Newer machines run faster and often run hotter as well, increasing the burden on the air conditioning systems even more. If you’ve recently introduced new servers or modern switches, it might be time to examining your air conditioning unit to make sure it can still keep up.

Another thing to look out for is the scenario where you turn up the air conditioning unit during the day, in order to ensure the right environment in your server room, but then don’t switch it down during the night or weekends. During the day there might be a lot of activity into and out of the server room. The server room door being opened all of the time lets warmer air into the server room thus necessitating the air conditioning system to be turned up high. At night and at the weekend, without the same level of activity, you may be running up large energy bills for no reason.

How are you going to monitor the temperature?

You need to monitor the temperature in your server room all of the time, especially at night and weekends when nobody is around. A number of systems are available for this purpose, the Temperature Monitor range from OPENXTRA offer good products at reasonable prices. You need to measure temperatures at different points in the room to get an idea of where the hot spots might be. You need temperature measurement to be automated and reliable, so a network attached device is ideal. The device must support alarms, via a number of different methods like email or SMS. You should be able to set the system up and then be alerted when something is wrong.

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Please\\ tell about the

Please\\ tell about the humidity

טמפרטורה לחדר ובו נמצאים סויטשים

מה הטמפרטורה המומלצת לחדר ובו מספר של סויטשים ?

room temp

Will a generic thermometer to measure room temperature be enough to measure the room temp? thanks

Any thermometer will measure

Any thermometer will measure the ambient temperature of the room. What it will not do is Alert you or indicate trends or log data.

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What will be ideal temp and RH range for industrial server room.


i would like to know what tempreature settings are 1-5 on the ras-c2 valve 1 = .....
2 = .....
3 = ..... up to 5as i am finding the room still to hot at 3

New to server, seeks help!!


I am going to purchase 1 IBM X3200 M3 Server (my ERP co. suggest) for my garment export unit. So, pls let me know:
1) what is the ideal size of a server room (for 1 server)in feets ?
2) AC is required for 1 server for cooling??
3) Is genuine windows server operating system is required to run ERP properly?

Khurana Exports

iformation regarding server room

nice one

Recommended Humidity rate for Server room

What would you recommend as the ideal humidity percentage for a server room running 2 ML 370 servers 24/7


good article

Thanks for posting this - it's just the info I was looking for.

my server room temprature


I have installed 1.5 ton AC in my server room and i have 6 HP prolient server running 24*7 is that cooling is sufficient, my server room size is 5 feet * 3 feet, please suggest me, Thanks, Saorabh Kumar, Pantani Software, Bangalore.

my server room temprature

Yes dear it is sufficient

a refrigeration ton unit can

a refrigeration ton unit can move 3500W of heat out of the room, you make the math. You don't want to be so close to the maximum unit power, you need to be closer to 50%.

Temperature Monitoring

I am a new comer to your products. I am doing fire suppression system for server room in Malaysia. I have got an enquiry to incorporate a temperature monitoring device together with the fire suppression system panel. I got another device which can only accept dry contact input.
Does your temperature monitoring device have dry contact output? Which are the areas to install the temperature monitoring device? Can it be install at the ceiling? What is the coverage area of a temperature monitoring device?

Thank You.
Raymond Chiew


The AKCP range of products support dry contact output. You can install the none-rack mount devices pretty well anywhere so long as you attach them successfully to the ceiling or wall near the ceiling. A single temperature probe will measure the temperature in a single place so to gain a broader idea of the temperature in a number of different places you would typically need a number of temperature probes. It is usual to measure the temperature in the cold isle rather than the warm isle as the air in the cold isle will form the input air for your servers and other equipement. The hot aisle typically will be exhaled to the atmosphere or go through the air conditioner to be re-cooled so its temperature isn't very important.


what IOS standart regulation this recomended temperature


Thanks for this information

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