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dannywlast Saturday at 4:23 AM3 repliesview on HN

It’s more than power supply. Cooling and ventilation becomes a MUCH bigger deal at rack scale, and that costs electricity too.


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bayindirhlast Saturday at 1:43 PM

With liquid cooling technologies (direct or rear door heat exchange), cooling efficiently is easier when compared to a decade ago, and it's pretty efficient when you compare the power consumption numbers (server total vs. cooling total).

See PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) for its scientific form.

thereisnosporklast Saturday at 6:00 AM

Cooling demand is only fractional with respect to the load: cooling 1MW of heat will only cost a few 10's to low 100's of kW, depending on the specifics. 10-20% overhead on cooling is probably a close enough estimate for napkin math.

psychoslavelast Saturday at 6:11 AM

And datacenters have impact on everything around them. If at the end of the day to result is a few more yachts and jets and, a lot more of miserable humans starving in ruined ecosystems, maybe that’s not the best go-to direction.

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