Home servers are functional but often ugly. If you want to keep your network-driving home PC out of sight, consider concealing it in a shoe cabinet.
At IKEA Hackers, Soren details how he used the $149 Stall shoe rack to hide two tower PCs in his lounge room. It’s not just a matter of placing them in there; you need to add additional wall brackets and consider ventilation issues carefully. However, for headless systems you don’t often need to connect stuff to, it does look like a pretty neat solution. Hit the post for full details.
STALL Computer Cabinet [IKEA Hackers]
Nathan F
Friday, August 26, 2011 at 2:45 PMcooling cooling, and more cooling.
Last time i put a computer or two in a cupboard i lost all the hard drives in it from the fun australian summer days. :/
Sam
Friday, August 26, 2011 at 2:57 PMYeah I thought this too as soon as I saw the article’s means of combating overheating was drilling holes in the top of the cabinet.
My HTPC used to get hot just being in my TV cabinet (the shelf was boxed top, sides and rear – front fully open).
Having said that though, hole saw a couple of 80-120mm holes and mount some exhaust cooling fans, and you’d be in business.
pk
Friday, August 26, 2011 at 3:27 PMyeah heat is something not be overlooked here
StuDotWho
Friday, August 26, 2011 at 3:55 PMMy home network infrastructure consists of a headless laptop (yeah, just the base, like a new version of the C-64 except it runs Linux), a WD NAS, d-link wireless adsl router, a battery backup box and a $15 120mm fan aimed to push air across the tech gear.
The setup has an entire shelf dedicated to it in the bottom of my upstairs linen cupboard, and it has already survived one Brisbane summer.
Initially i was having cooling issues checking it every few hours I was home, then I put that fan in, and checking it every few hours became every few days, and now I haven’t checked it since ….. I don’t remember the last time.
I suspect if I was to put any other gear in there I’d need to make additional cooling arrangements but for the few things in there now it’s fine.
Stove
Friday, August 26, 2011 at 4:16 PMyou can automate some temperature warnings if you’re worried – back around 2005 you could use lm-sensors and gkrellm to email you alerts whenever the home server was getting a bit toasty, and there’s probably far easier techniques now.
In terms of server storage: I once used a drawer in my desk. It was the right size, easily accessible, and tearing the back of the drawer off left plenty of room for mounting fans/running cables. The downsides: Mounting more than a couple of drives can be tricky and you do have to fiddle a bit to get good airflow.
Nathan
Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 8:23 PMYes very good and dont forget to add shutdown command if temp = xx (i.e. set a high lim temp)!!!
Robert (B-ob)
Friday, August 26, 2011 at 5:08 PMOddly, the linen closet in my place has a power point and phone point (previous owner had a monitored medical alarm) – I’ve already moved the ADSL modem / router there, so I’m planning on turning it in to a networking closet instead. Hard wire the home with Cat6, all roads lead to linen.