Cooling in a closet?

[RangerLunis]

So I was planning on having all of my networking stuff in my rather roomy closet in my computer room. One issue i'm worried about is cooling. 

 

In total I should have:

 

-two servers both running Intel Xeon E3-1220's and 500gb ssd's

-one nas running 4 2tb drives

-a custom built router

-a network switch

 

Some ideas I had would be to cut holes in the door and create a vent, I'm not too sure about running a air conditioner inside, as long as it was low power.

 

Anyone have any other ideas? I don't really know if I could fit some kind of custom vent into the wall. 

 

Some tips on noise isolation would be much appreciated too!

[Enderman]

do you know how air conditioners work?

one side cools the air, the other side heats it up

it doesnt magically remove heat

you would still need to cut a hole for the hot air to exhaust, and another hole for air intake

 

the easiest way is to just cut a hole and put a fan to circulate air, and have the hot air exhaust around the cracks of the door

[megaant4]

Difficult question. If you have Vessel and have seen Linus's latest video it's on how he cooled his server "closet" try watching that for some ideas..

[manikyath]

honestly just an airflow fan in the bottom/back/side of the clouset should do, if you wanna be fancy you could wire it into one of the server's mobos and have it ramp up and down depending on temperature.

[megaant4]

1 minute ago, Enderman said:

do you know how air conditioners work?

one side cools the air, the other side heats it up

it doesnt magically remove heat

you would still need to cut a hole for the hot air to exhaust, and another hole for air intake

 

the easiest way is to just cut a hole and put a fan to circulate air, and have the hot air exhaust around the cracks of the door

Do you know how air conditioning works? 

There are two main styles. If he had the space he could put a small split unit in there..

[RangerLunis]

3 minutes ago, megaant4 said:

Difficult question. If you have Vessel and have seen Linus's latest video it's on how he cooled his server "closet" try watching that for some ideas..

yeah I don't have vessel  but could you tell me maybe what he does?

[Enderman]

5 minutes ago, megaant4 said:

Do you know how air conditioning works? 

There are two main styles. If he had the space he could put a small split unit in there..

just putting an air conditioner in there would be useless, it would heat and cool itself

 

you need to have some way of exhausting the heat, which involves a hole anyway

 

[RangerLunis]

3 minutes ago, manikyath said:

honestly just an airflow fan in the bottom/back/side of the clouset should do, if you wanna be fancy you could wire it into one of the server's mobos and have it ramp up and down depending on temperature.

So one idea that comes to mind maybe like... have a cougar 140mm fan mounted to the door with a vent cut through. Would that at all be practical? 

[megaant4]

1 minute ago, RangerLunis said:

yeah I don't have vessel  but could you tell me maybe what he does?

Sure.

He pretty much installed an extractor fan/vent to bring cool air from outside into the room, then have it passively exhaust into his attic. He just made it fancy by added a controller to the unit.

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, RangerLunis said:

So one idea that comes to mind maybe like... have a cougar 140mm fan mounted to the door with a vent cut through. Would that at all be practical? 

my server is not quite set up in a "clouset" but rather a small nook with pretty much zero airflow. as long as the air has a way out (which, if your carpenter told you the doors on your clouset make a perfect seal someone needs to get him off the LSD) any air you blow in is basicly air displacement.

 

with my server on a decent load i noticed that it got rather toasty in the "nook", all of which was solved by just putting one airflow fan to blow air in there.

(got a fractal design venturi because yolo, its running at 3 volts, and its still doing plenty for me.)

[RangerLunis]

Sooooo I could maybe install something like this into the door? http://www.screwfix.com/p/vent-axia-vasf100b-4-3w-silent-axial-bathroom-extractor-fan/7414h

[megaant4]

4 minutes ago, Enderman said:

-snip-

That's why I said a split unit...

[Enderman]

2 minutes ago, megaant4 said:

That's why I said a split unit...

 

oh, and they connect wirelessly, right?

LOL

 

as i said earlier, still needs a hole

and its not as cheap as a fan either

[RangerLunis]

2 minutes ago, manikyath said:

my server is not quite set up in a "clouset" but rather a small nook with pretty much zero airflow. as long as the air has a way out (which, if your carpenter told you the doors on your clouset make a perfect seal someone needs to get him off the LSD) any air you blow in is basicly air displacement.

 

with my server on a decent load i noticed that it got rather toasty in the "nook", all of which was solved by just putting one airflow fan to blow air in there.

(got a fractal design venturi because yolo, its running at 3 volts, and its still doing plenty for me.)

Gotcha  I'll remember this 

[manikyath]

2 minutes ago, RangerLunis said:

Sooooo I could maybe install something like this into the door? http://www.screwfix.com/p/vent-axia-vasf100b-4-3w-silent-axial-bathroom-extractor-fan/7414h

waste of money, just make a hole in the side and mount a fan to it.

 

if you have an old nokia charger laying around (admit it, we all have one somewhere) thats a perfect power supply for it

[RangerLunis]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

waste of money, just make a hole in the side and mount a fan to it.

 

if you have an old nokia charger laying around (admit it, we all have one somewhere) thats a perfect power supply for it

 sounds good to me, cougar is the most silent with highest rpm I know. Thanks! 

 

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, RangerLunis said:

 sounds good to me, cougar is the most silent with highest rpm I know. Thanks! 

 

i'm amazed with what the fractal venturi fans are capable of, at max speed i actually felt the airflow troughout my room...

[RangerLunis]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

i'm amazed with what the fractal venturi fans are capable of, at max speed i actually felt the airflow troughout my room...

i'll be sure to take a look, thanks for everything

[Scheer]

I doubt anything is needed, so long as the door isn't completely sealing the closet off. All my stuff sits under the stairs with a pocket door closed in front of it and it stays nice and cool.

 

All I've done was put a temp sensor in there that alarms at 90 degrees Fahrenheit just to play it safe. Originally I was going to get a Zwave vent that would open at a certain temperature, but have since decided I have no reason to.

 

[RangerLunis]

21 hours ago, Scheer said:

I doubt anything is needed, so long as the door isn't completely sealing the closet off. All my stuff sits under the stairs with a pocket door closed in front of it and it stays nice and cool.

 

All I've done was put a temp sensor in there that alarms at 90 degrees Fahrenheit just to play it safe. Originally I was going to get a Zwave vent that would open at a certain temperature, but have since decided I have no reason to.

 

Seem's like a good idea, i've found a rack that allows for fan mounting on the bottom and top, im sure it cant hurt to have one mounted to the door as well

Edited May 29, 2016 by RangerLunis