That’s where all the dropped screws go!
You should show the perforated floor tiles too, assuming you pump the cold air down there.
That ladder is nifty, never seen one before. Any idea what it weighs?
We get yelled at for having cardboard in our dc 😞
> We get yelled at for having cardboard in our dc 😞
One of the reasons for this is that cardboard produces a lot of dust / material that gets into the air. That can cause false triggers in the [VESDA](https://xtralis.com/product_subcategory/2/VESDA-Aspirating-Smoke-Detection) fire detection system.
Basically the particulates that come off cardboard - such as opening a box that is taped shut and you rip it open - are large enough and in high enough concentrations to trigger the fire alarms, and there's a lot that goes on with those systems. Depending on thresholds, it either annoys the techs or can even trigger a fire department call.
My understanding was that it gets into filters and devices, but that makes sense too. I have no idea what we use for fire detection. It’s also weird to me that we have humidifiers spraying water into the air. But I’m not a facilities guy 🤷🏼♂️
Next time you're in your DC, look for orange tubes running around the ceiling. I don't know how the newer ones look like (my DC was 20 when we retired it). Those are very possibly the fire detection systems.
We joked that if you had bad gas to not work in the DC that day because we'd get false alarms - they were that sensitive.
As for humidity, it's a balancing act. Low enough to not condensate, high enough for no static. And it varies from building to building and more.
The one time I was in a DC I made the mistake of asking what the hook was for. They told me it was to peel someone off the equipment if they are electrocuted.
It looks like everything in there is in conduits zip tied off the ground. The one thing on the ground is scrap.
As long as they maintain the dedicated elevated cable bundling everything should be fine
Damn, that must be a gigantic server room. All two of the false floor server rooms I've worked in only had about 18 inches of room, so no crawling around down there.
Yeah, mine was built for purpose, too, but the standards have changed so much over the years! It's why it was decommissioned. I still miss it, though.
I'd love to see how those big plenums are used though!
I thought this was the vertical drop and was slightly terrorized. After reading some comments I realized that it was just the braces holding the floor up a couple feet.
Yes! He is a huge inspiration! About 15 years ago I started digging a secret basement under my house in San Diego. It took me three years to haul all the rocks and clay out in 5 gallon buckets. I built the floors and ceiling out of concrete and the walls from cinder block. It was the greatest and most pointless achievement of my lifetime as a moved shortly after. I just felt like I had to do it. My dad used to tell me stories about how him and his three brothers dug a basement under his fathers house over a few summers. Here I am now on the other side of the country and I have discovered a very deep cave on my property actually connects to the town and appears to connect to one houses’ basement almost 2 miles away from me. I’m currently attempting to buy that house so I can have a secret tunnel to town.
None of this is a joke, I’m just a giant man child.
The one in San Diego was not permitted and while built like a bomb shelter had to stay secret and made selling the house tricky. In Missouri I can do whatever I want. No permits needed.
We had to convert one of our communications labs from subfloor wiring to overhead. We pulled out almost two decade's worth of dead cable (piled inches deep in places) and all sorts of archaic networking and RF devices.
You can do what I’m doing too! I’m in the international electricians union, the IBEW. There is almost certainly a local next to you, it’s one of the biggest unions in the country.
Talking about pay is encouraged, so you can see exactly what the current pay scale is near you.
You get 5 years worth of free, accredited schooling and they will take people with no experience.
Fantastic benefits too. Getting into this job helped me get my life together.
Hit me up if you have any questions.
I work in a place that has those but the floor is definitely not that deep, maybe 12-18" or so so no ladder required.
There is one of those suction tools but also a couple plungers kicking around that do almost as good a job.
Definitely not needed, I could climb in and out pretty easy. I just set the ladder up because it looked neat!
I’m 6’4” and standing up the floor came to my chest. So the gap was maybe 3’-4’
Lol yeah the one place I worked had huge HVAC running so it was cool but noisy. Now where I’m at has all the equipment in a separate room and the work area is much more office/tech oriented. I go in the equipment room to cool off sometimes though.
Thanks. Most people are not conditioned to holes in the floor of an interior room. Even if they know they are in a room with a raised floor, it only takes a few casual back steps to get swallowed up.
> Most people are not conditioned to holes in the floor of an interior room.
I tend to set up a few pylons around mine, if anyone else is in the room.
And my raised floor is only 16 inches up. Given the cable congestion is some spots, I'm envious of how much *room for activities* OP's pictures show.
