Hot Aisle/Cold Aisle

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What Does Hot Aisle/Cold Aisle Mean?

Hot aisle/cold aisle refers to a layout design especially for data warehouses where huge servers and computing equipment are kept and data is stored. The purpose of the hot aisle/cold aisle scheme is to manage air flow in data centers, consequently lowering the energy, cooling and management cost inside data centers.

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Techopedia Explains Hot Aisle/Cold Aisle

The number one cost of data warehouses is the physical cooling of the building, so the hot aisle/cold aisle idea was proposed to decrease the energy and cost involved in management of servers' temperature in data centers. The most basic form of a hot aisle/cold aisle setup consists of server racks placed alternatively with cold or hot air sources placed in between. The arrangement is such that cold air intake is facing one way, while hot air exhaust is on the other side of the server rack. Other equipment is available such as blowers and chillers to increase efficiency and avoid the mixing of the different temperatures of air.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.