I did the same thing to my 3 rack data center in new york back in 2001/2002, I lined up the racks and out the back the heat collected and was pulled up and out with a bathroom ventilation fan, only, I used this hot air to heat the basement! It was a win win. Also, cold air was pulled in from the cold-north side of the house through filters which cooled the servers. Only very rarely did the air-conditioners have to kick in to cool the air for the servers.
I miss the days of having a basement, I used to do the same thing in PA with no need for the additional exhaust...but in Texas we don't have basements :)
Thanks for sharing! I too run several servers in a half-height rack (in south Texas). It never occurred to me before that I should try to direct the airflow outside.
Thanks! this is just what I was looking for. Have my server in a closet and the vents I added weren't enough. Going to try this to pull the hot air out!
Great video man. I had a very similar idea with my 2 desktops that I run, I got them in a insulated box with a vent duct just like you have that leads outside. I live in a small apartment and having the machines running for hours will definitly get the place warmer but now I dont think i will have to run my AC as much this summer. :) I might I have to make my own video
Might want to PIN this comment and let us know the model used. So looks like: Pine board - rack "glove" for lack of a better term. 6" duct and flex pipe. And a fan, but what fan exactly, how many CFM? Did you have to make any calculations on your equipment for the exhaust CFM flow to not create any back pressure? Great idea though and I think I'll do the same with my rack but pipe between floors and put a Y pipe to allow either pushing air outside OR exhaust between the floors for during the inter for free-ish heating within the walls. 😎
With rack cooling, I think it's easy to overlook the need for active exhaust airflow since most cabinets don't have any capability for it. The air and heat going through the servers need to go _somewhere_. Doesn't matter if it's exhausted directly into the room -- though not ideal -- so long as it's pulled away from the systems.
This is all for personal use, I work for a web hosting company and having this at home gives me plenty of space and power to play and learn, use it to replicate/solve issues customers are having and so on. It all started with 1 server and I ended up building an entire web farm (2 DCs, 2 LBs, 2 Web servers and a DB cluster) on it and then scaled out from there.
Quick question, im new here so why do you have so many servers? What do u use them for? i ask because i am able to get a few of them but have no idea what i should do with them on a consumer level. What practical use can i have with them for a home system?
I use a 2" pipe that sticks out of my window and the other end connected to the server intake, so the unit is constantly pulling in cold air from the outside.
Can you tell me what your onboard ethernet temps are? I have a similar setup en all temps are good except my onboard 10G temp is around 68 degrees. All other temps are between 40 and 50 degrees.
So I've just come across this video because I'm looking for ideas for my own server rack build. I'm curious, did you install a vent hood on the outside? Something like a dryer vent hood?
@@robwillisinfo I'm not sure if I will do anything quite like this, but it is certainly an interesting option. Goes to show how much us newbies know about things like this. I knew servers generated a ton of noise, but I never thought about how much heat. Do you have any issues with the cold in winter time? I live in GA, so it's not unusual for us to have wild temperature swings in the winter (get up in the AM and it's 30F outside, by mid day it's 65F).
Thanks Lars! Unfortunately I didn't keep any of the blue prints for it. I started out with the basic size of a 1u server which was like 18 in w x 36 in l x 2 in h and then figured out how many slots I wanted with a 2in space (the thickness of a 2x3) between the servers. I made a few of the slots 4in high for 2u servers. Once I had a front and back frame with the server slots I basically just enclosed it. The rear box just follows the dimensions of the rack, its approx 20 in w x 12 in deep and im not sure on the height.
+Rob Willis Yeah, very good idea. Same a friend and I does 2005 for 2 computer boxes and for a 19" rack 8 parts high here in the warm country Thailand after the room build in a/c can't put away the heat. As my friend build own house later the computer room have had a good a/c only - but this time the most stuff not run 24 hour 7 days and not produce so many heat.
The window that the board and vent is mounted to has a screen on it. So between the screen and the constant air pressure going out, I haven't had any issues with bugs or water coming in.
I'm moving to SA in a month (from Kansas), and looking for ideas like this 😁 I'm planning a similar setup in an apartment, but thinking to use the dryer vent to release the hot air.
Currently all of the servers are running ESXi, 3 of them are in a DRS cluster. I have also rolled my own SAN using iSCSI and Storage Spaces. I run a mix of VMs - Windows, Linux, and pfSense. As far as services I run a few Domain Controllers, load balancers, web servers, db clusters, file services, plex, and I even have a server running full time pcap. The beauty of having something like this is having plenty of space where I can spin up new VMs in minutes for testing or if i need to build something out. I basically have my own cloud.
I would double check but I do think you can, however you will need vCenter for that and it is not free. You can run it as a 60 day trial to experiment with which is what I have been doing.
I have a basic window screen on the outside of the window that this is mounted in, and with the air blowing outward constantly I haven't had any issues at all.
I think the server fans should be enough to blow the hot air out. A server uses several high RPM fans inside that would create enough pressure to blow the hot air out. Kinda like a cloths dryer.
Nice! I had thought about doing this as well, but was worried about powering it all. Now I don't event need the additional cooling and the fans don't use any where near as much power as an AC unit.
This is how you increase your electric bill exponentially. Not to mention put a huge load on your AC. You are having to bring more air from outside and condition it for within the envelope. So this is literally pumping your conditioned air from your home right out the window.
It's a balancing act. If I didn't exhaust the heat, the servers would literally heat up the house and the A/C would then have to keep up with that. The only air that is exhausted is the hot air. The volume of air going out is no more than a vent you would have in a bathroom vent. I've had this setup in place for about 4 yrs now, and it's been amazing. I've also seen my electric bill decrease during the long hot texas summer compared to before I had this setup. The house is also considerably cooler.
I did a similar thing. blue.ccsnet.com/copper/displayimage.php?pid=1287 I have improved the vent outlet in the window and added a cool air inlet to the room as well.
It's a balancing act. Either let the AC run constantly to combat the heat generated, or create a little negative pressure. The negative pressure is not much more than a bathroom exhaust vent.
Buy a real metal server rack 24 U end apply the same principles as you show in de video with the duct if your server get in fire your wood storage rack buns well get a fire extinguisher for extra safety
A 3990x 64 core cpu with nothing else costs $3600 US on Amazon right now, which is approx 3x more than all 6 servers I had here combined. I can only imagine the hardware compatibility issues that would come up with something like ESXi as well. I'll take the servers (plus the extra features like remote management) all day everyday.
It's really not that bad with the new setup, it was considerably worse before. I generally have ear buds in when I am working in the office anyway so I notice the noise even less. This is a lab and I am always working on things - installing parts, rearranging, fixing things - so not having them in the room would be way more annoying to me.
