Datacentre Build – Progress Update 3
As we move into the second week of February, the build has now been going on for over ten weeks during which time the site has changed drastically.
The mezzanine floor has been erected and work has started to create the first data hall underneath this space. What was once an empty factory is now starting to resemble the technical space that will eventually become our newest flagship datacentre.
What has been happening?
Our dry air coolers have this week arrived from Europe, whilst we wanted to use British manufacturers as much as possible in the fit out of our new site however due to time constraints we have had sourced these units from Italy. We have opted for a cooling design that brings no external air into our facility, as whilst PuE figures of so called “adiabatic” or “evaporative” cooling solutions are impressive we are yet to see any effective filtration for these type of cooling systems.
We are expecting four lorrys to arrive from Italy with our mechanical cooling this week. This first lorry contains five of the dry air coolers that will be installed outside of the datahalls.
The first of the dry air coolers have been lifted onto the first floor and are awaiting unpackaging and final positioning. Each cooler has a peak airflow of 71,280 m3/hour and ten of these are being installed in the initial fit out.
Each cooler has a dry weight of 819kg and will be connected via chilled water loop to the air handling units sitting within the datahall.
The underside of the newly installed mezzanine floor being lined with the first layer of fire boarding, whilst providing a fire rating for the datahall area the boarding also provides a completely flat surface to ensure air returning to the air handling units can do so with the least resistance and as efficiently as possible.
Taping and jointing to the dry lining boards underneath the mezzanine floor has now been completed and we have taken delivery of the air handling units that will eventually be connected to the dry air coolers via pipework carrying chilled water. Each air handling unit is capable of cooling 80kw of IT load and we have ten units being installed.
Each air handling unit sits on a pedestal base to bring it inline with the raised flooring system to be installed. The air handling units will discharge cold air into a void under the computer room flooring with return air being drawn into the top of the units.
What's next?
At the time of writing the first of the air handling units is being positioned on its base and we expect all of these to be in position by the end of next week. Work is starting on fitting out first floor offices, storage rooms and customer rest areas.
The internal walls of the first data hall are being constructed using fire rated “isoclad” metal faced partitions that provide up to 2 hours fire protection and we expect the first of these panels to start being erected next week.
Thanks to all those who took part in the #findfrank competition in in our last update and congratulations to all those that won! The winners were randomly picked from all those who made submissions.
We have extended the competition for this update and hidden Frank in three of the images below! If you happen to notice Frank please tweet us @fractionservers to be in with your chance to win one of our great prizes!