– Maarten Van Laere, CEO at ServersCheck (www.serverscheck.com), says:
Relative Humidity in server rooms should range between 45% to 65% rH. Why? When below 45% rH, the humidity level in a room is too low. When humidity is low then static electricity starts building up. The lower the more. Just touching equipment can go as far as blowing up the system by provoking and electrostatic discharge (ESD). Above 65% rH water in the air starts to deposit and will cause corrosion. As humidity is in the air, it also enters into the system. Corrosion is something building up slowly and can cause permanent damage to the hardware.
While relative humidity monitoring is something people know about water is a different story. Water is something very few people monitor. Water damage is a dangerous one as most computer rooms have raised floors. As such it is not clearly visible when water infiltrates the room. Where can the water come from except from natural disasters? Most often it comes from leaking AC units. One would be surprised to find water pipes running through computer rooms. Last but not least rooms above the computer room can have a water leak and as water goes to the lowest point, it can infiltrate through openings into the computer room.
On our website we have a server room planner that allows one to draw his own server room and get an idea of the sensors he might need for his server room. Educating the market of the risks is a challenging task and I am glad that your publication wants to bring it to the public’s attention.
