I'm an electrician and everything you said made alot of sense. I would suggest mounting the panel not flush with the wall but rather sitting out from the drywall on mounted on the drywall. That makes it super easy to surface mount another conduit on the wall to future electrical loads. I am being pedantic but even though 220V uses 2 hot legs it's still considered 1 phase, its kind of complicated.
Careful saying "I'm an electrician and everything you said made alot of sense." What part of his power factor talk made sense? Also you get charged by KWph, how does the ohms law not apply if you use 240v vs 120 v? admittedly he says he doesn't know a lot about this stuff. So my warning is you are making the claim that you do and it makes sense. Someone might take what he said and run with it. Unbalanced loads can cause transformer failure, something that the business and electrician will be responsible to pay for. Definitely get an electrician to look over your setups, power usage, possible expansions, service, and potential heating and cooling required in the room for sizing loads and ambient temp correction factors. Stay safe brother.
Well I should say it made some sense. I think what he was trying to say is that most servers have APFC so they can operate on 100v up to 240v. Often the computers power supplies operate at higher efficiencies at higher voltages. I think he was also was trying to say its important to balance loads, any electrician who doesn't do that sucks at his or her job. Also depending on your utility you can get absolutely hammered by power factor surcharges if you don't have a high power factor.
Well. I just came to the same conclusion. At least YT has not recommended any other video on this subject - A server video, but the room isn't built yet.
Interesting video, I'm a fridge engineer in the uk. American voltages amuse me, we have 230v single phase and 415v three phase. Our usual calculation when installing air con in a server room is calculate what the servers need now, then go to the next size air con unit and fit two of them. We set the air con units so that the back up is a degree above the differential of the master, then swap the systems from master to slave at each service. This gives a decent life time as, if the servers are significantly upgraded in terms of heat generation, the second can take over till the air con can be upgraded to suit the new requirements. One issue with going too far with the air con specs is, the air con units can get the temperature down before there is adequate moisture removal from the atmosphere ( As I say, I live in the uk, we get humid heat far more than dry heat).
in North America, our typical house and small office voltages are usually single/split phase 220v. As in only one 220v phase coming in and to get that 120v we seem to be stuck on, the Neutral wire is connected to the center of the 220v phase of the transformer. So i'm not sure if he misspoke and meant single split phase or if that larger building has 3 phases feeding the whole building. I'm not an electrician, but i've listened to many at work and how over the years getting 120v, 220v and 208v from our incoming 480v 3 phase is interesting and yet i still don't understand it all. I've been annoyed at our continued use of 120v for average things. 220v would seem to be much better for home use.
I really don't get it. I think it's just old transformers and that's what they stepped down from 480v for somethings. the plant was built in the 60s and things change is all i can say.
you are very wrong about the "fried" part, Volts dont kill you (till a certain point) Amps kill you. higher voltage means lower amps. i have been shocked a few times by 220V and its just a scare
Tomas van eccelpoel I think that is very dangerous advice, since the current is usually limited by resistance and therefore increases with voltage. This video explains it very well i think ua-cam.com/video/8xONZcBJh5A/v-deo.html
Fancy, hope we get a detailed overview of all the equipment within. Maybe even some of the software. Also thanks for mentioning the redundant a/c unit, the company I work for has had so many a/c problems, and it only take a couple of minutes before all the equipment over temps. A++
Right now my house just has an office with no server rack, just a (cheap?) 10g switch, 10g router, and a NAS on a shelf. If I have to look at another place, I will definitely consider a creating a server closet of some decent space to just put a 42U Server rack that'll cover all my needs in and call it a day with some of the specifications in this video. Definitely been looking into the soundproofing aspect.
I'm a Data Center Manager for an ISP company, and we use hot and cold isles completely differently from what you explained here. We have pressurized zones to help with air flow, and cooling costs. Hot isle is negative pressure, separated by Plexiglas from the cold isle which is positive pressure. It cut down on our energy usage and costs significantly when we did that.
The way a large scale data center is managed is completely different, and the whole hot aisle/cold aisle thing makes sense in that context. It does not for a small business. Three racks does not an aisle make, and they aren't generating that much heat to start with.
