[kalbasit]

Hello,

I am planning to build a server enclosure to install in my garage, the inside would be 30"x30"x30" (WxDxH). The garage is usually quite humid and can get pretty hot when I park the car.

I'm considering a window AC. Installing it on the inside of the enclosure to keep it cool and dry but I feel it's an overkill. The smallest window AC I could find is 5000BTU designed to cool down ~100sqft but I only have about 7sqft. Any thoughts/ideas?

Thanks!

 

[bfletcher7]

I'm not an HVAC specialist but I do have a home-grown server running a small home business via WS2012R2 and right now I'm scratching my head pondering more detail about your server configuration and the garage. Here, a server would not survive in my garage.

 

[user_12345a]

Use something specifically designed for that purpose.

If it wasn't for being in a hot garage, refrigerated cooling wouldn't be needed.

The garage is the worst place to put a server - why on earth would you put it there?

 

[kalbasit]

Unfortunately, I have no choice. I used to have my equipment at the office but after I switched jobs it's no longer possible. My place is very tight and I also have two kids that can, well you know

I realize it's the worst place ever and I am still thinking of somewhere else. In the meantime, I am monitoring the server/NAS. The NAS is running at 140F, the drives at 90F and the server's CPU at 80F.

That's so far normal but it's still relatively cool in the bay area. In the summer, it is going to get very hot and unless I figure out cooling I'll have to bring them up home.

 

[bfletcher7]

We don't know your living space, so when you say you have no choice we can only believe what you state. But you can't add a shelf inside your [conditioned] living space out of reach? And there are probably vendors whom make wall-mount secure enclosures, too. From the pic it looks like you just have a simple server running from a basic PC along with an 8-bay NAS. The unconditioned garage space alone is enough to cause failure... but isn't it also an un-filtered space, subject to airborne contaminants?

 

[supers05]

A simple exhaust fan will keep that space from overheating. Even the smallest 80 cfm Home Depot ones will work. It won't keep the dust or hot air outside out. You don't have to worry about humidity until you hit condensing.

If you really wanted to go overboard, you can seal it up and use a cpu cooler class refrigerator. You'll often see it described as "phase cooling" in benchmarks and high performance computer forums. They are usually in the 3-6000 btu range. (1-2000 watts cooling capacity) I'd get a version that's a water chiller, instead of a heat block, so that you can use it with a finned "evaporator coil". Most would use the heating core out of a car from a scrap dealer. These systems are usually designed for aquariums. I've seen good deals on sites that cater to that market.

If you used that, you'd have to match the system to the actual heat generation of your equipment. (Sum of max watts consumed) You'd also have to insulate the cabinet. (you can buy server racks already setup like this) And at the very least a remote temperature alarm in case the thing fails.

The other option is to use a ductless split in the garage. Again, I'd seal up the cabinet, use an exhaust fan, and make a small filter rack, communicating to the garage instead of outside. You'd have to change that filter every month or so, depending on how often you drive your car.

Both options are about the same price if you do everything yourself.

The last option which will probably be the cheapest to install but most expensive to run is the window shaker. Again a sealed cabinet, with the window shaker penetrating the cabinet. You'll have to wash the condenser coil about every year so make it easy to remove. 5000 btu will cool 1,467 watts worth of equipment, without calculating heat gain from the cabinet walls. (if you insulate well, it'll be negligible at that size) Watts * 3.41 = btus.

In all 3 options will have condensate, but with the cabinet sealed a bucket will do for that. The mini split would need a drain.


Personally, my equipment is on a shelf in my basement. The hardest running stuff is liquid cooled with the radiator away from the equipment. A small fan keeps air circulating in the area. I have to vacuum the equipment once a month. Non-insulated walls keep the temperature also perfect.

Cheers!

 

[kalbasit]

Thank you supers05 and bfletcher7 for your answer, really helpful!

From the feedback I gathered so far, it's going to be a costly operation and most likely will always end up killing my machines. The very last option that I have would be the closet (what currently is a shoe closet, see picture).

Do you think this could be a better idea? As you see in the picture, there's a shelf at the end of the closet that I can get rid off and have my stuff there. The ceiling in there is at a 45 degrees angle; it should help move the hot air away from the equipment. I can add a fan to blow air towards the front of the machines (the air intake) to help with the cooling.

