Newer and Hotter

But there's another advantage to newer servers that data center managers may miss: They are able to run fine at higher operating temperatures than the previous generation of equipment was able to. That means that server racks can run warmer.

"Data center operators who take advantage of these higher-temperature capabilities can gain significant energy efficiencies in their cooling infrastructures," says Graves.

Those changes "improved our power consumption, our air conditioning costs, and reduced our total costs of running our business," says Patterson.

Scottrade needs low latency levels in order to fulfill its commitment to completing trades quickly. The firm relies on the highest possible server performance to support split-second transactions for its customers. Fortunately, the redesign required no compromises: Moving to a hotter data center didn't reduce performance or affect longevity of the computing equipment, Patterson says. Instead, the changes improved reliability by keeping equipment within optimal operating ranges.