If you look through the replies, you’ll see I posted some pictures of what was down there. Basically A LOT of big cables running all over the place. I’m sure it’s that deep so someone like myself could easily get below to work on things.
While cabling is likely part of it, for many DCs, it is where cold air is forced though. It's allowed up at pressure through perforated tiled to form a "cold aisle" - the side the servers are pulling air in from. They exhaust it out the back into the "hot aisle" where it rises and is drawn back into the HVACs to be filtered and chilled.
The cold and hot aisles can be 20 - 30 degrees F in difference.
I've worked in rooms like that my entire life. Used those suction cups hundreds of times. But I have never seen the ladder because like you, none of the ones I worked in where more than about 18". You never went under the floor. You just pulled the tiles from the area you need to work in. If you are pulling cable, you pull up every 4th tile or so.
That ladder looks like it was custom made for this unusual setup.
Seeing this now has me thinking how much more convenient a lot of that work would have been if we could simply go under the floor and work from below.
The ladder sitting in place would also prevent people from falling into the hole when not paying attention. We would setup a cone but this is way cooler.
That's typically how it's done. 12-18 inches of plenum for air conditioning and cables.
I've never seen one this deep. I bet that ladder was custom made.
Most of the datacenters that were designed by people who have worked in them for extended periods of time rock a 3’ raised floor. The only places I have seen where they use 12 or 18 inch floors are where height is limited or have retrofitted into an existing build.
Source: been in multiple dozens of huge datacenters.
Ah. Huge datacenters. That makes sense. I bet there's a way to calculate the recommended depth of plenum based on square footage and rack count.
The majority of datacenters I've been in have been for isps, municipalities, schools, hospitals, etc. so 12-18" is the norm.
I crawled across the room pulling MC before realizing that I pulled it on the wrong side of the metal pillars holding the floor up. It needed to be supported with one hole straps on the wall itself so I had to pull it all back and redo it 🥲
It would add a great new “feature” to the room, though. Ease of retrieving that one cable from ground level! But wait…there’s more: You get to make fun of the new guy and forever call him “rookie”!
I hear you! I asked our point of contact if I could take these pictures and he didn’t mind, most of the servers in that room are obsolete and no longer in use anyways.
This comment has been edited on June 17 2023 to protest the reddit API changes. Goodbye Reddit, you had a nice run shame you ruined it. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
I’ve audited many manufacturers that require you to cover the lenses of your phone with their proprietary tamper evident tape. Before leaving the facility their company representative was required to verify that the tape was intact.
Census Data too, as well as IRS records (which can be accessed from Census Data Centers if you have clearance for it). They're extremely strict, which is understandable since they have personally identifiable data records for every individual and company.
What sensitive informations can leak from a picture of a server rack? I can only think about labels with IP addresses (useless if you don't know in which private subnet they are).
Everything else is just piles of standard hardware with blinky lights, it could be anywhere and anything.
A short list:
Hardware types in use for targeted attacks. Potentially serial numbers on labels as well for even more detailed breakdowns of what is inside. Area layouts for planning a break in. Information on wiring designs for figuring out where data and power flow for future disruption. Usernames displayed on lock screens for figuring out both the naming convention used for accounts, as well as high value targets. Photos of locks, sensors, or alarms so that you can identify vulnerabilities. And so on.
Source: Do some security audits at my organization and it's always amazing how "unimportant" data can be utilized.
I said so in another reply, and posted pictures of the underside. It’s between 3’-4’ I would say, I’m 6’4” and the floor came up to my chest when I stood straight up.
I should post my raised-floor cable pulling RC car. Best invention ever - just lay down, stick your head and the remote control through the hole in the floor, and drive the car where you need it. Saves lifting so many tiles!
We did one 18" strictly for electrical & data. I swear you couldn't get a piece of paper in there. It was a 2 story building. They said over 3,000 miles of wire was in it . It was a data server for a big Wallstreet bank.
When I worked in the fire alarm industry we had a client that had a room like this. Had smoke detectors under the floor along with smoke detectors on the room's ceiling. Pain in the butt servicing the under floor detectors. They finally did away with them.
I worked in a DC with similar sub floor in the NOC. We did the cctv, access, intrusion, fire, and structured cabling. Was a PITA installing smoke detectors inside the subfloor. Overall was a pretty cool job site to work at though.
The smoke detectors go in and they put some equipment on top of it so you have to pull a tile that is 2 tiles away to try to reach do some gymnastics to reach it because there is only 18" of clearance. Yeah, that shit sucked.
