2 weeks Ago By Anthony Garreffa
HighPoint has just announced that its SSD7540 RAID AIC is now qualified to be used with LiquidCool Solutions' immersion-cooling rack servers as well as immersion-cooled server platforms in general. What does this mean? What's immersion cooling? Why does an SSD RAID AIC need that? Immersion cooling is a style of liquid cooling that submerges either most, or the entire PC in a non-conductive liquid, usually mineral oil. This is for aesthetics and sometimes, cooling efficiency, and sometimes both.
In the data center business, where there will be multiple fully-decked systems stacked on top of one another, immersion cooling becomes a savior in cooling servers. HighPoint's SSD7540 RAID AIC is the first to be submerged into the world of immersion cooling, so it'll be interesting to see a data center do this and show some results of the improvements using immersion-cooled RAID AICs with 8 x SSDs per card (and multiple of these cards installed, by the way). Proposed Solution: Immersion Cooled Rack Server for Challenging Environments LiquidCool Solutions was contracted to develop a rack-server platform equipped with M.
2 NVMe RAID storage capable of performing optimally in a hot, dusty environment. The SSD7540 robust feature suite made it a compelling candidate for platform. However, the AIC was developed for conventional air-cooled environments, and had not been qualified for platforms designed to operate in extreme conditions.
Unlike a standard rack server, which relies on conventional cooling fans or liquid-cooled heat exchangers, and draws air from the working environment, the hardware componentry of an immersion server is fully submerged in an electrically non-conductive liquid within a sealed chassis. The proposed NVMe component would need to function flawlessly under these conditions. In order to determine the SSD7540's suitability for the customer environment, a series of rigorous I/O and file transfer tests were conducted using two test platforms; a control/baseline server that utilized a standard air-cooled chassis, and the customer's proposed immersion cooled platform.
The results of testing sessions were analyzed to determine the SSD7540's suitability for the customer environment, with a particular focus on hardware integrity and transfer capabilities. Fully Qualified for an Immersion Cooled Environment : SSD7540 proved fully capable of operating in the uniquely challenging server environment, and exhibited no signs of physical or performance degradation. M.
2 NVMe media hosted by the SSD7540 benefitted from the significantly improved thermal management and the AIC was able to maintain a high level of sustained transfer throughput under load in the liquid-cooled chassis. LiquidCool Solutions determined that the SSD7540 was the right tool for the job, and incorporated the AIC into finished solution, which has been successfully deployed in the field..
