What is the correct temperature for a server room?
Solution 1:
Recommendations on server room temperature vary greatly.
This guide says that:
General recommendations suggest that you should not go below 10°C (50°F) or above 28°C (82°F). Although this seems a wide range these are the extremes and it is far more common to keep the ambient temperature around 20-21°C (68-71°F). For a variety of reasons this can sometimes be a tall order.
This discussion on Slashdot has a variety of answers but most of them within the range quoted above.
Update: As others have commented below Google recommends 26.7°C (80°F) for data centres.
Also the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) has recently updated their recommended tempature range to be from 18°C-27°C (64.4°F-80.6°F).
However this article agains highlights that there is still no consensus on the subject. As mentioned in the article I would highlight that:
...nudging the thermostat higher may also leave less time to recover from a cooling failure, and is only appropriate for companies with a strong understanding of the cooling conditions in their facility.
IMO most companies would not have such a strong understanding of cooling conditions and thus it would be safer in a small business environment to be running the rooms a little cooler.
NB: It is important to note there are a lot more factors to consider in a server/data room than just the temperature, air flow & humidity for example are also important concerns.
Solution 2:
Google's datacenter best practices recommends 80 degrees:
Raising the cold aisle temperature will reduce facility energy use. Don't try to run your cold aisle at 70F; set the temperature at 80F or higher -- virtually all equipment manufacturers allow this.
We run at 72, but then again I don't exactly trust our own room was designed with airflow in mind.
Solution 3:
As others have said, somewhere in the low 70's F is good. However, it's even more critical to make sure the rack and the hardware in it can "breathe". If hot air is trapped in the rack - or in a server chassis - then the low ambient temperature won't really do any good.
Solution 4:
My server room is set to 69 degrees. We have one air conditioning unit that services that room and it runs 24/7 to keep the room at 69 degrees year round.
Solution 5:
All server rooms I've seen usually are between 20°C and 25°C but from experience I've noticed hardware is more sensitive to variations more than a given temperature. I've often seen hardware fail after a bump of, say 4-5°C, even if it is from 20 to 25.
So stability is a key, as well as air flow of course.