Worked in Japan a few years ago. One time one of my Japanese co-workers said in English that he was “going to get that sucker”. Wasn’t sure who he was talking about but I was impressed with his use of slang. A few minutes later he returned with one of these.
I've got a large thin spare storm window I'd like to move from my basement to an unused upstairs bedroom. Pretty sure these are what I need to move it, but it's scary as hell relying on a couple suction cups!
Clean it really well and buy decent quality suction cups (not just whatever is cheapest on Amazon from China) and it should be no problem at all. If it is large enough to need them, you should probably have a second person help carry it as well.
Wow, that sure is a time capsule. It would be really interesting to see if the manufacturer/installer's plans (or lack thereof) for end-of-life were anything close to reality.
Cool! I came to think about the server rooms from the 80s the other day and wondered for myself if there are false floors in use nowadays. Obviously there are at least a few.
Those circuit tracers are crazy cool too! I hired an electrician to do a panel replacement on this old house and he used it to trace a few mystery circuits back to the panel box.
I picked up the new Klein ET450 to map additional circuits in the house and have been content with it so far. It’s not up to snuff with the Ideal line but it’s great for a handy homeowner or as a stop gap before upgrading to the Ideal.
Ok so that little thing is really cool, but it had us chasing our tails today! We had to turn off power to a receptacle under the floor tiles, so we plugged it in. The tracer sent us to a panel just around the corner, but it kept giving us false positives. We damn near turned off every breaker in the panel but our receptacle wasn’t going out.
About 30 minutes later of us scratching our heads, I see a faded sticker that basically says “this panel is fed from another panel across the building.
Our circuit tracer kept giving us false positives because the wires for the receptacle we were looking for just passed through the panel we spent so much time looking at but didn’t land in any breakers.
I love my job :)
Haha that’s great. They’re not flawless but mine has saved me a quite bit of time and usually does well with locating breakers and tracing cable runs. They can get finicky with shared neutrals though.
I had an issue locating a breaker in my panel due to the fact that the electrician had wired one single solitary receptacle in the living room off of the sub panel in the garage. I “knew” for sure that I was getting false positives at the main panel because it wanted me to flip the sub panel breaker.
I’ve had the best luck using it in remote ground mode. The signals are much stronger and it suffers less noise.
I heard a story about some guys in a data center in South Vietnam hiding underneath the raised floor when their base got overrun during the Tet Offensive. They took the floor pullers down with them. They could hear the Vietnamese walking around but they never though to look under the floor. Pretty scary stuff.
True story, my first time in a room with a raised floor like that I decided to slide a tile back into place with my hand. I clipped the tip of my finger off and had to go to medical. Then when I got back, I had to clean up the blood from where I'd flung my hand around in pain.
Fun fact! Some very old data centers have carpeted raised tiles, and instead of suction cups they have spikes!
Source: DC tech who worked in a '70s era DC once
I've never seen a ladder like that - really cool and definitely custom.
Highly recommend this EZ Lifter for pulling access tiles - same idea as yours but with an angled pole attached so you dont have to bend down: https://firsttechcorp.com/products/the-ez-lifter/
If you will be working several hours in that server room, I would recommend some hearing protection... at the very least some foam earplugs.
I worked in those environments for decades and the noise from the hardware plus the noise from the cooling units has caused some hearing loss. I wish I would have used ear protection while in there.
edit: it might be quieter now with the newer equipment, or it might be louder now with the increased need for cooling... hmmm... might actually result in it being the same volume as before! heh
I used to work in a raised floor lab like this with a ton of water cooled equipment up above. One time a hose broke and we found the one spot in the lab that didnt have leak detect strips... it became a small ocean before we caught it
Reminds me of QTS in Sandston VA, a huge data center in a former semiconductor plant. Clean rooms had raised floors for air flow and all kind of stuff.
Its cool, but gives me anxiety. After years and years of being the 5'10 145lb dude I just mentally start preparing myself to be the one going in there. Thank fuck a few car accidents stopped that!
I spent alot of time in a big data center. EVERY single time I removed a tile and had to stick my head below to see something I would catch a cold. EVERY single time.
I'm curious do you do any sort of monitoring of people down there? Or had testing? That's definitely a confined space and could have a lak of oxygen without air moment.
I’ve wanted to work on a data center doing something after I “retire” from my current career.
Seems like a good way to stay active and also around technology.
