I'm know I am not the only one here with a significant home network and several servers. My servers consist of an Dell PII333 Redhat Linux running my DNS, mail, news etc and a Dell PowerEdge 2300 (which I picked up nice and cheap on ebay) Win2k server which hosts my web server and database.

The problem is that they are too damn loud and hot. They currently live in my office with me, so there are three PCs and two monitors (I have a KVM switch to eliminate one monitor) in an 18x12 room.

I have the PowerEdge running it's fans on "quiet" as there are only two drives in the RAID cage. However "quiet" is definitely a relative term and I will soon have to switch to "loud" as I am going to be filling the RAID cage.

So it is very noisy in my office. It also gets very hot in the summer, the room temperature easily reaches 40°C in the summer, even today with the temperature outside just above freezing it is 26°C in here.

I was going to put the servers up in my attic, but I monitored the temperature there for a couple of weeks last summer and even with no servers there it exceeded 45°C. Obviously not a good place to put them.

So I am wondering if my garage might be a better place to put them. I haven't monitored the temp in there yet, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't freeze in there (there is a tap with a bucket to catch drips and the water has never frozen). It is always cool in there in the summer.

I am located in South East England (Surrey) so the temperature doesn't really reach extremes outside (roughly min -8°C in winter, max 35°C in the summer). My feeling is that PCs are happy with cold, as long as the temperature doesn't change rapidly.

What do people think, is a garage a sensible place for a PC ?

The main thing would be any moisture in your garage. If it's dry and the temperature doesn't swing wildly then I don't see anything wrong with it.

You might still want to check to see what the minimum temperature is in the specifications for your hardware though. Some stuff isn't rated for below 0 usage.

You got any spiders or other random insecty things in your garage?

35C? When was that!?! I'm in the south east as well and it's been ages since it was that!

- Trevor

The garage is fairly dry, so I'm not too worried about that. Having the servers in there should also raise the temp by a bit which should dry things out even further. I might consider putting a dehumidifier in there though.

Last summer was poor I admit, but there were still a handful of days when we touched 35...

Moisture was my first thought too, but - if I'm thinking correctly, it only condenses on something colder than whatever the dewpoint is. And the PC's will be running always warmer than ambient temp - meaning they will likely never be at the dewpoint itself, and not likely to build up condensation. But if they did, on a really humid, cold day, there is always that possibility. I think it might pretty much fry them if it happened.

It might be better than an attic for cooling, but how much better? Even if the garage is only a little hotter than it is outside in the shade, it might be enough for problems there as well. A CPU fan can't cool anything below ambient temp, and if it only has hot summer air to throw at the CPU it might be too much to keep them cool. I could imagine the case temperatures getting very hot. You might look at Peltier cooling, but you get into that condensation problem again.

I think some filters and such would be easy to set up to keep bugs out though.

What about an old refrigerator? A mini fridge, from a college dorm or a bar. I converted one to keep beer kegs in, perhaps you could modify one for PC's? Seems silly, but what-if? You'd have to set the temp a little higher than you'd want for food, but if the fridge could keep up with it the PC's would stay a nice constant temp. This wouldn't work inside the house, as the heat off the back of the fridge would be even more than the PC's create. But in a garage it could do it.

Also, on the case idea, maybe you could have a cabinet to put them in, inside the house yet, with a dust filter and air intake hole somewhere. Place the PC's on something soft inside to catch the noise a little, and with the cabinet door shut - you might hear them - but it would be a lot quieter than now. Only problem is heat - but maybe a duct and a fan could blow the heat outside, something like a clothes dryer does now, but with a better screen to keep the critters out.

That's all the silliness I can come up with!

Computers only work well in mild, stable-temperature environments. If the temperature swings wildly between daytime and evening (as it is apt to do in a garage), the computers will fail rather un-gracefully. I do not recommend that you keep them in the garage, attic, or anywhere that people would not be comfortable.

Instead, I would recommend doing what I do in my office: Keep things turned off that aren't specifically in use at that moment. Our print/file server and the attached printer only gets turned on when it's being used, for example.

As far as noise of running components, there are options for reducing the amount of noise made by your computer's power supply and fans: http://www.pcpowerandcooling.com/

In an effort to silence my pc, I replaced the heat sink, case fans, power supply, and put the hard drives in silentdrive enclosures. It sounds pretty quiet now, but it still heats up the room. http://www.quietpc.com

Sean

Computers only work well in mild, stable-temperature environments. If the temperature swings wildly between daytime and evening (as it is apt to do in a garage), the computers will fail rather un-gracefully. I do not recommend that you keep them in the garage, attic, or anywhere that people would not be comfortable.

Perhaps my garage is unusual, it seems to keep a fairly stable temperature. I think it is helped by the fact that there are no windows and it is shaded from direct sun by trees or other buildings on all signs. I take you point about not putting computers where humans would not be confortable, but when I have been in my garage at different times of the day through out the year it has always been at a comfortable level.

