[bigburd]

On my travels I have obtained an old server, reasonable spec, but
bloody noisy but would like to run 24.7 if possible (watches the
electric bill go through roof) ! I have the following options

In the roof of the house...(too hot in summer?)

In the roof of the garage...(too damp in winter?)

Spare room (Still too noisy)

Or stop being awkward and put up with the noise

 

[W36 EJO]

Or in the boiler cupboard!

If you put up with the noise in the sapre room, you won't hear it after a while, however, when you do turn it off, you will notice how quiet it is!

 

[Carlos]

Stick it in the loft, or look to get some low noise fans.

 

[bigburd]

Low Noise Fans...hadn't thought of that but the 10K scsi disks which
give me nearly 750GB of unformatted storage don't help.

 

[W36 EJO]

Yer, it will be the hard disks whining thats giving off a lot of the noise! Not much you can do to be honest!

 

[Tabs]

Sell it and buy some hard disks for your PC? Probably won't buy as much storage space but it will sort the issue of where to put the thing.

I used to a run a server years ago at home. Not worth the hassle now the prices of desktop systems have come down.

 

[bigburd]

Sell it and buy some hard disks for your PC?
Probably won't buy as much storage space but it will sort the issue of
where to put the thing.

I used to a run a server years ago at home. Not worth the hassle now the prices of desktop systems have come down.

I need server class hardware approved by VMWare for ESX Server.

 

[andymac]

Dont put it in any loft cavity, they get way way to warm in even
spring, I sude to have wireless access points in my loft, and they have
higher tolerance to heat than server hardware, and they where a
nightmare to keep cool, howabout just in your garage?

 

[Tabs]

Sell it and buy some hard disks for your PC? Probably won't buy as much storage space but it will sort the issue of where to put the thing.

I used to a run a server years ago at home. Not worth the hassle now the prices of desktop systems have come down.

I need server class hardware approved by VMWare for ESX Server.

You didn't specify that earlier - would have helped.

 

[bigburd]

Sell it and buy some hard disks for your PC? Probably won't buy as
much storage space but it will sort the issue of where to put the thing.

I used to a run a server years ago at home. Not worth the hassle now the prices of desktop systems have come down.

I need server class hardware approved by VMWare for ESX Server.

You didn't specify that earlier - would have helped.

Yep I guess it would.

Anyhow thanks all for the comments, looks like the garage is the place
for it to go, in front of the air intakes I think I will tape something
to filter the air so not too much crap gets sucked in ... maybe use the
3rd party dyson ones.

Then hey ho...fingers crossed - if it fails at any point then will sell
it and get a more powerful workstation for at home (more than the P4 /
2GB and 240GB I am currently running)

 

[pope1]

Those SCSI drives like to be kept cool so I'd avoid putting anything in front that will reduce the air flow. Locate in the garage somewhere off the floor and open up in 3 months time to see whether there's any dust/crap inside. Then decide whether you need to change location, filter the air or whatever.

I've had experience of running machines 24/7 in environments that are not completely clean and the only problem I''ve ever had was when machines were on the floor and sucked in little bits of fluff over a long period of time. Eventually the fluff built up inside the power supply and caused a short.

Recently opened a machine that had been running for about 3 years straight in a position about 1 foot off the floor and was amazed at how clean it was inside.

 

[shiuming]

What I've found is that you don't actually need hair-follicle-ripping air flow speed to drastically cool down a hard disk compared to standing one in static air. Some large diameter, quallty ball bearing fans with low RPM to provide at least some movement will do it, and if you use some of the new SCSI drives from Fujitsu, they are massively quieter (practically no discernable vibration at idle, I was gobsmacked, and yes I do know about the recall problems Fujitsu has had in the past but was impressed nonetheless!) and run considerably cooler than equivalents from Seagate (10K range).

 

[simch]

It will keep your garage warm fella and keep that classic chopper of mine in its current the fantastic condition!!

 

[pope1]

What I've found is that you don't actually need hair-follicle-ripping air flow speed to drastically cool down a hard disk compared to standing one in static air. Some large diameter, quallty ball bearing fans with low RPM to provide at least some movement will do it, and if you use some of the new SCSI drives from Fujitsu, they are massively quieter (practically no discernable vibration at idle, I was gobsmacked, and yes I do know about the recall problems Fujitsu has had in the past but was impressed nonetheless!) and run considerably cooler than equivalents from Seagate (10K range).

Yes, I'd certainly agree that the Seagates are the hot ones and they also make their fair share of noise too so I rather assumed that the drives in question are Seagate ones. Valid point about the air flow, it's total volume of air flowing that matters most. In addition, having thought about it some more, maybe my comments about not using the filters don't apply given the temperatures in the UK are considerably cooler than in Barbados especially if the server is in the garage. I'd still aim to get it off the ground though as long as a stable platform is available.

 

[bigburd]

Well the decision is "the garage" just got my supply of exterior grade
cat-5 cable as I want to run 1000Mbit/s between the buildings

 

[shiuming]

Don't forget to enable Jumbo Frames...

 

[stuart86]

i run a desktop pc 24/7 and its in a crap location and just stting on a desk next to a ctr monitor.

fortunatly i have had no problems with it. but can compleatly agree with noticing how quite a room is once its turned off.

 

[_Spud_]

Maybe under the stairs?

<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o> </o>

Cool, dry and with the door closed will kill all the sound, as to the filters, I would recommend something like mosquito net over the intake fans held on with an elastic band, will stop all but the finest dust and rubbish and you can buy 100 meters of the stuff for the price of one dyson filter.