I am starting to wonder why my server system is making SO much heat. I live in Norway, so outside temperature is around freezing, and my house I keep it around 25 degrees inside, except no heating in the server room. It got a roof extraction vent that is constantly sucking out air in that room, and I just had it inspected to be working perfectly fine.
Still its always over 30 degrees in that room, and the hot air is oozing from the server. Its just a consumer based drive and a couple of switches, plus a UPS, and its so warm in there.
Im getting afraid the high temperature can affect the hardware when its 30-35 degrees inside the server rack
By keeping your house at 25 degrees, you’re setting the baseline temperature of the house (i.e. it will never be colder than 25 degrees, period).
If you can get some airflow, why not just set your house to like 19 degrees, and use the fans of your unit to equalize the temperature in your unit (19 degrees is the new baseline, it will probably keep the unit a degree or two hotter just by the ambient heat generated by your server).
For what it’s worth a server is fine to run in this type of environment. What are the internal temperatures of your system? Is it overheating?
I vent to the attic using a duct fan.
Hard drives produce a lot of heat. Switches can produce a lot of heat, particularly older switches (and routers).
But, yes, temperature is your enemy.
I don’t generate the heat in the first place. 35 celsius is comfy for servers, though.
Heavy computation rack is in an unheated conservatory with a window cracked open. Keeps the HDD temperatures around 30 degrees. Temperature monitoring from my PDU shows a 3’C rise from the inlet to the exhaust side of the rack. This stuff is mostly powered off when not in use. In summer, it can get to 35’C in that room so I shut everything down at that point.
24/7 rack is in my lounge and vents the heat into the room (helps a little bit with heating costs). Top of the rack is about 37’C but I’ve seen it around 45’C with all my hypervisors doing stuff. Nothing complains. As long as the intake air is within the manufacturer’s stated range, it’s fine.
Might want to consider redirecting the heat into the house rather than venting it outside.
When I had a rack at home, it was a silent one (so almost completely sealed). I had a fat duct coming in from the outside into the bottom of the rack and another fat duct taking the hot air from the top outside. But in winter, I made sure it was blowing that hot air into the living space.
I just commented on basically the same - except it’s more “structured” as Heat Recovery Ventilation also works the other way around.
So you can have fresh (as in new to your house, not the temperature itself) air coming in both in summer and winter - and in both cases it would be pre cooled/heated by the exhaust air.