I will be doing extensive monitoring of the temperature in their before I put anything important out there, though I may stick my own 386sx16 out there for a while as bait...

Instead, I would recommend doing what I do in my office: Keep things turned off that aren't specifically in use at that moment. Our print/file server and the attached printer only gets turned on when it's being used, for example.

That is really not an option in my case, the three hot and noisy items in my office are:

- my workstation (which I am often sat at for 18 or more hours a day)
- my email/dns/ftp/etc server
- my web /database/development server

They all need to be on I'm afraid.

As far as noise of running components, there are options for reducing the amount of noise made by your computer's power supply and fans:

This isn't any good for me. One machine is a Dell PowerEdge server with it's own special powersupply. The others are Dell desktops, which I would have to replace the motherboard on to get make use of the quiet power supplies (thanks to Dell's "nearly" atx power connectors).

I can cope with the noise, it's the 35+ temperatures in the summer that get me...

The majority of the noise comes from my PowerEdge server, unfortunately there is no silentdrive solution for it's RAID array...

Computers only work well in mild, stable-temperature environments. If the temperature swings wildly between daytime and evening (as it is apt to do in a garage), the computers will fail rather un-gracefully.

The underlying logic in this seems to relate to the ages-old, end-user quandry of "should we turn our PCs off at night?" I tried researching this at one point but what I found in the way of research wasn't very good. Certainly we would save energy and money by turning everything off, but the countervailing argument was that power cycles and hot/cold expansion and contraction would decrease component (mostly motherboard) longevity by repeatedly flexing traces. I was never very satisfied with the evidence one way or another.

High-end machine rooms and telco central offices, if they are not under-engineered WRT HVAC, run cool to the point that you need a sweater or jacket. However, the cooling usually overcompensates because in long rows of stacked/racked switches, even with proper installation, you can get some serious hot spots from exhaust convergence and keeping things chilly is a must to keep internals cool.

I wouldn't guess that it's the temperature in the garage that is such an issue but the ultimate resultant temperatures inside the case.. In your shoes, I think I'd see the garage as an irresistable opportunity. If temperature fluctuation was an issue, I'd probably monitor temperatures through the BIOS for a bit to get a baseline, then check to see what happens during garage temperature drops. One adjunct might be something like the thermal switch in the attached picture (from www.allelectronics.com in this case). If you could find the right normally-open switch, you could fix it so that your case fans only came on when the temperature inside the case reached a certain point. Conversely, if the temperature in the garage (and the computer) got chilly, the fan/s would shut off, allowing heat to build up inside the case until the thermostat was triggered again.

High-end machine rooms and telco central offices, if they are not under-engineered WRT HVAC, run cool to the point that you need a sweater or jacket

They have air conditioning though to keep the air dry too, it is a humidity that concerns me more than temperature.

They have air conditioning though to keep the air dry too, it is a humidity that concerns me more than temperature.

That's true, and a good thing. Having lived with a few computers on my boat for 5 years/winters and having learned a few things about humidity, moisture, midew and all that, I feel comfortable predicting that it won't be a problem unless the garage is seriously dank. As a previous contributor pointed out, all those water molecules will want to come to rest on the surfaces in your garage that are cooler than ambient temperatures. Your computers don't fit the profile unless it got very cold relative to the computer's ability to generate some heat.

If it was still a concern, I'd think about a dehumidifier, or just a simple heater with a powered vent to the outside -- humidity only goes away when you move it outside somehow. Here's a thought: Build a plywood manifold that fits the back of your server and attach a 400-800 CFM squirrel-cage fan to it with a short 3-4" duct to the outside. Your Dell becomes a dehumidifier!

Remember: install porn!

They also have HVAC to keep the air wet. In those sorts of facilities, over-dry air is often a bigger concern because of static electricity buildup than is moist air.

They also have HVAC to keep the air wet. In those sorts of facilities, over-dry air is often a bigger concern because of static electricity buildup than is moist air.

I don't know of anywhere that does this. As far as I know, air conditioners will dry out the air they are circulatiing. My server room is deliberately kept cool and as dry as possible. Static electricity is not a problem because everything is properly grounded and the floor is not carpeted.

I couldn't imagine deliberately humidifying my server room, that would just be insane.

Every hosting facility I've ever been in has had a humidifier as well as a dehumidifier in their HVAC system. Given, the air should be fairly dry, but too dry is bad news as well. For example, check out Liebert's Standalone Humidifier, which is listed as ideal for computer rooms. Notice that all of their large-scale HVAC units also feature humidification in addition to dehumidification.