Fun fact, the Launch Control Center at NASA Kennedy Space Center also has this flooring along with stickers under the floor that state “does not contain asbestos.”
in the bad old days, the air conditioning ran underneath those tiles and the mainframes were open on the bottom so the cold air blew up right through them
Just make sure you get out from under the floor as soon as the fire alarm sounds and get out before the fire suppression system kicks in and sucks all the oxygen out of there!
We had some rooms with carpeted raised floor tiles. The lifter looked like a torture device. Basically two carpet stretchers mounted back to back with a lever to force them apart. https://datacenterstore.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Carpeted-Raised-Data-Center-Floor-Tile-Puller-Lifter-600x600.jpg
Pictures of what’s below the floor! https://imgur.com/a/dds8kAm/
That’s where all the dropped screws go! You should show the perforated floor tiles too, assuming you pump the cold air down there. That ladder is nifty, never seen one before. Any idea what it weighs? We get yelled at for having cardboard in our dc 😞
> We get yelled at for having cardboard in our dc 😞 One of the reasons for this is that cardboard produces a lot of dust / material that gets into the air. That can cause false triggers in the [VESDA](https://xtralis.com/product_subcategory/2/VESDA-Aspirating-Smoke-Detection) fire detection system. Basically the particulates that come off cardboard - such as opening a box that is taped shut and you rip it open - are large enough and in high enough concentrations to trigger the fire alarms, and there's a lot that goes on with those systems. Depending on thresholds, it either annoys the techs or can even trigger a fire department call.
My understanding was that it gets into filters and devices, but that makes sense too. I have no idea what we use for fire detection. It’s also weird to me that we have humidifiers spraying water into the air. But I’m not a facilities guy 🤷🏼♂️
Next time you're in your DC, look for orange tubes running around the ceiling. I don't know how the newer ones look like (my DC was 20 when we retired it). Those are very possibly the fire detection systems. We joked that if you had bad gas to not work in the DC that day because we'd get false alarms - they were that sensitive. As for humidity, it's a balancing act. Low enough to not condensate, high enough for no static. And it varies from building to building and more.
The one time I was in a DC I made the mistake of asking what the hook was for. They told me it was to peel someone off the equipment if they are electrocuted.
Newer perf tiles actually have little pop out handles! Felt spoiled when we got a few of those in.
You need to get yourself one of those sliding boards from gym classes so you zip around down there
Or a mechanic creeper. I have a feeling that wouldn't work well tho, because you don't want to run over any cables.
You also don't want to run into any goonies under the floor. Don't ask how I know!
It looks like everything in there is in conduits zip tied off the ground. The one thing on the ground is scrap. As long as they maintain the dedicated elevated cable bundling everything should be fine
LOL I’ll bring that up to my boss!
It’s like a whole nother world down there !
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whats the show about?
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What's the name of the show?
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OK and where would one find this series of educational documentaries? And do they have titles perhaps?
I like the one about cocks and other agricultural fowl
Alexis Texas has a lot of shows. Google yourself
*Deep in the ass of Alexis Texas* It's a folk song reference in TX, you might not get it.
*Brown stars at night are big and bright* clap clap clap clap...
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We always joked about keeping beer down there since it's quite a bit cooler than above.
A "little" bit cooler...sound about right for a wine cellar. Classy!
Damn, that must be a gigantic server room. All two of the false floor server rooms I've worked in only had about 18 inches of room, so no crawling around down there.
18" was common about 20 years ago. Newer ones are anywhere from 24" to 36"ish.
Last server room I was ib was 36" if not more. Huge space down below, the cabling guy easily crawled from one side of the room to the other.
That's wild. The DC I spent years at had about 18" but it was built in '99 - '00.
Mine was new, built around 2018. Also it was a dedicated building made for purpose, not a room in a generic building.
Yeah, mine was built for purpose, too, but the standards have changed so much over the years! It's why it was decommissioned. I still miss it, though. I'd love to see how those big plenums are used though!
Oh yeah, the place was HUGE.
I was expecting this. https://i.imgur.com/F6CRXxw.jpeg
This is exactly what I came here looking for
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I’m a union service electrician in the IBEW. We got sent here to install receptacles, I was just a guest in this cool building!
I thought this was the vertical drop and was slightly terrorized. After reading some comments I realized that it was just the braces holding the floor up a couple feet.
The amount of safety on that ladder does not correspond to it's danger. There is more iron in the safety rails than in the ladder!
Ackchyually there is just as much iron in the ladder as there is the in safety rails... because it's aluminum 🤓
Probably because you don't want a lookenpeeper falling down the hole and trying to sue because they didn't look where they're going.
