Update

It's been a long time since we updated this blog, sorry for the delay.

We've been successfully cooling our data center using cool mountain air since November of 2008. During the Fall and Winter months, our savings are averaging about $1600 a month on a $5000 total bill. (would be $6600+).

Unlike some naysayers who warned of mass hard disk failure and 5" of dust in the servers, we've had nothing but smooth sailing.

One thing we did notice when trying to gain some media attention was that nobody really cared about cooling with outside air. Colorado's Governor Ridder's office initially showed interest and even mentioned they might want to come visit but quickly ignored my reminder emails when sexier projects that cost more and provide a greatly reduced payback such as solar surfaced.

Even though you hear of more and more data centers looking towards this option, you will never see any elected official using our facility for a photo-op because I guess there isn't much to show.

We are still very proud of what we've accomplished here and will continue to realize the tremendous advantages using an air-side economizer to cool our data center.

Thanks for all that have been following our project, please continue to contact us with questions.

-Tom Nats
Managing Partner
Red Rocks Data Center