4 Potential Problems Caused by Dark Cabinet and Rack Colors

1. Poor Visibility

The most obvious challenge with dark cabinet and rack colors is reduced visibility/visual clarity for those working in the space. Lighter colors reflect 80% of light while black/darker colors reflect only 5%. The more reflective a color, the less artificial light that may be needed in the space.

When working among black cabinets, technicians may need to use flashlights or headlamps to clearly see what they’re working on (sometimes extra lighting fixtures are even installed inside cabinets or racks); most of the light emitted from the fixtures overhead is being absorbed by the dark color instead of reflected.

2. Increased Potential for Human Error

When the data center environment is dark, this makes labels and color codes harder to see, resulting in unplanned downtime or equipment damage caused by accidents or human error. If supplemental lighting isn’t used in these situations, the greater the likelihood of mistakes being made.

Fewer errors will occur in data center environments where labels are easy to see and don’t require extra illumination to be brought in.

3. Dirt Can Hide

While we’re talking about cabinet and rack color, let’s talk about cleaning. Dirt and dust build-up from things like lint, paper and cardboard can harm server, network and data storage equipment. You assume a higher risk for unplanned downtime if this dirt and dust build-up ultimately interferes with data center performance.

On dark cabinets and racks, dust build-up can be hard to see—especially if the data center’s overhead lighting has been dimmed to save energy. Lighter cabinet and rack colors make dust build-up more visible so you can see when the equipment needs to be cleaned.

4. Higher Operating Costs

Studies have shown that white cabinets can reduce lighting energy consumption by up to 30%. For the sake of example, let’s say that your data center is approximately 6,000 square feet in size, and uses approximately 515 kW of energy. According to Data Center Knowledge, between 3% and 5% of data center electrical load goes toward lighting. In this case, let’s assume that lighting makes up 4% of total energy usage (20.6 kW).

Reducing your lighting energy consumption by 30% in this scenario would reduce total data center electrical load by 6.8 kW—just by changing cabinet and rack colors.