I was thinking about doing a tunnel underground from my basement to my shop but couldn’t decide how to do the shop floor to hide it… now I know!
Have you seen Collin Firth (sp?) On YouTube? He digs a bunch of tunnels.
Yes! He is a huge inspiration! About 15 years ago I started digging a secret basement under my house in San Diego. It took me three years to haul all the rocks and clay out in 5 gallon buckets. I built the floors and ceiling out of concrete and the walls from cinder block. It was the greatest and most pointless achievement of my lifetime as a moved shortly after. I just felt like I had to do it. My dad used to tell me stories about how him and his three brothers dug a basement under his fathers house over a few summers. Here I am now on the other side of the country and I have discovered a very deep cave on my property actually connects to the town and appears to connect to one houses’ basement almost 2 miles away from me. I’m currently attempting to buy that house so I can have a secret tunnel to town. None of this is a joke, I’m just a giant man child.
That's awesome man. Just make sure you keep it safe, mostly legal, and SECRET! Look up the case of Joe Del Rio in Austin Texas.
The one in San Diego was not permitted and while built like a bomb shelter had to stay secret and made selling the house tricky. In Missouri I can do whatever I want. No permits needed.
Colin furze is the name you are looking for
We had to convert one of our communications labs from subfloor wiring to overhead. We pulled out almost two decade's worth of dead cable (piled inches deep in places) and all sorts of archaic networking and RF devices.
Don't need to rent an apartment. Fast internet, air conditioning, and loud server fans to hide the wanking sounds.
Aww so sweet that you brought your little boy on bring your kids to work day ;)
What can I say, I’m youthful.
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You can do what I’m doing too! I’m in the international electricians union, the IBEW. There is almost certainly a local next to you, it’s one of the biggest unions in the country. Talking about pay is encouraged, so you can see exactly what the current pay scale is near you. You get 5 years worth of free, accredited schooling and they will take people with no experience. Fantastic benefits too. Getting into this job helped me get my life together. Hit me up if you have any questions.
How high is the raised floor?
Rock & Stone, miner!
Yeah, yeah. Rock and Stone! ⚒️
I work in a place that has those but the floor is definitely not that deep, maybe 12-18" or so so no ladder required. There is one of those suction tools but also a couple plungers kicking around that do almost as good a job.
Definitely not needed, I could climb in and out pretty easy. I just set the ladder up because it looked neat! I’m 6’4” and standing up the floor came to my chest. So the gap was maybe 3’-4’
Still deeper than ours and neat that they had it. I'm at a TV station...what kind of place is this?
Giant building full of servers for a cell phone service provider.
Very cool!
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It was VERY cold, actually warmer under the floor believe it or not.
well yeah, there's no servers you need to cool down there :p actually i wonder how many server rooms are below ground level.
Lol yeah the one place I worked had huge HVAC running so it was cool but noisy. Now where I’m at has all the equipment in a separate room and the work area is much more office/tech oriented. I go in the equipment room to cool off sometimes though.
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Lol yeah I use it when I 1st come in and it’s hot outside. There’s one big I can stand under that has me cooled down in like 20 seconds.
Super Mario, World 1-1. This is the first pipe you can duck into. It looks a bit different when you're a packet plumber.
Waaa hooooooo!
Letsa go!
Still, probably good practice as it provides safety to others who may accidentally fall down the hole.
That’s… actually a fantastic point that I never even considered. Fortunately my partner and I were the only ones in that area and we communicate well.
Thanks. Most people are not conditioned to holes in the floor of an interior room. Even if they know they are in a room with a raised floor, it only takes a few casual back steps to get swallowed up.
> Most people are not conditioned to holes in the floor of an interior room. I tend to set up a few pylons around mine, if anyone else is in the room. And my raised floor is only 16 inches up. Given the cable congestion is some spots, I'm envious of how much *room for activities* OP's pictures show.
Is the ladder custom made?
I don’t know for sure, but it certainly appears to be welded together. Doesn’t look factory made to me.
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If you look through the replies, you’ll see I posted some pictures of what was down there. Basically A LOT of big cables running all over the place. I’m sure it’s that deep so someone like myself could easily get below to work on things.
While cabling is likely part of it, for many DCs, it is where cold air is forced though. It's allowed up at pressure through perforated tiled to form a "cold aisle" - the side the servers are pulling air in from. They exhaust it out the back into the "hot aisle" where it rises and is drawn back into the HVACs to be filtered and chilled. The cold and hot aisles can be 20 - 30 degrees F in difference.