Time for a Certs ad: You're both right, really. Bitt's Liebert links make certain aspects of this self-evident. It's not a matter or making things wet or dry, but of maintaining a humidity (the old relative thing) within an acceptable range. What you need to do, HVAC-wise, to stay in that range is quite different between winters (generally drier) and summers (generally more humid) and between Richmond, Virginia (humid) and Tuscon, Arizona (dry), so systems are designed to compensate in both directions. Cooling a volume of air reduces the amount of moisture it can carry, so you may have to compensate for that, likewise if you warm the air (or don't cool it as much) the opposite applies. If it all works well, the end result is "pretty dry" (TM)

Static is and isn't a big deal. Even with grounded floor tiles and racks you can still generate a nasty spark to ground. Not every shop requires (or wants to wear) ESD booties for routine walking around, so reducing chances for static build-up (say, by keeping humidity within the target range) is considered a good thing -- also good risk management for the tech who didn't sleep too well and who forgets to put on his ESD strap before doing a board swap.

Is any one else thinking that the garage might be ok if the equipment was installed in a cabinet.

Wow, one learns something new every day.

My particular server room doesn't seem to have had a problem with static in the years it's been in operation, so I'm glad I haven't had to learn about this the hard way.

My particular server room doesn't seem to have had a problem with static

You are obviously wearing the right shoes!!

Static is a funny thing. I have been at a loss to explain sometimes why certain settings get lots of it and others don't. Also, given the amount of attention that is paid to static-related equipment damage, my guess is that the actual overall amount of damage due to static is pretty low -- just my impression, and, if true, may only be true due to improvements in systems like climate control. OTOH, I would not want to be the one poor b*stard who has to explain that a $50,000 switch processor has just gone bad while caught not wearing a grounding strap!

How would that help ?

If the cabinet was sealed then I would have overheating problems. If the cabinet was not sealed then I may as well not put the servers in a cabinet.

What benefit are you expecting from the cabinet ?

I'd just put them in the garage, so long as the garage doesn't leak when it rains, they will be fine.

I used to keep my server on top of the hot water tank in my laundry next to the shower, never had a problem. It's holed up in the hallway cupboard right now with a switch, ADSL modem, RAID array and cdrom tower.

What about an old refrigerator?

You would NOTwant to pay the electric bill for running that refrigerator.

A refrigerator's compressor/condensor system is not exceptionally efficient in terms of power usage per BTU of heat extracted.

Just wire across the switch that controls your little 25 watt refrigerator light so it stays on all the time, and then see what happens to your electric bill. I guarantee it will be astonishingly more than 18 KW hours (25 watts times 24 hours times 30 days) a month!

tanstaafl.

I'm really suprised I haven't lost more equipment living here in dry Colorado Springs. In the many years of using and maintaining computers, I have never worn a static bracelet when working on my personal equipment, and I have only lost two things. A 486DX4 120 when removing it from the case (Nasty spark seen between the drive cage and pin 1), and a PS/2 trackball recently (walked across the room to it and got a nasty shock. Mouse never responded so I replaced it with a spare). Both things have not cost me more then $20 to replace. Here at work, most of us never even think of using static bracelets when working on our lab equipment. And some of it is worth thousands a component.

How would that help ?


It all depends on the cabinet. A closed cabinet would let you control the humidity by adding a couple of big cans of desiccant. I doubt heat from the cpu would be a big problem. A box the size of a small hallway closet has a lot of air in it and a lot of surface area to dissipate the heat.

==========================

On another tangent.

Something occurred to me last night about the idea of putting your equipment in the attic.

Provided the central heat and air is routed thru the attic, it would be dirt simple to build an insulated box to house the equipment. Then just route one of the ac ducts thru the box on its way to any room you choose. Alternately, you might add small supply and return ducts just for that enclosure.

I suppose the box material of choice would be the rigid foam sheet used for insulation. 5 min epoxy. No sweat.

I doubt heat from the cpu would be a big problem.

It's not just CPU heat (there are three CPUs in this case) there are also two IDE hard drives and six SCSI hard drives. My current setup manages to raise the temperature of an reasonable size room by 10 degrees compared to the rest of the house. I was surprised at this too.

Then just route one of the ac ducts thru the box on its way to any room you choose.

Unfortunately, like 99.99% of houses in the UK, there is no aircon. I am considering getting a portable AC unit for my office this summer though (if I haven't moved the servers elsewhere), I am worried that it might be expensive to run though.

Interesting thread. I don't see any issues with putting them in the garage. The operating temperatures of the computers should keep them dry. I would place them in an enclosure of some kind. Maybe a cabinet with a temperature controlled damper. You can find these that are totally mechanical and quite inexpensive. Also maybe a switch and a filtered fan to work in conjunction with the damper to circulate air through the cabinet if the temperature rises far enough. I work for a major manufacturer and have seen systems running reliably for years in environments that you wouldn't believe! Good Luck and let us know what you decide.