Equipping a new server room, the building services consultant wants to know how much cooling he'll need to add to the room. So, he asked me for the heat output of the equipment and the temperature it should be kept at. The new video server, encoders, switches, display drivers, etc. give a total of 5,000W electrical power. The cooling designer says (rule of thumb: 50%) that this means 2500W of heat into the room. Does that ring true?
He is a cooling designer. I'm not, so I bow to his greater knowledge. Nonetheless, my ancient & rusty degree in physics give me the following idea:
energy in = energy out. (per second, gives power)
Electrical power in = power as heat + sound + light + kinetic + potential energy.
So, does his rule of thumb mean here that 2500W is being turned into heat, and the remaining 2500W is becoming sound, light and movement? If so, that's going to be a dangerous rack to stand near!
All I can imagine in the server rack are spinning HDDs, humming fans, flashing LEDs. Those surely don't take 2500W, so is more than 50% turning into heat? After all, billions of switching transistors do get rather hot.
Regards,
Simon