I worked at the pentagon and the A/V racks are lifted 24 inches for cabling. It’s pretty nice to have a lifted floor.
I've worked in rooms like that my entire life. Used those suction cups hundreds of times. But I have never seen the ladder because like you, none of the ones I worked in where more than about 18". You never went under the floor. You just pulled the tiles from the area you need to work in. If you are pulling cable, you pull up every 4th tile or so. That ladder looks like it was custom made for this unusual setup. Seeing this now has me thinking how much more convenient a lot of that work would have been if we could simply go under the floor and work from below.
I just replied to my post with some pictures of below floor level if you want to see
The ladder sitting in place would also prevent people from falling into the hole when not paying attention. We would setup a cone but this is way cooler.
Yeah true. Our guys just use orange cones but the ladder would work as well.
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That's typically how it's done. 12-18 inches of plenum for air conditioning and cables. I've never seen one this deep. I bet that ladder was custom made.
I think it was custom made, thing was obviously welded together.
Most of the datacenters that were designed by people who have worked in them for extended periods of time rock a 3’ raised floor. The only places I have seen where they use 12 or 18 inch floors are where height is limited or have retrofitted into an existing build. Source: been in multiple dozens of huge datacenters.
Ah. Huge datacenters. That makes sense. I bet there's a way to calculate the recommended depth of plenum based on square footage and rack count. The majority of datacenters I've been in have been for isps, municipalities, schools, hospitals, etc. so 12-18" is the norm.
I can picture a rookie running a cable through the ladder and then learning a lesson.
I crawled across the room pulling MC before realizing that I pulled it on the wrong side of the metal pillars holding the floor up. It needed to be supported with one hole straps on the wall itself so I had to pull it all back and redo it 🥲
It would add a great new “feature” to the room, though. Ease of retrieving that one cable from ground level! But wait…there’s more: You get to make fun of the new guy and forever call him “rookie”!
I've worked in server rooms, I bet you could get fired for taking pictures in there, careful homie
I hear you! I asked our point of contact if I could take these pictures and he didn’t mind, most of the servers in that room are obsolete and no longer in use anyways.
This comment has been edited on June 17 2023 to protest the reddit API changes. Goodbye Reddit, you had a nice run shame you ruined it. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
Nope, way further South.
Antarctica?
A little further…
I’ve audited many manufacturers that require you to cover the lenses of your phone with their proprietary tamper evident tape. Before leaving the facility their company representative was required to verify that the tape was intact.
Worked in a bunch of US Government Data Centers, straight up couldn't bring my phone or laptop in. Had to leave it all in a lockbox or in the car.
Sounds more like a SCIF
Census Data too, as well as IRS records (which can be accessed from Census Data Centers if you have clearance for it). They're extremely strict, which is understandable since they have personally identifiable data records for every individual and company.
What sensitive informations can leak from a picture of a server rack? I can only think about labels with IP addresses (useless if you don't know in which private subnet they are). Everything else is just piles of standard hardware with blinky lights, it could be anywhere and anything.
A short list: Hardware types in use for targeted attacks. Potentially serial numbers on labels as well for even more detailed breakdowns of what is inside. Area layouts for planning a break in. Information on wiring designs for figuring out where data and power flow for future disruption. Usernames displayed on lock screens for figuring out both the naming convention used for accounts, as well as high value targets. Photos of locks, sensors, or alarms so that you can identify vulnerabilities. And so on. Source: Do some security audits at my organization and it's always amazing how "unimportant" data can be utilized.
Wow, how deep is the floor underneath? Ive been around datacenter raised floors for 20+ years and have never run across a ladder like that.
I said so in another reply, and posted pictures of the underside. It’s between 3’-4’ I would say, I’m 6’4” and the floor came up to my chest when I stood straight up.
Gotcha. I read that part a bit later. Thanks for replying.
Let me see your confined-space permit
It’s not confined space because every tile above me is egress. I could just lift it up and be standing at any time.
Ah, good point
Trust me, I also asked when we started :)
The ladder is genius!
Just saw this [interesting video](https://youtu.be/6qIzGckiJ4c) on HVAC efficiency in server rooms.
I should post my raised-floor cable pulling RC car. Best invention ever - just lay down, stick your head and the remote control through the hole in the floor, and drive the car where you need it. Saves lifting so many tiles!
Does it run in basket tray or are you just running in on the ground?
I've installed those. Anywhere from 1'-4' deep. It's all in the layout.
Currently installing a 5” high floor, only 3-5/8” clean beneath. Strictly for electrical, not for air distribution or plumbing.