It's nice that you mentioned the power needs of a server closet, I've dealt with clients that had the latest and greatest in server technology (fancy vm's failovers and fast local data storage) but using a power line that's older than me that have seen better days. There would be power outages once every 1-2 weeks at the very least, me and the other contractors ended up begging for the client to upgrade their power lines due to all the headaches that we face from the power outages. Thank god it was changed.
A lot of the server rooms where I work actually used to be bathrooms. We have until recently had problems keeping them cool because the previous techs thought a tiny window A/C unit was "good enough". These buildings were constructed before there was ever a need to have on-site servers or an "MDF" because everything ran off the telephone lines.
You can do the snake tray above, or you can install a raised floor with tiles that pop out and run the trays under there. I like doing that because it protects the server racks from moisture and also allows you to send cool air under the false floor, where it will rise through the racks, pick up heat, and then exhaust out the top. It's a bit old school, but every datacenter I've ever built has been that way, except for one, and that one has had cooling problems since day one.
For flooding, besides a raised floor, you can get a Simpli Safe system and they have water sensors that will trip the alarm to let you know that you have a water leak.
I'll do my best to briefly explain power factor. Once upon a time I was an Electrical Engineer so I had to struggle with this concept myself many years ago. Basically power factor is a ratio of "real power" & "imaginary power". Think of the real power as the real current-time power draw, and the imaginary as the lagged-time power draw. This has to do with the sinusoidal nature of AC power and the time varying nature of analog circuits that turn AC into DC and even the digital circuits that constantly change voltage and current over time. When devices take in power from AC, even when adapted to DC like for computers, there are things like capacitance and inductance that are required for a circuit's systems to work that makes the real time power consumption not reflect overall power consumption because the electrical load is changing with time. Capacitors store charge over time by altering current, Inductors do the same (using current induced magnetic fields) for voltage. In order for power systems on both input and output, to work most effectively, the real power should be similar to the imaginary. Computer PSUs generally do a pretty good job at this, and when you see the Platinum/Gold/Bronze/etc. efficiency ratings that they advertise today a lot of that comes from actively monitoring the computer's power factor and making adjustments to the switching cycle of the power supply accordingly. Electrical companies see the input side of the power supply however, and it is going to alter your mains' overall power factor. For home systems it's nearly always not enough to warrant the high cost of installing power factor correctors that work on certain circuits of your house. But if you're running a business's IT closet like here, then those electricity costs add up and it has an even larger effect on the utility company delivering current into the building, so they upcharge you for it. The negative impact is that you get distortions in the AC electricity leaving the systems they power with less than ideal power delivery. Hope this clarifies power factor in electrical systems at least a little bit, it is a tough concept to explain intuitively, and if you're just thinking about building a homelab, unless you're doing some really heavy electrical loads on it (5kW+ for the sake of argument) it's probably not even worth thinking about.
Rubber roofing can be an excellent umbrella or ceiling liner. If needed use plywood to create a large flat surface to support it, could be over a server rack or the ceiling etc. I would use 2x6 studs for more insulation and room for conduit. Add extra conduits for additions later
Excellent. Cheapening out always seems to cost more down the road. Anticipating major but especially minor problems & neutralizing all of them works best. Doubling up or redundancy is just common sense. It's easier to backup & protect than replace & restore. A++
Our server closet is literally a closet with an AC vent and two internet connections (fibre for the servers and cable for the office). It fits a singular server rack which contains all the stuff that we need and quite a bit more.
I usually create a small office in the server room with a partition wall and room for a desk and chair. It's a great place for an overworked admin to hide while he looks for new opportunities!
Looking at the sprinkler heads over the server racks at my work while watching this... I try not to think about it. It was my first complaint when I started. I still bring it up now and then, plant manager ignores me.
that is nothing short of idiotic, wow...well that plant is going to get shut down for a while WHEN the fire alarm trips (not if, the fire alarm will go off eventually, and bye-bye servers)
You see that a lot. I saw worse though. A hospital had it's servers in the basement. Right above them was a ward full of therapy pools full of water. This was mentioned a lot during the earthquake upgrades being done to make sure the servers stay running after a major quake... They eventually relocated the servers.
