I recently bought my first house and have started to run data lines to various points around the house.
I have chosen a hallway cupboard as a centeral point to run all my cables back to and have even routed a phone line in there to keep everything in one place.
I moved into the house in the winter and so keeping my NAS server running freenas as well as my 8 port (4 PoE, 4 passive) unmanaged switch and wireless router cool hasn’t been a problem. But, the Australian summer has just come to the party and Iv really started to notice the fans kicking up in the cupboard which makes me thing some cooling might be in order.
I work in data centers so I know how this should all be done properly, but alas when it comes to enterprise cooling equipment the big $$$ come to.
This thread is here to let everyone share their cost cutting, resource saving DIY approach to small home network rack cooling. Weather it be under the stairs, in a crawl space or in the hallway closet.
I am in the planning phase right now, but Iv got some good simple ideas.
The cupboard I am using has slatted doors all the way up meaning air can flow in very eaisly. With this in mind I am planning on using a thermostat controlled relay that I got for a few bucks from gearbest to trigger a fan installed in some ducting that feeds in to the celining pulling the hot air out and cool air in from below. From there I was also thinking about ducting in a second fan which will pull air from foot level straigh up to the top shelf which houses all the gear.
Another option is to re route one of my air conditioning ducts straight into the cupboard. This would work great when the AC is running, but I only turn it on when it’s really hot (40c+) so I would think something else would be needed for days when its above 25-30c.
What’s everyone else doing? Once I strat cutting holes and wiring fans I will throw some photos up for your viewing pleasure.
Heat rises. Putting your equipment high up in a confined space with limited airflow is a problem. I'm surprised you picked that location based on your experience in datacenters, being that cooling is of paramount concern.
You're either going to spend money actively cooling, or you might consider moving the most heat generating equipment somewhere else. A basic fanless switch can probably handle the heat, but anything that generates enough heat to need a fan is going to be running hard to keep heat under budget.
I like low places, close to the concrete slab. Ground temperature tends to be lower, and heat rises, so thats the coolest place. However, based on what little I know of Australia, you might be forced into an active cooling arrangement - in which case you probably want to keep the area insulated from the rest of the house, and with a separate cooling system - for maximum efficiency. You might also have do do some venting, and other air flow things.
I live in Southern California, and don't have air conditioning. I would have to work hard to take advantage of evening cool, and close up the house to trap the coolness in during the day. I also, reduced my power consumption - running more efficient systems, and downsizing to the minimal setup. Even still, when I would work from home during the summers, I'd need fans running to keep me cool... but the house was never hot enough to worry about my equipment.
Anyway, I don't think anyone can really help you decide. You're going to have to determine what's best for you.
Nice one NB, thanks for the good advice. The purpose of this thread is more to share what others have done as each house, business poses a different set of hurdles in the hopes that we can inspire each other with different ideas and approaches. I'm not nessarly fishing for a particluar solution for my self as I think for now, what Iv come up with will surfice.
The high location choice was for a few reasons, one it was a easy location to get cables to and two its the only shelf in the cupboard big enough to house a PC. Being up high also keeps the gear away from dust and dog hair which means less cleaning for me: :)
Although the fans are kicking up, I haven't had any performance issues from the heat (yet). I put this down to the vents in the doors which makes for about 30-35% surface area that is vent. I know if I doa bit more my gear will last a lot longer if I can keep nice and cool rather than fluctuating warm.
Well you can only cool down to whatever your ambient room temperature is for that closet so your best bet is to exhaust the hot out that those devices are cooling out of that area somehow.
I have a closet in my hallway at home that I almost considered racking some stuff in but never did. My initial solution was to do something like you said and put a fan at the ceiling and just cut a hole in the ceiling and put a dust filter on top of it but I ran into two problems. Problem 1 was that this isn't our permanent home, we're looking to buy a new home in the next fear years, and problem two is that our celing is insulated with that dirt like insulation Plan B was to, again like you said, just patch into the duct system and put a vent into that room. My buddy is an HVAC tech so we could had done it on a Saturday afternoon over a 6 pack of some scotch ales but I decided against the venture.