probably a little off topic but......[solved]

[chrishoyle]

Hi all,

this is probably the wrong place to post this, but there seems to be a lot f helpful knowledgeable people here so i thought I'd ask anyway.

I have built a home server using ubuntu server and i am thinking of placing it in the loft as i am in the process of boarding it out. whilst working up there i have noticed that it can get extremely hot. in the UK at the moment it is summer and we surprisingly get the occasional warm day, for example yesterday reached 26C outside in the shade where i live and in the loft it reached a very sweaty 36C.

i know that past summers can get well into the 30's so that suggests that the loft could get up into the 40's! and in the winter it will be the reverse in that it could get very cold up there. my gut instincts tell me that this is a crazy place to put a server knowing that in commercial premises servers are often in climate controlled environments.

so am i being overly pessimistic that a server couldn't last long in this environment or should i consider an alternate location?

Thanks in advance

Chris

[dibl]

Re: probably a little off topic but......

AFAIK, heat is the #1 enemy of electronics -- moreso with these modern CPUs that need active cooling to survive. If your server is running 24/7, the winter chill will not be a concern, but summer ambient temps over 25 are going to shorten the life of the system <fullstop>.

[JDaus]

Re: probably a little off topic but......

AFAIK, heat is the #1 enemy of electronics -- moreso with these modern CPUs that need active cooling to survive. If your server is running 24/7, the winter chill will not be a concern, but summer ambient temps over 25 are going to shorten the life of the system <fullstop>.

This is true ... but upon saying that, i have been in situations where we have no other option but to place computers into big stainless steel boxes in direct sunlight ... this is not an ideal situation that your facing, but modern CPU's have the ability to slow themselves down (so they consume less power, and therfore produce less heat) when the CPU core becomes too hot.

i live in Australia, and our summers regularly get over 40 degrees C, and this is in the shade. the boxes i talked about above where tested to extreme temps, and at around 60 degrees (ambient temp), the computer CPU is sititng about 70-75 and has started to slow itself to try to cool down ... so i think your 40 degree loft should be fine, provided your not trying to use 100% cpu, and that your have a good passive/active cooling system (big sink with small fan is best ...

just watch out for the dust in your loft ... that may kill your server quicker than ambient temps (by filling your heat sinks with dust, thus reducing the efectiveness to near zero)

hope this helps

[chrishoyle]

Re: probably a little off topic but...... [solved]

thanks for your comments guys,

I think i may trial the server up there and see how it goes, it's mostly being used as a media server so the heaviest load on it is probably streaming a movie. I've stripped the pc down so that it consumes as least power as possible and the processor is of the type where it goes into a low power mode when inactive. everything is backed up on it so that if it does go wrong then it's not a huge problem.

i have read a bit about this around the internet and it all seems fairly inconclusive, some people say they have had servers running for years in a loft with no problems, other people would never do it. I take the point about the dust in the loft however, I'll have to go up and hoover the PC out regularly!

Chris