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Shouting in the Datacenter (2008) [video]

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Re: Shouting in the Datacenter (2008) [video]

#22
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was once told by a datacenter operator that this is due to the pressure change when they pump the gas in and that we should plan on replacing all HDDs should the fire alarm go off. ...and I think it was Argon...

Thanks for jogging my memory! It was indeed Argon, not Halon, and the pressure issues that broke HDDs.

And the other comment made me google noise vs. pressure....

Looks like Siemens did an investigation and tested various parameters (pressure, noise, vibration) independently.

They point towards noise, not pressure. Really interesting as I am _sure_ I was told it is pressure. But that might be 100% wrong!

https://virz.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/2015-White-Paper-...

Re: Shouting in the Datacenter (2008) [video]

#23
post #17

Lol, this was brought up before... at least one time: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&query=tDacjrSCeq4&sort...

> Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it. Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag, please don't also comment that you did.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Shouting in the Datacenter (2008) [video]

#27
post #9

In case anyone needs to know, the shouter in question is none other than Brendan Gregg (of flame graph, eBPF, and Systems Performance fame). And the guy who took the video is Bryan Cantrill of Oxide Computer, DTrace, and Joyent.

I think Brendan is still peeved that this video is his most viewed video on Youtube even after all this time.

Yes, whilst he has given so many other valuable talks around systems profiling, etc..

I firmly believe that this [1] still should be hanging in every system administrators bedroom around.

https://www.brendangregg.com/Perf/linux_observability_tools....

Re: Shouting in the Datacenter (2008) [video]

#28
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for jogging my memory! It was indeed Argon, not Halon, and the pressure issues that broke HDDs.

And the other comment made me google noise vs. pressure.... Looks like Siemens did an investigation and tested various parameters (pressure, noise, vibration) independently. They point towards noise, not pressure. Really interesting as I am _sure_ I was told it is pressure. But that might be 100% wrong! https://virz.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/2015-White-Paper-...

Noise really is just pressure, with a high frequency time component.

Re: Shouting in the Datacenter (2008) [video]

#29
Pretty funny to see this video at the top of HN! My kids still think I'm an idiot for not having somehow parlayed the enduring popularity of this video into being a YouTuber -- despite my protestations that I was merely the videographer here. If anyone is curious about the video's origins, I had a fun conversation about it with Ben Sigelman a few years ago.[0]

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IYzD_NR0W4

Re: Shouting in the Datacenter (2008) [video]

#30

I wouldn't want to spend too much time in there without ear protection! Is it common for data centers to be this loud?

Yeah, the fan noise is that loud. You should use hearing protection in there, even when staying for a short amount of time. Though I have heard about some special DCs that use water cooling and as such can defer the noise away from the racks.
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