Location of your home server?

L

Landmine

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 19, 2011
Messages
402
So my server has been making too much noise for too long and I want to put it somewhere else or in something to make it a little less... noticeable. The fans are fine and the system is no louder today than the first day it was built, but I just would like to not hear it at all if possible.

I've thought about building a small server closet in my garage and putting it there, but that seems like a lot of money and work. I was wondering what everyone else does with their home servers? Pictures would make it more fun to look at too.
 
mine is right next to the desk in my rack
I have all my stuff in a rack, keeps it more organized
it's not silent, but not loud enough to bother me - no louder than the air conditioning
 
Mines under my desk in the living room of my apt. When I get a house it will probably end up in the basement or the garage in a rack.
 
Spare bedroom closet, lol. Garage gets too hot in summer and no basement.
 
Basement in a 42U rack. I eventually want to enclose that into it's own insulated/sealed room though but I can barely hear the stuff running even with the 1U Dell firewall I have.
 
living room

538812_3061134051990_1273035576_n.jpg
 
I live on the west coast, so it's dry and hot. No basements. I spent a little more on a SuperMicro Silent 4U Tower Server Case, but it is not silent. I replaced all the hard drives in my tower with SSD's and silent fans on everything in the system. But none of that matters with my big loud server next to me with hardwood flooring.
 
I use a 42U rack enclosure with doors in front and back in the garage, two floors down.
 
Bedroom walk in closet shoved at the back with my WiFi AP, voip equipment and a UPS.
 
With the exception of my mini Cisco lab, all my rack gear is under the house in the crawl space. It's pretty dry and temperature stable year round and isolates the noise from the rest of the house very well.
 
Landmine said:
Anyone use an server enclosure that also kills noise?

Something like this http://www.kellsystems.com/
Click to expand...

I picked up an XrackPro2 from Craigslist in mint condition for $400. Although it has large fans that make some noise, it essentially silences the noise of the server itself, and is comparable to the volume level of a running desktop. The thing is huge though, so it sits in my crawlspace. I would definitely recommend one if volume is a concern.
 
spankit said:
Mines under my desk in the living room of my apt. When I get a house it will probably end up in the basement or the garage in a rack.
Click to expand...

as my experience:
garage is not a good place for your server.
your server will collect dust much, humidity, and others :D

the best place is putting you server to a spare room or customized closet.
 
poison5151 said:
I picked up an XrackPro2 from Craigslist in mint condition for $400. Although it has large fans that make some noise, it essentially silences the noise of the server itself, and is comparable to the volume level of a running desktop. The thing is huge though, so it sits in my crawlspace. I would definitely recommend one if volume is a concern.
Click to expand...

You put it on crawlspace :D, that would attracts pests and insects as I understand.
I was thinking to put on crawlspace, but got advises no to do that.

how is you experience so far by putting it on the crawlspace, would like to hear.
 
I keep mine in the basement. We've had some "foundation issues" until this past fall. But the walls have all been sealed up and floor painted, so I havnt had any issues with it down there. I do keep a dehumidifier running, just in case. I ran a network cable down from my router to a netgear switch down in the basement, so I've got a few jacks available for future use or if I'm working on a PC, etc down there. It's working good so far.
 
cantalup said:
is that IKEA rack/table?
Click to expand...

i have no idea. picked it up at goodwill for $20. not sure what it was originally purposed for but, works great for my needs.

i call it "the pirate bay". just wish i had a big pirate ship to put on top of it.
 
cantalup said:
You put it on crawlspace :D, that would attracts pests and insects as I understand.
I was thinking to put on crawlspace, but got advises no to do that.
Click to expand...

Probably depends on your crawlspace. I don't have any exposed dirt and pretty much no bugs in mine so it's ideal, but I've seen some I would not consider putting a server in haha.
 
cantalup said:
You put it on crawlspace :D, that would attracts pests and insects as I understand.
I was thinking to put on crawlspace, but got advises no to do that.

how is you experience so far by putting it on the crawlspace, would like to hear.
Click to expand...

Nah if you take care of your crawlspace and treat it like a basement, it should stay clean.

I have a split level so half basement half crawlspace, the crawlspace is as clean as the basement, in fact, cleaner. The basement floor has collected drywall dust from demolition and it cannot come out so it's very dusty in there. I plan to put drycore. I had thought of putting my servers in the crawlspace too, but it's hard on the back to walk in there. :p

Never had a single mouse (I put peanuts on the ground and they're still there a year later). I did have a few in my attic in winter though, I need to figure out where they got in from.



I plan to enclose that into a proper sealed room though, to have more control of dust and spiders/webs.
 
Basement in a 48U APC Netshelter that I scored from the office when one came in damaged. Needed a new door which came off another one :)
 
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How high is your basement? I did not even know they made racks that high. That's pretty sweet.
 
