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Raised Floors May Not be Necessary in Modern Data Centers

One of the most common questions we hear when prospective customers tour 1102 GRAND collocation rooms is why we do not utilize raised floor systems throughout our facility. If we ask these people if that is important to them, they often answer “yes” although they are generally unable to detail the reasons why. It seems that many individuals just believe raised floors are a required component to all data centers, which is definitely not the case. While raised floor systems are installed in several data centers throughout our facility, many of our spaces are non-raised with specially designed anti-static floor coatings. In fact, raised floors are often not the standard in telecom facilities and there are many experts who believe they are unnecessary in modern data centers.

When raised floor systems were originally developed, they served several purposes including:

Establishing a plenum of cold air that could be distributed to cabinets via perforated tiles
Providing a pathway for electrical cabling
Providing a pathway for connectivity media (coax, fiber, copper, etc.)
Providing a pathway for condenser or chilled water lines
Providing the ability to ground equipment to the raised floor grid

After installing electrical and data cabling along with water lines under the floor, the air flow efficiency of the under-floor plenum is reduced (often significantly if operators are not careful) which is obviously counterproductive. Consequently, it is often recommended that raised floor spaces should be a minimum of 24” (36” recommended) in order to provide adequate cooling to today’s IT equipment. That is one of the reasons that many newer raised floor data centers utilize at least overhead data cabling and often cooling lines that are installed above the rack.

Proponents of raised flooring systems often tout the fact that raised floors can cool higher power densities, and I cannot argue that there is some truth to this if designed properly. With that said, physics also says that cool air drops rather than rising which favors an overhead cooling solution and placement is critical to the success of either raised or non-raised floor environments. Moreover, if a data center is not utilizing tools such as blanking panels which help prevent air mixing, it is entirely possible to have a non-raised floor data center outperform a raised floor space in terms of cooling efficiency.

There are also definite drawbacks to raised floor systems as well including the fact that they are more difficult to keep clean underneath, limits to the amount of air that can be forced through a perforated tile, and the fact that many raised flooring systems simply cannot handle the weight of today’s heavy racks when fully loaded. Unforeseen collapses have been well documented due to everything from too many tiles being removed at a given time to earthquakes.

Just being on a raised floor does not mean limitless cooling capabilities either. There are still limits to how much a raised floor data center can cool with traditional perimeter computer room air conditioners (CRACs). That is why many newer types of cooling solutions are becoming more common in higher density environments, and the majority of these active solutions do not require raised floor by design. So if anything, the trend is moving away from raised floor systems even in high power density environments.

So I guess my point is that there is so much more to consider than simply whether or not a data center has raised floor. With regard to flooring, prospective buyers need to evaluate and question several other elements including power and data cabling distribution, the height of the raised floor if they feel it is a requirement, the power density limits in comparison to the equipment they wish to install, etc. In closing, please remember that 1102 GRAND utilizes raised flooring systems and non-raised floor solutions. So I am certainly not an anti-raised floor person. I am, however, a major proponent of utilizing the correct solution and helping guide customers to the offering best suited for their particular application.

By Darren

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009 at 12:15 pm and is filed under raised floors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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