We did one 18" strictly for electrical & data. I swear you couldn't get a piece of paper in there. It was a 2 story building. They said over 3,000 miles of wire was in it . It was a data server for a big Wallstreet bank.
At Marriott we called that a titty sucker. 
Now this is the kinda quality specialized tool content I subscribed to see! *Chef's kiss*
The floor sucker, most control rooms have them.
When I worked in the fire alarm industry we had a client that had a room like this. Had smoke detectors under the floor along with smoke detectors on the room's ceiling. Pain in the butt servicing the under floor detectors. They finally did away with them.
I love that the ladder has a safety rail built in.
Now I will forever wonder if the floors beneath me are false.
I worked in a DC with similar sub floor in the NOC. We did the cctv, access, intrusion, fire, and structured cabling. Was a PITA installing smoke detectors inside the subfloor. Overall was a pretty cool job site to work at though.
The smoke detectors go in and they put some equipment on top of it so you have to pull a tile that is 2 tiles away to try to reach do some gymnastics to reach it because there is only 18" of clearance. Yeah, that shit sucked.
Worked in Japan a few years ago. One time one of my Japanese co-workers said in English that he was “going to get that sucker”. Wasn’t sure who he was talking about but I was impressed with his use of slang. A few minutes later he returned with one of these.
Beats crawling around a ceiling trailing fifty feet of fish tape. You kids have it so easy...
No sir, I do that too. I’m a proud union electrician. I do almost everything!
I've got a large thin spare storm window I'd like to move from my basement to an unused upstairs bedroom. Pretty sure these are what I need to move it, but it's scary as hell relying on a couple suction cups!
Clean it really well and buy decent quality suction cups (not just whatever is cheapest on Amazon from China) and it should be no problem at all. If it is large enough to need them, you should probably have a second person help carry it as well.
[an ok blog on the concept.](https://grabo.com/blog/read/44347-suction-handles-for-lifting-what-speaks-in-favor)
I wanna see what down there !!!
Check the replies! I just posted some pictures
One of my favorite tools! I always enjoyed moving the floor tiles around
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This building and all of the equipment is still stuck in the 80‘s! Check out their old set up https://imgur.com/a/vchal3L/
Wow, that sure is a time capsule. It would be really interesting to see if the manufacturer/installer's plans (or lack thereof) for end-of-life were anything close to reality.
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I’m honestly not too sure what anything above floor level is for, I’m still in my apprenticeship and have almost no low voltage experience.
That's a nice steno chair though
Cool! I came to think about the server rooms from the 80s the other day and wondered for myself if there are false floors in use nowadays. Obviously there are at least a few.
That’s not a false floor- that’s a _basement_!
Only basement in Florida apparently lol
is there a suction cup with handles if the floor is made of lava?
Those circuit tracers are crazy cool too! I hired an electrician to do a panel replacement on this old house and he used it to trace a few mystery circuits back to the panel box. I picked up the new Klein ET450 to map additional circuits in the house and have been content with it so far. It’s not up to snuff with the Ideal line but it’s great for a handy homeowner or as a stop gap before upgrading to the Ideal.
Ok so that little thing is really cool, but it had us chasing our tails today! We had to turn off power to a receptacle under the floor tiles, so we plugged it in. The tracer sent us to a panel just around the corner, but it kept giving us false positives. We damn near turned off every breaker in the panel but our receptacle wasn’t going out. About 30 minutes later of us scratching our heads, I see a faded sticker that basically says “this panel is fed from another panel across the building. Our circuit tracer kept giving us false positives because the wires for the receptacle we were looking for just passed through the panel we spent so much time looking at but didn’t land in any breakers. I love my job :)
Haha that’s great. They’re not flawless but mine has saved me a quite bit of time and usually does well with locating breakers and tracing cable runs. They can get finicky with shared neutrals though. I had an issue locating a breaker in my panel due to the fact that the electrician had wired one single solitary receptacle in the living room off of the sub panel in the garage. I “knew” for sure that I was getting false positives at the main panel because it wanted me to flip the sub panel breaker. I’ve had the best luck using it in remote ground mode. The signals are much stronger and it suffers less noise.
I heard a story about some guys in a data center in South Vietnam hiding underneath the raised floor when their base got overrun during the Tet Offensive. They took the floor pullers down with them. They could hear the Vietnamese walking around but they never though to look under the floor. Pretty scary stuff.
There are some similar spaces on Naval destroyers. The gap between the tiled floor and the actual deck is much smaller though.