It seems bad and is better to avoid it and have the server room covered with its own system. There are worse things. like improper Building AC being installed. A plenum AC installed in a building that was designed for and specked to have complete duct work. When this happens, lots of condensation builds up on the celling and drips. At work, it seemed to like dripping and finding its way to our server room. I had plastic draped across our rack for a few months before the problem was fixed. fortunately i found it and got it covered before we lost anything. Boy that made a mess of the drop celling tiles all over the office area. We also ended up with a sprinkler head in there. It was out of my control. Thankfully the sprinklers don't discharge when the alarm is triggered though. As far as i know, that's only a TV thing and nothing like that in the real word works like that.
Fire sprinklers only put out water for 2 reasons. One, someone breaks it off. Two, enough heat in the room melts the solder pellet. Alarms do not set off sprinklers in most systems.
When I worked at Wal-mart during college someone took out a low sprinkler head with a forklift in the back room. It was a wet system and it was hilarious how much water came out before they got it shut off.
If you know exactly how many wracks you will do from the start and their precise location, also use a scan/3d model of the room and ventilation simulation program to see where exactly you need to set your cooling unit(s) and to which direction to point the vents. Will help you shave off a few C off and depending on optimization might even save you an entire unit of cooling so for example instead of 3 units you could cool off the room well enough with only 2 well placed ones.
You could use pond liner above the ceiling. It's 40mil rubber, and even though it's more expensive that plastic vapor barrier, it's very strong and helps with sound deadening. You can also get water sensors that can shut off the power (magnetic circuit breakers)if the area floods.
conduit, patch panels, and extra power & cooling no matter how much you have in a rack now, you will have more coming in the future bulletin board & a white board are nice too
That wall you're asking your contractor for is a staggered stud wall, or a double stud wall. Either will do, the one in the video is a double stud because there are two separate bottom boards.
On this episode of This Old House with Wendell....wait, what's happening? It's my two passions coming together! Great video dude. Would love to see more of this in the future :)
Cable management and server closets or home network closets is a great topic, Please do more of this kind of stuff. New or interesting products for this topic is interesting as well.
Very nice. I'm building a lower end setup for my house. It's nice to see I'm already following a lot of you tips just by common sense. I love your shower curtain story.
Don't worry. If you merely care at all you'll do a better job than probably 50% of the "closets" you come across. I put closets in quotes because sometimes the "server room" is just a bunch of computers and wires on a floor.
@@dycedargselderbrother5353One thing I would suggest is to have enough room to walk around your racks. so that about 30" clear space with 36" in front. . Ever try to remove a router that was back mounted in a rack and only have enough room to pull it out 12"? Or how about trying to get behind the middle rack when you have six inches between the servers and 12" on the back? and 12" on the sides? But we left two feet in-=ront of the servers...and the new server is 32" long! how do we get it into the rack?
Looks like our (where I work) old server room (not closet! that's for clothes). Beware of that AC though, its good but does have some issues, like the cold line if insulated will condense on humid days and the water will collect and eventually spill out of the top if there is no escape hole at the bottom, add a drip pan as well. I would place my water sensors at the bottom of the condensor lines and at the top where the lines meet the AC. If like our model there's a shelf/drip pan up there and it will collect water even if its not meant to be a drip pan. We had ours spitting water at the racks once, not a pretty situation. Don't forget, no crossing of power and data lines.
I randomly watch level1 techs videos, with the exception of the news - I watch all of those. Anyways, just came to say - I am so glad Wendell launched his own channel.
It's been a long time but I think you should do a video on building a server closet for your home. It'd be interesting to hear your ideas for adding a server closet to an old house or new construction.
Two important things I feel you forgot to touch on were 1) fire suppression. Most places will just put in water suppression and call it a day. And 2) EPO (Emergency Power Off). In the event of a ups capacitor blowing or some other unforseen electrical mishap this can help mitigate the damage before a full fire. However be sure to at least place a plastic cover over it and clearly label it, lest it become a resume generating button. Oh one more thing, if you're looking to get the most efficiency out of the cooling system be sure to pay attention to air flow, it can make a noticable difference.
