If you read the last few blog posts, you’ll notice that I recently put together a new server, which is now running 24/7 alongside the old main server. There’s a big problem I have now, and that’s noise pollution. They’re in my living room, so it doesn’t affect me sleeping thankfully, but even watching a film, a loud hum of 9 hard disks and around 10 8cm fans is very noticeable. Sometimes it gives me a headache.
I need to do something about this now, right away. I tried the obvious thing last night, and put cushions against the walls around the servers. Putting one in front and on top was a bad idea though as the ambient case temperature of the main server soared to 40°C! After putting the fans on full pelt and opeining the living room window to ventilate and cool it down rapidly, I put a side cushion and rear cusion back, but left the front and top open. This of course doesn’t stop much sound as much of the sound is coming from the front of the main server – where the hard drive hot-swap bay is. 4 hard drives and fan are practically open at the front causing a lot of noise.
I’m exploring getting a server cabinet, and replacing the current server cases with 19″ 4U rack-mountable cases, but this is an expensive option. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for years, but just never had the money. Soundproofed server cabinets are horrendously expensive (I found one for about £1,300 odd, excluding delivery and VAT!), so I may have to make do with a standard server cabinet and try and make the fans as big and quiet as possible.
If anyone has any suggestions, please do let me know! If you know me, you’ll know how to contact me anyway, I’m not putting my e-mail address on this blog!
