Liquid Cooling vs Air Cooling

When liquid cooling was first introduced in the 1970s, it was a clunky system that had a lot of mess and leaks and cost a fortune to set up. Because of this, air cooling became the primary method of air conditioning for data centers and computers. Air cooling at the time was more convenient than liquid cooling and more cost effective. Additionally, an air conditioning system could easily be retrofitted to also cool IT equipment.

However now the tables have turned, and liquid cooling is on the rise. With a 25% lower implementation cost, liquid cooling is now much more cost effective than air based cooling. Additionally, it is much more effective at keeping IT systems and computer rack servers cool.

Although air cooling is still popular today, it has some unfortunate ramifications. Air cooling has expensive maintenance, a high power consumption, and lots of parts that are prone to failure. Overall, using air cooling for computer rack servers leaves a massive carbon footprint.

Because of recent advances in liquid cooling technologies, liquid cooling now boasts easy maintenance and an affordable cost. Liquid cooling benefits become even more pronounced in high-density facilities with large computer rack servers and have a significantly smaller carbon footprint than air cooling.

Benefits of Liquid Cooling

Although it requires slightly more hardware for modular data centers to cool computer rack servers, liquid cooling has many benefits over air cooling. Even Google has opted into green cooling solutions recently. Some of the benefits include:

Improved Heat Absorption Rates: The heat absorption rates of liquids are much greater than air. A couple of gallons of water can absorb as much heat as it would take a significantly greater quantity of air.

Targeted Cooling: Liquid cooling is able to target cooling in specific areas that are nearly impossible to do with air.

Transportation of Heat: Liquid moves heat more effectively than air and can remove heat from all parts of the data center, maintaining the overall health of the system much better.

A Green System: Liquid cooling is much better for the environment. Because liquids are better at conducting and transporting heat away from systems and have higher absorption rates, less energy is required to keep the system running efficiently.