Awesome vieo, but the end killed it for me, Wendell. Only 1 AC unit and one portable backup? You should always have 2 AC units and have them work 12h each / day, (or even in 6h intervals) with the portable one as a last resort, in case both of them fail. Although there are some cool ACs that work on WiFi and you can check their stats from your LAN, you can still do the job with normal ACs and just set time periods in which they start and stop. Running an AC 24/7 for very long periods is bad. Just this week one of our server ACs broke and the other one has been running for 5 days without pause. We've prepared the portable AC and I'm ready to go to work at any time if the other one breaks too (I live near my workplace). Hopefully the new unit will arrive next week.
MrBiky the office ac is oversized and the secondary zone for this room can be another backup, apart from the portable unit. A louver wired to a simple thermostat will open that zone. All 3 are separate. It's not a crazy heat load in this room.
It's not really about heat, it's about redundancy and life span of the ac units. As for our setup, we have old acs, so we have a USB thermostat and it sends us alerts via Nagios. Our 2 racks (1 cold, 1 hot) don't have crazy heat output either, it's about safe of mind.
I had one small (25 people) medical office I took over the IT for where the last IT guy or someone put in a window A/C unit and ran it off an old outdoor power extension to the other side of the server room with no dedicated plug. Coming into another IT guys build is sometimes frustrating and challenging to reverse enginer and fix things that will go sideways eventually like a water pipe bursting.
Medical practices are notorious for not spending money... At least in Australia. And the doctors that own them are usually incredibly resistant to change unless it was their idea. I suggested one here should get one proper copier to replace the aging inkjet all in one they used for scanning, the standalone fax and the laser printer they printed to.... Nope. Can't do that in case someone wants to print while a fax is coming in.... Which would probably happen about once a year and hold them up for 10 seconds.
Thanks for the tour. If I can add. Reduce single points of failure as much as possible. Systems with redundant power supplies should be plugged into separate UPSs and electrical circuits. Redundant systems should not share the same circuits or UPSs or switchs. Switches again if at all possible shouldn't share power with host systems. And so on.... within budges of course.
My dads company does pretty much everything wrong you mentioned in this video. The server is in the main plumbing room. And there was already a pipe that burst a year ago. Fortunately the server survived. But nothing has been learned. The server is still in the same location.... At least he considered a UPS. Well that was until it broke a few years ago. Then it just got unplugged.... Its really horrible what he is doing. And I told him this so many times. But until there will be a real catastrophical failure with data loss there won't be anything changing. And maybe even then nothing will change...
WIll you be showing the tech that was installed as you install it?? Was hoping for a multipart cable running, server tech building and cleaning up detailed work log as you go. The ending was quick and made me wish there were more tech stuff and detailed walkthroughs. Could have been a 3 part series. Enjoyable but sadly mostly only construction. :(
Wendell has his own consulting firm. He has a building for the company. Hes given minor tours of the facility before when he was part of Tek Syndicate. Wish he would give a more in depth look at his location.
The water heater thing might be a career milestone of sorts. I too have had a site go dark due to said water heater, and again to fiber's natural predator the backhoe.
Andrew Joy Also, before it starts leaking, it'll spit water everywhere. If the rack is directly in the path, water will spray across the rack. If there's no door (or the monkeys don't close it), the servers get a shower.
i love those old ceilings and stuff. i remember where i lived i been in houses with tin ceilings. i get sad when people paint them though. as they were normally for better reflective light at night time. sad to see them covered up but what can ya do. at least not being removed though like most would do at least so i feel bit fine with this aha
Awesome video, please do more server videos. Got a question for you wendell, I have a x3650 m3 server from Lenovo private which is 700mm deep. My rack case 800mm deep,but the rack unit steel beams in the rack is only 600mm deep which I did not know or anyone told me about. Whats the ideal deep rack case for servers? 1070mm deep?
anders gjerløw Hey man wendell really doesn't respond to questions, that being said if you go to the level1techs (link in description) you can get an answer a lot faster from wendell and or someone else
Well I don't know If my cable is in tight, I got the warning light that something ain't right, I'm so scared in case I fall out my rack, And I'm wondering how I'll get down the costs, Offices to left of us, offices to the right of us. Server room in the middle of you.
