Slashdot Mirror
A Micro-A/C for a Server Closet?
DiZNoG asks: "I work from home and run two businesses from there. Sick of server and switch noise in my home office, I've been thinking of taking an old hallway closet that used to house the furnace (since moved) and turning it into a literal server closet for my various servers and networking gear. I have 4 servers and various networking gear and even a system for getting everything in and accessible worked out. Bonus, the room already has power and is perfect placement for my access point (already secured, thank you!) However, I am running into problems finding a small air conditioner for the size of room. It's literally 15 sq. ft. and maybe 100-125 cubic feet total. By my estimates that's something on the order of 150-250 BTUs (or less) with the hardware. Does anyone on Slashdot know of micro A/C units to keep such a small area in server friendly temperature efficiently? I did see this homebrew action, but I'm looking for much less maintenance."
The square footage of the space has almost nothing to do with the size of the cooling unit you need. You need to base it on the wattage of the equipment you're going to put in there instead. Divide the wattage of your equipment by three to get an approximation of the BTUs per hour rating you'll need on your AC unit. Regardless, the laws of thermodynamics require that you will have to cut a vent hole for the heat to exit through even if you're using an air conditioner. As long as you're going to have a vent hole anyway, why not cut two? Put a big slow quiet fan in the top one blowing in, and an air filter in the bottom (or the other way around)?
If you insist on AC, you probably want something like this: APC NetworkAIR AP7003 or more likely, some other (cheaper, but similar) portable AC unit with an exhaust hose from your local Wal-Mart.