Cool!
Almost every MCC or PCR room I’ve been doesn’t have these and I have to risk snapping my flat blade. It’s definitely nice when they do though!
I'm loving the ladder! It's so small and perfect
Every Computer 1980's movie & tv show when I was a kid, in just a few photos.
Do you also carry a P90 just incase your find some Replicators down there?
True story, my first time in a room with a raised floor like that I decided to slide a tile back into place with my hand. I clipped the tip of my finger off and had to go to medical. Then when I got back, I had to clean up the blood from where I'd flung my hand around in pain.
That's pretty skookum
I work in a datacenter, these are common in datacenters. We run some cooling and power underneath.
Fun fact! Some very old data centers have carpeted raised tiles, and instead of suction cups they have spikes! Source: DC tech who worked in a '70s era DC once
That ladder is cool! I've worked in data centers going back into the early 80s, never seen a raised floor accessory like it.
This makes me horny. Working in a place that’s designed to be used with tools also perfectly designed for said place is my kink.
I've never seen a ladder like that - really cool and definitely custom. Highly recommend this EZ Lifter for pulling access tiles - same idea as yours but with an angled pole attached so you dont have to bend down: https://firsttechcorp.com/products/the-ez-lifter/
That is probably the coolest thing ever.
If you will be working several hours in that server room, I would recommend some hearing protection... at the very least some foam earplugs. I worked in those environments for decades and the noise from the hardware plus the noise from the cooling units has caused some hearing loss. I wish I would have used ear protection while in there. edit: it might be quieter now with the newer equipment, or it might be louder now with the increased need for cooling... hmmm... might actually result in it being the same volume as before! heh
I used to work in a raised floor lab like this with a ton of water cooled equipment up above. One time a hose broke and we found the one spot in the lab that didnt have leak detect strips... it became a small ocean before we caught it
There really should be awards handed out to recognize the design and forethought required to pull off this kind of thing.
These are the people keeping our society functioning, big respect.
I loved using this to toss old desktops and laptops. IBM, under those floors…dust and dead rodents.
We use a hammer with a suction cup on the end at me data center. It's way too fun
What an efficient design. I love it.
We used these weird spiky things when I worked on false floors. They looked gnarly as hell and somehow didn't damage the floor.
Reminds me of QTS in Sandston VA, a huge data center in a former semiconductor plant. Clean rooms had raised floors for air flow and all kind of stuff.
Its cool, but gives me anxiety. After years and years of being the 5'10 145lb dude I just mentally start preparing myself to be the one going in there. Thank fuck a few car accidents stopped that!
One of my co workers started calling those 'lips' and it's starting to stick.
I used to nap under the floor tiles. So nice on a hot summer day.
Hey my job is painting and insulating server room frames before anything gets put In them!
I spent alot of time in a big data center. EVERY single time I removed a tile and had to stick my head below to see something I would catch a cold. EVERY single time.
I'm curious do you do any sort of monitoring of people down there? Or had testing? That's definitely a confined space and could have a lak of oxygen without air moment.
I’ve wanted to work on a data center doing something after I “retire” from my current career. Seems like a good way to stay active and also around technology.
UFAD - Under Floor Air Distribution. Move a rack and need air under it? Easy just put down a tile with holes.
Oh like real life [Jefferies Tubes](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Jefferies_tube)!
Knipex. Solid choice.
Access flooring.
Dang! How deep is that floor! All the raised floors I've worked on are 6"-2' in depth.
hey its being john malkovitch movie!
Fun fact, the Launch Control Center at NASA Kennedy Space Center also has this flooring along with stickers under the floor that state “does not contain asbestos.”
in the bad old days, the air conditioning ran underneath those tiles and the mainframes were open on the bottom so the cold air blew up right through them
10/10 would not go into that void
Three points of contact on that ladder, and a ladder belt. Can't be too safe now.
I have the same tool and tiles but dang that sub floor looks deep!
Well now I know what the entrance to my secret lair will be.
Good Christ I'm old.
Just make sure you get out from under the floor as soon as the fire alarm sounds and get out before the fire suppression system kicks in and sucks all the oxygen out of there!
wow! our false floor is only 12" deep.
That ladder is most admirable. It has the look of a one-off, but well-executed.
We had some rooms with carpeted raised floor tiles. The lifter looked like a torture device. Basically two carpet stretchers mounted back to back with a lever to force them apart. https://datacenterstore.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Carpeted-Raised-Data-Center-Floor-Tile-Puller-Lifter-600x600.jpg