Rack Mounting a Server with hot air vents on the top?

We just got a couple of HP DL360 G7's, and I notice it has vents on the top. More hot air seems to exit through these vents than it does anywhere on the back. All our servers in the past have always vented all the hot air through the back.

How are these servers with top vents supposed to be mounted? Everyone always says airflow is best by not leaving gaps on the rack, but it seems like a server right on top of it would receive a lot of heat.

Solution 1:

I really wouldn't worry too much about this. The HP ProLiant DL360 G7 has a small series of perforations along the rear 7-8 inches of the chassis lid (see the center-left of the photo below). This is just to provide ventilation for the full-height and half-height PCIe slots in the system.

It's quite okay to stack these systems in a rack. Cold air is drawn-in from the front and exhausted out the rear of the chassis. ProLiant servers have a high thermal tolerance, so unless your systems are full of RAM + disks + PCIe cards and your ambient temperature is consistently over 85 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius), you're fine with the default BIOS setup. The system will adjust.

NOTE - if any of the aforementioned do apply, there is a BIOS option to enable "Increased Cooling" that will force a higher overall system fan speed.

DL380 G7 at top. Two DL360 G7 systems at the bottom

Solution 2:

Just follow the installation instructions, it's as simple as that. I know 380's way better than 360's but they can be stacked right on top of each other from the bottom to the top of a rack with no concerns so long as you follow th instructions and are within the rack's power/weight/cooling limits.