Building a mini home data center (cupboard)

[The Natural Philosopher]

Your email From address is illegal and your sig is illegal

[Bob Eager]

The point about the dashes is that newsreader software will strip out your signature so that it isn't quoted in any followup, as long as the separator is correct. It stops the thread get cluttered, which is to your benefit too.

You'll note that I gave an answer to your query, then politely pointed that out at the end. Does that mean I care more about the dashes? I think not.

It seems that either you have a thin skin, or you are innately ungrateful, and even rude.

[Steve Walker]

I have wondered about putting our home server under the suspended floor of the house. It is currently in a cupboard in a conservatory!

It is not as bad as it sounds, a fan draws air out of the cupboard and the air is replaced by air coming from under the house floor. So far, although not ideal, temperatures have remained under the alarm range for the server's ambient air temperature monitor.

[Steve Walker]

Two friends of mine used to back up their systems to each other's home systems.

[RJH]

What you're proposing is a lot of work. If you have a cellar, it's probably trivial to chuck a NAS down there - it's what I've done for several years and it's worked without a hitch.

Maybe a secure cupboard in case of a burglary that comprehensive.

Fire, I'm not sure. It'd have to be a real corker to affect underfloor storage.

I don't bother - if I was subject to such a thing, I think the data loss would be the least of my worries. I use Apple's 200GB/£2.50 month cloud for a convenient last resort backup of the bulk of my data. The 2TB of video/music is mostly expendable/replaceable.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Home servers are not normally this high.

The server components will have a working operating temperature range, and you need to ensure it remains within that, heating the shed iff too cold, and powering off if too hot.

Equally important is the humidity and risk of condensation, and you will need to control this, and it needs to be done regardless if the server is running or not. You can do this entirely by heating. (You don't need a dehumidifier, and they don't work at low temperatures anyway). Keep the humidity below 80% to guarantee no risk of condensation. Make sure the server is in the warmer part of the room when heating is on to lower the relative himidity.

I've been controlling the environment in a large shed of a friend for almost 3 years now, and that was so it can be used to store soft furnishings and pieces of steel without damp damaging them, which was happening before I put the environmental controls in. The key here is to prevent condensation, and for some other items in the shed, also to protect against freezing. You will need something similar.

[The Natural Philosopher]

The internal heat generated by a working computer is more than enough to take it above the dew point.

Provided it has a roof over its head and is above flood level it will be fine.

There is little you can do however to alleviate high temps. beyond putting it in the shade, ventilating it, and perhaps on a vast slab of concrete to act as a heat sink.

Some pentium chips should be avoided too. Very high tempo beast even idling.

fans will need checking periodically and remote temp monitoring is no bad thing.

[Andrew Gabriel]

That would be fine if it was running all the time, but the OP said it won't be.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Do look at all the costs. A very common catch in the commercial space is very low cost to upload and store, and astronomic cost to retrieve the data. A great lock-in strategy when that's your primary (or only) data store, and makes it impossible to move to another provider. Seen several companies caught out by not including the cost of exiting to a cheaper provider in their cloud storage costings.

[RJH]

I take it you mean temperature? Humidity isn't something the OP can do much about if outside.

If temperature, could a headless low consumption computer lift the temperature from a not unusual -10C to say +5C? Doubt it.

Well, quite. For a 24/7 machine payback would be very quick if using a low energy processor.

[The Natural Philosopher]

should still be OK. disks are sealed. You don't normally get condensation on the inside of an open (vented) structure, that hasn't got a moisture source inside it.

[Tim Watts]

Speak for yourself :)

Talking of which, I wonder what Bob's "home server" collection amounts to :)

[Bob Eager]

The four main servers are HP microservers with (mostly) two disks in each. I think about 50-60W each but I haven't checked in a while so might be a bit out.

The power hogs are the four desktops which are about 60W quiescent (each).

[Bob Eager]

Well, almost.

[Tim Watts]

Don't you have a PDP as well?

[Bob Eager]

Yes, but I don't run them all the time (I have three). Not to mention the three VAXes...

[Tim+]

Carpet cleaning fetishist are you? ;-)

Tim

[Bob Eager]

That reminds me - I have to repair the George. Pump is seized.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Nope - they are very specifically not sealed, and have dire warnings about blocking the vent.

Oops, wrong again! Very common in winter, in particular.

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , Andrew escribió:

They're trying to help you make your posts more palatable, but if you won't heed good advice, into the killfile you go.

The feeling's mutual.