 

[crabjoe]

Have you thought about buying a small fridge and using it as the enclosure?

Drill a hole through the side to pull the cables in and now you've got a refrigerated space. If the fridge is bigger, you can store some beverages in it too.

 

[yuri]

Good idea except fridges are expensive too run/use lots of elec $$ and I doubt you can set the thermostat for anything less than 40F which is too low for your servers I imagine.

They also completely shut off the compressor and go into defrost 2-3X per hour so you get no cooling.

 

[bfletcher7]

Can you advise what hardware is in your PC chassis?

 

[jimn]

I doubt whether a small fridge could handle the BTU output. I agree about the other comments.
The dirt, heat, cold etc etc in the garage will not be kind to this equipment. As for 5000 BTU it will nicely freeze my 150 sqft office running a 8 core PowerMac, networking stuff, 4 internal drives, laser printer, another PC as well has the normal summer heat load. It's going to be over kill in a small enclosure such as this. My garage gets pretty toasty ins the summer. (Uninsulated, no drywall). It can be over 120 degrees F on a 95 degree day in Connecticut. In the winter it will only be a few degrees above the outside temp. So your task will be to supply clean filtered conditioned air. In my DataCenter I manage, if the cooling suffered a some kind of partial failure, and the temp in the DataCenter got up to 90 degrees I could bet on a few NAS drive failures over the next month. I think you really need to long and hard at this location and the alternatives. Otherwise, build a room , find a way to cool it and add dust filtration. Your concerns about a 5000 BTU AC are valid. I think is too much.

 

[supers05]

My single computer/server runs at around 1000w peak. That's 3410 btus/hr when I'm push the cpu and video cards. That's not including nas or networking stuff. (separate ups and room) It's very important to calculate/measure the highest expected power usage, including future expansion and meet that requirement when building an enclosed system.

I think your shoe closet will be a good spot, with at least one fan. My preference would be 1, just above the equipment, blowing up/out. Since it's not enclosed, you'll be dusting often but only a fraction than if in the garage. I would expect a several degree increase in ambient temp at the back the closet, but most equipment can handle that.

Cheers!

 

[kalbasit]

Can you advise what hardware is in your PC chassis?

Absolutely, here's the details and links to Newegg:
- Case: Cooler Master HAF 932
- Power supply: Corsair CX750M
- Motherboard: ASRock Z170 Pro4
- CPU: i7-6700K 4Ghz
- RAM: G.SKILL 64Gb
- SDD: Samsung 950 Pro
- HDD: I have an old 1Tb drive in it for NFS cache, package manager's cache and the entire /var partition.

I built this computer about three months ago and I use it as my dev machine. I do quite a lot of development and usually have many docker containers running. I also have Plex running on it. Usually, the load is about 0.7 to 1.5.

 

[kalbasit]

So here's what I ended up with (see picture). From left to right:
- UPS
- an old computer that is running pfSense router.
- Synology NAS and on top two switches and an ALIX.2 used as Serial console server in case the big guy loses network.
- and finally my server.

I also ordered USB fan, it'll hopefully move enough CFM without drawing too much power.

 

[supers05]

Keep an inch from the right wall to your computer. It's hard to see, but I'd keep 6" from the closest point to the equipment in the back.

Be careful of placing that UPS that way. It's airflow is probably designed for it to be in the horizontal position in a rack. At the very least, I'd prop it up a few inches giving it some clearance for air to flow. It won't make much difference in standby, but when operating they can get quite hot. (+120*F discharge air)

USB fans like that consume almost nothing. Something like 5-10 watts. Usually less. You might need 2 or 3 to get enough air flow. It'll be a trial and error approach.

It looks like you have some 1200w peak power consumption there. That's with the UPS in standby. When operating, add another 10-20% of waste heat. So your looking into the neighborhood of 4910 BTU/hr during a power failure until everything is shut down.

PS. Nice specs. When I was a programmer, my setup was similar except using VMs instead of docker containers.

Cheers!

 

[kalbasit]

Keep an inch from the right wall to your computer. It's hard to see, but I'd keep 6" from the closest point to the equipment in the back.

