User Manual

A white paper issued by Siemens  September 2015

1 Disruptions to hard disk

drives caused by inert gas

extinguishing systems

Data centers are the indispensable backbone of today’s online society. The failure of a data center

causes significant problems in a very short time. As a result, the most important objective in data

centers is to ensure maximum availability. Data centers need to be designed, implemented and

operated in such a way that availability can be guaranteed, even in the event of a fire. A compre-

hensive fire safety concept is needed to ensure business continuity, personal safety and damage

mitigation in the event of fire.

That’s why dry extinguishing systems are recommended for data centers with their diverse electri-

cal hazards and high availability requirements.

Several years ago the fire protection industry became aware of potential disruptions to magnetic

hard disk drives and storage systems during the discharge of inert gas extinguishing systems.

This white paper is organized into three sections:

 What causes disruptions to hard disk drives and storage systems?

 Sinorix Silent Extinguishing ‒ an holistic approach

 Questions, answers and term definitions