Warming Drives TB Within Temperature Range

[PeteCress]

This is probably the opposite from most temperature problems: keeping the drives from running too cool.

I just built up a backup box to act as the backup mirror for my 10TB NAS.

In the interest of survivability in the event of something like a fire or destructive break-in I am running it in my garden shed about 100' from the house.

But, of course, the shed is unheated and I see that even so it's a balmy 50-some degrees outside the drives are already running in the mid twenties Centigrade.

The box is a NorCo 4220: 3 120mm muffin fans pulling air over the drives and two 80m fans pulling air out of the case.

Seems like part of the solution is some sort of thermostatic regulation on those fans... but surely that will not be enough when it gets much colder - as in below zero C..... So I'm guessing some sort of supplemental heating scheme....

Heating the entire shed is not practical.

Is there a widely-used solution to this situation? - Preferably something that can run unattended through cold and hot weather.

 

[wblock]

Widely used? There are probably commercial heated/cooled boxes for neighborhood cable distribution systems or something like that. But that might be overcomplicating it. It's not that you don't have a heat source, that system is generating probably 100W of heat. There are two problems: the volume of air it's trying to heat is too large, and what happens when the outside air temperature rises.

 

[SweetAndLow]

You could insulate the shed. This way any heat your system makes will heat the shed. Or make a smaller enclosed area in the shed specifically for the server, this will stay warmer.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[Stux]

Homebrewers like to keep their beer fermenters at 20C or so. They use simple controllers to turn lightbulbs/heaters on/off in cold locations.

If they're very serious they use a hot/cold controller and put their fermenter in a fridge. Turn the fridge on to cool. Turn the heater on in the fridge to heat.

Put the server in an insulated box... add a light bulb/heater on a simple controller that you get from a homebrew store.

A popular kit controller is the STC-1000 which will switch a cooling and/or heating 110/240V loads (depending on version) based on a temp probe.

Mind you... I find it hard to believe that if you put your server in an old fridge, it won't generate enough heat to cook itself.

 

[skyline65]

Here in the UK if I had a server in the shed I would be worrying about the humidity causing condensation.