I didn't measure either but I believe I've got about 6" in the back. I organised the cables to mostly stay on the ground and used very short Ethernet cables (1ft and 0.5 ft) between the equipment to preserve airflow

Be careful of placing that UPS that way. It's airflow is probably designed for it to be in the horizontal position in a rack. At the very least, I'd prop it up a few inches giving it some clearance for air to flow. It won't make much difference in standby, but when operating they can get quite hot. (+120*F discharge air)

USB fans like that consume almost nothing. Something like 5-10 watts. Usually less. You might need 2 or 3 to get enough air flow. It'll be a trial and error approach.

It looks like you have some 1200w peak power consumption there. That's with the UPS in standby. When operating, add another 10-20% of waste heat. So your looking into the neighborhood of 4910 BTU/hr during a power failure until everything is shut down.

Thanks for the advice supers05, I just finished reorganising. See the pictures for what I came up with.

I'm going to add a USB (or ethernet) controlled outlet and hook it up to a big fan that blows air from the front straight on the equipment as low to the ground as possible and turn it on if anything gets hot. Any advice on the controllable outlet?

PS. Nice specs. When I was a programmer, my setup was similar except using VMs instead of docker containers.

Cheers!

I still use VMs but mostly for testing. Docker containers just make my life a bliss in the dev cycle . I included a few pictures of the inside of the computer.

 

[supers05]

Cool! Eye candy!

For the stacked devices, I'd make the fronts flush with each other. It'll allow better air flow in the back. If you have more of those wood shims, it would be beneficial to separate those 3 boxes.

I haven't dealt with controlled outlets much. In my work environment, I'd probably use a simple temp controller, (penn stat or similar) and a contactor to break the power. It would require a box and wiring. For my home environment, I'd probably use a Wink outlet, since I already have Wink. It's cheap enough to add stuff, but not the most resilient home automation system. You have to by a Wink hub on top of the sensor and outlet, so not cheap if you don't already have it.

An alternative is to use 12vdc fans with a usb controller. They can modulate, and you'll be able to find larger fans online. (I'm on the fence about this option as if the computer locks up, you have to fan control. Similar to the Wink.)


For that CPU cooler, it works best with the heat pipes in the vertical position for at least part of the length. So at the CPU, many of those coolers have heat pipes that would run from bottom to top in your placement, with a 90* bend at the top of the CPU and away. Otherwise the computer has to be on its side. They have refrigerant inside. It boils at the CPU, following up and condensating at the radiator where it drains back. It requires gravity. It's not as effective as an A/C but it's better then some would think. You've probably already done burn-in tests, (extended benchmarks) so if you're happy with it, no need to change it. It's hard to see in the picture, but it looks like you've got at least half of the pipes in the right orientation.

Cheers!

 

[kalbasit]

Cool! Eye candy!

I know! I wish I can have it open all the time lol

For the stacked devices, I'd make the fronts flush with each other. It'll allow better air flow in the back. If you have more of those wood shims, it would be beneficial to separate those 3 boxes.

I thought alighing the back would be better but thanks for the tip, I'll do that today. I might have to switch a few ethernet cables (1ft for 3ft) to make it work.

I haven't dealt with controlled outlets much. In my work environment, I'd probably use a simple temp controller, (penn stat or similar) and a contactor to break the power. It would require a box and wiring. For my home environment, I'd probably use a Wink outlet, since I already have Wink. It's cheap enough to add stuff, but not the most resilient home automation system. You have to by a Wink hub on top of the sensor and outlet, so not cheap if you don't already have it.

Well it is a DIY project So I'm making an arduino controlled outlet, I've got the code covered, the arduino and the relay are working properly. Just came back from home depot with the outlet, the box and the cover

An alternative is to use 12vdc fans with a usb controller. They can modulate, and you'll be able to find larger fans online. (I'm on the fence about this option as if the computer locks up, you have to fan control. Similar to the Wink.)

During normal temperature (at home), everything looks very good. However, I still want a ton of air blown on them in case the temperature rise so I have a 7A fan, very strong but to avoid extra $$ I decided to turn it on only when needed.

For that CPU cooler, it works best with the heat pipes in the vertical position for at least part of the length. So at the CPU, many of those coolers have heat pipes that would run from bottom to top in your placement, with a 90* bend at the top of the CPU and away. Otherwise the computer has to be on its side. They have refrigerant inside. It boils at the CPU, following up and condensating at the radiator where it drains back. It requires gravity. It's not as effective as an A/C but it's better then some would think. You've probably already done burn-in tests, (extended benchmarks) so if you're happy with it, no need to change it. It's hard to see in the picture, but it looks like you've got at least half of the pipes in the right orientation.