Sorry, the APC is a 48U. I did have an old black box telco CO 72U rack as well which I used until I get the netshelter
 
Red Squirrel said:
Nah if you take care of your crawlspace and treat it like a basement, it should stay clean.

I have a split level so half basement half crawlspace, the crawlspace is as clean as the basement, in fact, cleaner. The basement floor has collected drywall dust from demolition and it cannot come out so it's very dusty in there. I plan to put drycore. I had thought of putting my servers in the crawlspace too, but it's hard on the back to walk in there. :p

Never had a single mouse (I put peanuts on the ground and they're still there a year later). I did have a few in my attic in winter though, I need to figure out where they got in from.

....

I plan to enclose that into a proper sealed room though, to have more control of dust and spiders/webs.
Click to expand...

does your crawlspace have concrete floor? it looks like on the picture
 
Volkum said:
Probably depends on your crawlspace. I don't have any exposed dirt and pretty much no bugs in mine so it's ideal, but I've seen some I would not consider putting a server in haha.
Click to expand...

spider is the most common in my crawlspace, I do pest control and clean spider-web from crawlspace once a year.
 
cantalup said:
does your crawlspace have concrete floor? it looks like on the picture
Click to expand...

Yep, you can see it a bit off to the side (those cinder blocks hold the beam for the lower level)

Older pic from before I got the rack:



I even have a crawlspace under my garage, that one is not as clean though, the concrete is broken up all around and some sand is exposed. I got it spray foamed a few years ago though, I don't use it for anything, but when I build my server room I will coil some pex in there to cool the server room.
 
For 3 years I've had a 22U APC netshelter with me. 2 years in my apartment, and 1 year when I moved back in with my parents to start school again. Now its sitting in my basement, but in my apartment it was in my office next to my computer connected with 10gE
 
Ah here we go:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v519/staticlag/P1030039_zps9da6b787.jpg

top is 48 port gig switch with 4 sfp fiber ports
then 4 10/100 switches for home lan parties

then a dell 1900 with 18 G ram and 2x xeon 3.3ghz procs (game server)
Norco 470 for spare drives and backups
Norco 4220 for zpool
Some random norco case running Openvpn
and underneath is a 3000va UPS

Not shown, but in the back of the case on that shelf:

Synology 2 bay NAS
HP 8 port gig switch
HP 24 port gig switch
Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH in router only mode running dd-wrt

Surfboard SB6120
 
Not much change to my setup, except I started framing my basement, which in turn will also lead to enclosing the server room and making it an actual room.

also another rack suddenly appeared there. :D

 
Mine is locked up in my Gun safe.

Server is also my NVR, thieves like to steal those too, good luck getting mine!
 
Mine is right next to my desktop on the floor in my room.

But I built my server with quietness in mind as a top priority so it makes hardly any sound. I don't even notice it's running.
 
WP_20130428_003_resize.jpg


Got mine in the garage on a DIY kind "rack-shelf".
 
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SirMaster said:
Mine is right next to my desktop on the floor in my room.

But I built my server with quietness in mind as a top priority so it makes hardly any sound. I don't even notice it's running.
Click to expand...

Post some specs? I'm looking at buying a new chassis as mine makes more sound that
I care for at 30db, 4 feet from it.
 
Landmine said:
Post some specs? I'm looking at buying a new chassis as mine makes more sound that
I care for at 30db, 4 feet from it.
Click to expand...

Well, it's a i5 3570 with the stock cooler which I find to be quiet. Even under load I don't hear the fan get louder or anything.

Using this PSU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171036

This case:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146075

I find that PSU's fan to be very quiet.

And for the case, I removed the stock fan and replaced it with very quiet 120mm fans.

2 front intakes by the 8 HDD, 1 on the side intake for the CPU and internals, and 1 on top for exhaust.

Finally, I opened the 3 5.25" bays and put in a converter to convert the 3 5.25" into 4 3.5" bays to increase my HDD capacity to 12 total and put a quiet fan in that too.

Overall it's a pretty simple build. It's just all quiet fans and with the tower under my desk and in the back I don't really hear it. Or I can if I really try, but it's just a very soft purr of the fans. Nothing that would bother anyone or that you can hear from across the room in the bed.

Yuo don't need a new case, just replace the fans in it with quiet fans.
http://www.quietpcusa.com/

If you want to go crazy, get a passive CPU heatsink and sound absorbtion material to line your case with. Along with the quietest case fans available.
 
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SirMaster said:
Yuo don't need a new case, just replace the fans in it with quiet fans.
http://www.quietpcusa.com/

If you want to go crazy, get a passive CPU heatsink and sound absorbtion material to line your case with. Along with the quietest case fans available.
Click to expand...

Thank you. I'll pull the server down today and listen to it and see what fans need to be replaced. 80mm and 92mm fans seems fairly loud.

I <3 Noctua. I cant believe I didnt look for these sooner.
 
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