Inergen release associated with acute hard drive failure rate. What effect causes the damage?
From at least three incidents in different parts of the world over the last two years, it is clear that Inergen fire suppression release, whether event driven or maintenance misshap; causes some effect that kills hard drives. Who has done testing to determine what effect is at fault? The agent itself is inert and very close to the composition of sea-level air in specific gravity. Is it the hundreds of PSI discharge? Pressure wave or sound wave? Is it eruption under a raised floor causing a seismic like event? Are jets of product rattling drives in their cases?
Software/Hardware used:
Inergen
I am mildly interested in educated opinions, but what I'd really like to know is if someone has tested the effects in a scientific manner to determine what effect or combination of effects must be mitigated to avoid HDD damage during an Inergen discharge.
Software/Hardware used:
Inergen
ASKED:
March 30, 2010 2:54 PM
UPDATED:
October 4, 2010 9:01 PM
Answer Wiki:
Just came across this white paper from Siemens. It seems to be well done for testing pressure vs sound effects on HDDs.
<pre>
http://www.buildingtechnologies.siemens.com/bt/global/en/solutions_services/our_offering/fire_safety/Fire_Extinguishing/Documents/White%20Paper%20potential%20problems%20with%20computer%20hard%20disks%20V1.1.pdf
</pre>
Unfortunately, that URL doesn't work (at least in the USA) -- it gets redirected to a Siemens home page, and searching the site doesn't find the referenced white paper either.
Care to summarize the paper?
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Can’t seem to get this link to work. Is anyone able to check it please?
Here’s the correct link:
Potential problems with computer hard disks when fire
extinguishing systems are released
The Siemens White Paper is no longer valid, it was until july 31. But the tests indicated that various HDD fail after exposure to noise above 120dB. This noise level is reached during fire extinguishing by either Inergen or other extinguishing gas. Also the sound level of the alarms should be added to the source of noise.
I was a data center manager at a company which also had Inergen. I would be surprised if the pressure increase caused the disks to fail. If the room is correctly designed, with louvers of the correct size, the pressure will only increase slightly. We shared a 12 floor building with other clients. The management of the building would perform yearly maintenance over a holiday weekend which required a shutdown of our data center. After 10 years of annual shutdown, It was not uncommon for disks, power supplies, etc, which had been working OK, to be bad when the systems were brought back up. I think this is the more likely answer.