Cheers!

The CPU cooler is rated to work in both directions and so far the server is the least of my worries. Yesterday I had an ACPI issue and the kernel was flooding the logs with around 10Gb an hour. The load on the server was 15 and the cpu is averaging at 80% all cores. It did, however, stay within the 50C range. Idle, it's running at 19C. The logs are also forwarded to my NAS (Synology's Log Center, basically rsyslog) was flooded and the NAS's load was 80!! The temperature jumped 10C and settled at 75 (top end of the normal).

 

[supers05]

I'd like to see the Arduino/relay in action. Please post pics. Don't forget your snubber for the relay coil. It'll protect the Arduino output drivers.

Hard to beat 19*C. They all usually "rate" them for multi-position but they are usually 2x better the other way. Still I'm impressed! I'm curious what each core was reporting. Mine are usually at least 20*C above the package temp.

Geek swap:

That's a radiator above those 3 fans at the top. Fans are modulated based on temp. Water temp is never higher then a few degrees above ambient. (planning on building a mini-chiller when I get my hands on some used parts.)

Cheers!

 

[kalbasit]

I'd like to see the Arduino/relay in action. Please post pics.

See pics below, I'll make a blog post and publish the wiring diagram and the code as soon as I'm done. Right now it is functional, but automation is yet to be done.

Don't forget your snubber for the relay coil. It'll protect the Arduino output drivers.

Interesting, never heard of that. Could you go into a bit more details?

Hard to beat 19*C. They all usually "rate" them for multi-position but they are usually 2x better the other way. Still I'm impressed! I'm curious what each core was reporting. Mine are usually at least 20*C above the package temp.

[email protected] ~  % sensors
coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Physical id 0:  +26.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 0:         +20.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 1:         +23.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 2:         +19.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 3:         +19.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

nct6791-isa-0290
Adapter: ISA adapter
Vcore:                  +0.40 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +1.74 V)
in1:                    +1.67 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
AVCC:                   +3.26 V  (min =  +2.98 V, max =  +3.63 V)
+3.3V:                  +3.26 V  (min =  +2.98 V, max =  +3.63 V)
in4:                    +1.01 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in5:                    +1.01 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in6:                    +1.01 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
3VSB:                   +3.28 V  (min =  +2.98 V, max =  +3.63 V)
Vbat:                   +3.10 V  (min =  +2.70 V, max =  +3.63 V)
in9:                    +1.01 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in10:                   +0.00 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)
in11:                   +0.97 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in12:                   +1.35 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in13:                   +1.27 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in14:                   +1.06 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
fan1:                   887 RPM  (min =    0 RPM)
fan2:                  1085 RPM  (min =    0 RPM)
fan3:                   740 RPM  (min =    0 RPM)
fan4:                   782 RPM  (min =    0 RPM)
fan5:                     0 RPM  (min =    0 RPM)
fan6:                     0 RPM
SYSTIN:                 +29.0°C  (high =  +0.0°C, hyst =  +0.0°C)  ALARM  sensor = thermistor
CPUTIN:                 +29.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, hyst = +75.0°C)  sensor = thermistor
AUXTIN0:                +25.5°C    sensor = thermistor
AUXTIN1:               -128.0°C    sensor = thermistor
AUXTIN2:                +28.0°C    sensor = thermistor
AUXTIN3:                +22.0°C    sensor = thermistor
PECI Agent 0:           +26.0°C  (high = +80.0°C, hyst = +75.0°C)
                                 (crit = +100.0°C)
PCH_CHIP_CPU_MAX_TEMP:   +0.0°C
PCH_CHIP_TEMP:           +0.0°C
PCH_CPU_TEMP:            +0.0°C
intrusion0:            ALARM
intrusion1:            ALARM
beep_enable:           disabled

That's a radiator above those 3 fans at the top. Fans are modulated based on temp. Water temp is never higher then a few degrees above ambient. (planning on building a mini-chiller when I get my hands on some used parts.)

Cheers!

That's some sick design you made! Mini chiller for the CPU or the whole tower?