The Ultimate Guide to Small and Mid-Sized Data Centre Designs
When it comes to designing data centres, most of the attention goes to large facilities and installations at huge corporations. However, for most businesses in the UK, you don’t need hundreds of racks: you need one to twenty. You want resilient power but without the excess.
Our guide is for IT managers, operations teams and business leaders planning or upgrading a small to mid-sized data centre or comms room. Whether you’re running five racks today or planning to grow to twenty in future, the information below will help you get it right.
Step 1: Understand Your Current and Future Business Needs
Before any cables are pulled or racks are ordered, the design process must begin with a clear understanding of your organisation’s IT needs. Ask yourself:
- How many servers and critical systems are you supporting?
- How fast are your demands in terms of data growing?
- What level of uptime do you require?
- Do you have future plans for virtualisation, edge computing or cloud integration?
Source UPS always starts here because your answers will lead to the right solution. We’re here to help you build something fit for purpose.
Step 2: Planning Your Space and Layout
For small to mid-sized installations, we appreciate every inch of space matters. Despite this, we frequently spot layouts that waste room, restrict airflow, or leave no space for growth.
It’s vital to:
- Keep hot and cold airflows separate. A simple hot aisle/cold aisle layout can dramatically improve how efficient the cooling process is.
- Allow room for growth. If you’re installing 8 racks now, it makes sense to design the room for 12–16.
- Avoid bottlenecks. Ensure your team can easily gain access for maintenance and upgrades.
- Use proper containment. For larger mid-sized installations, consider contained aisles to keep the space cool.
Step 3: Power Infrastructure (And Why UPS is Non-Negotiable)
In any data centre, power is king. But it’s not just about keeping the lights on: it’s about protecting your systems from spikes, drops, and outages.
For 1–20 rack installations, we recommend the right sized Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) matched to your actual load, with some headroom for growth. You might also consider dual power feeds if your equipment supports it, for resilience.
As an independent specialist, Source UPS provides solutions from APC, Riello, Eaton and Vertiv, so you’re not locked into one brand.
Step 4: A Cooling Strategy That Fits the Space
Excess cooling is a waste. Too little and your equipment suffers. For smaller data centres, cooling must reflect both the load and the layout.
Options to consider:
- In-row cooling for densely packed racks
- Wall-mounted or ceiling-mounted units for compact rooms
- Containment strategies to prevent mixing of hot and cold air
- Energy-efficient systems that adjust output based on load
Our approach is to always put efficiency first, not just capacity. Lower energy use = lower cost = lower environmental impact.
Step 5: Environmental Monitoring and Control
Monitoring is often overlooked in smaller setups, but it shouldn’t be. With a small number of racks, one overheating server or one failed air-con unit can quickly bring the whole deck of cards crashing down.
That’s why it’s important your design includes:
- Temperature and humidity sensors in multiple locations
- Leak detection (especially if cooling relies on water-based systems)
- Power monitoring for key components
- Alerts to email or SMS so issues are caught fast
Step 6: Security and Access Control
Whether your data centre has its own room or a dedicated zone in your office, physical security still matters. Consider:
- Controlled access using keycards or biometrics
- Lockable rack doors
- CCTV for monitoring
- Audit trails for all access events
These may sound excessive for smaller sites, but if you’re handling sensitive data, they’re often required for compliance too.
Step 7: Maintenance and Support
No matter how well designed, your infrastructure will need regular maintenance. The best designs make this process easy, not a nightmare. During the design process, ask yourself:
- Is every component accessible, without taking the whole system offline?
- Is there remote monitoring and fault detection in place?
- Is your support service available for speedy responses and scheduled servicing?
At Source UPS, we offer full commissioning, support and maintenance packages tailored to small and mid-sized sites.
Why Work with an Independent Specialist?
Designs for 1–20 racks are often overlooked by the big players, but it’s where we thrive. As one of the UK’s leading independent data centre infrastructure specialists, Source UPS is not affiliated with any particular vendor, so we design around your needs, not sales targets.
We’re proud to be an EcoExpert Master certified by Schneider Electric, one of just seven in the UK. Source UPS provides full turnkey solutions from power to racks to cooling. We bring over 15 years of experience in small to mid-sized data centre design.
Need help with your project? Get in touch today for a free consultation from our data centre design experts.
When we started planning a refresh of our UPS estate, we stumbled upon Source UPS. They are one of those companies you hope you will find. They are true experts in their field and made some great suggestions that have made managing our server rooms much easier.