For large server rooms(data centres) we use Novec 1230. Halon has been banned due to its effect on the ozone layer. I was thinking for this size you could use one small bottle(ballpark 125kg should be enough, do mind this stuff is expensive ) of Novec or go with something like Sevo systems Cube(sevosystems.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Cube-2pg-Brochure-052716-web.pdf). Adding a standard system would require additional ventilation elements, fire detection etc. . I am in Europe, so we do not usually have wooden construction for anything so maybe even structural elements. Is soundproofing fire rated? CUBE is much more sensible for this use but is it necessary? Do you consider fire hazards for the room this size?
There's no need for double wall.... rather, cheaper to make a 6" wall, and double the 5/8ths fire-rated drywall with green goop inbetween if you're also running in rack-row cooling, use 5/8-mass vynil-5/8 sandwhich instead. Also, dont forget to finish off the room by sealing any air gaps. The main transfusion of sound is through the same gaps air travels.
You need to brush up on power factor :) It's to do with voltage/current phasing, not transformer phasing. Also only really applicable to you if you get charged in VA/VAR and not real power.
15:00 what is the current thinking on backer board coatings? I thought I read BICSI specs that the exposed side of the board is supposed to be fire retardant -- yet I have NEVER seen anyone actually do this. Like the wood here -- board is raw. I've seen fire retardant paint that is supposed to be used if specialized wood isn't, but I've yet to see it used. Has anyone here seen fire retardant paint actually used?
Any particular reason why you went with hard ceiling instead of drop ceiling? Speaking from experience, drop ceiling is much better for expansion and maintenance.
well im a union carpenter. so far the server rooms that i worked on (multiple charter communications and at&t data centers) have drop ceiling. most use fineline grid with clean room tile. otherwise if anything happens and you need to access above the ceiling you are screwed and have to cut a hole vs just lifting a tile.
Security would be my guess. Like he mentioned about security doors. if that's all you have and the other walls stop at 10 feet while celling is 14 feet. if the rest of the wall isn't built up around the server room, all you typically have to do is raise a celling tile outside the door, drop a hook in and catch the door handle on the inside. Assuming you aren't using mag locks and are following code for accessibility for door handles. sometimes building/fire inspectors will make exceptions for this type of stuff. sometimes they may not. Even if they did and you had great door security, you still could just droop in through the celling. Those large 4 or 6 inch pipes above the cold rack is how you get through the hard celling and typically remain compliant with fire code.
makes alot of sense but in most cases those pipes fail fire code due to breaching the firewall if it is considered a firewall. usually they have to install these rings around any pipe that breach the wall. if they heat up they expand and collapse the pipe closing off the airway which slows the fire. also if you were to climb up the 10' wall and remove the ceiling tile, why open the door? you area basically already in there. in comparison if you climb the 10' wall with the solid ceiling, 1 step on the drywall lid and you are through weather on purpose or accident.
@@kylewinder2221 if you're busting through the drywall to get in, why even bother climbing up to the ceiling? Don't know about the rest of the world, but where I am we typically hang a heavier sheetrock on ceilings to avoid sag and because ceilings are at higher risk of direct flame contact. Combine with a layer of ply for a storage space over a room like that and the ceiling is far harder to break through than the wall.
I'm an electrician and everything you said made alot of sense. I would suggest mounting the panel not flush with the wall but rather sitting out from the drywall on mounted on the drywall. That makes it super easy to surface mount another conduit on the wall to future electrical loads. I am being pedantic but even though 220V uses 2 hot legs it's still considered 1 phase, its kind of complicated.
Careful saying "I'm an electrician and everything you said made alot of sense." What part of his power factor talk made sense? Also you get charged by KWph, how does the ohms law not apply if you use 240v vs 120 v? admittedly he says he doesn't know a lot about this stuff. So my warning is you are making the claim that you do and it makes sense. Someone might take what he said and run with it. Unbalanced loads can cause transformer failure, something that the business and electrician will be responsible to pay for. Definitely get an electrician to look over your setups, power usage, possible expansions, service, and potential heating and cooling required in the room for sizing loads and ambient temp correction factors. Stay safe brother.
Well I should say it made some sense. I think what he was trying to say is that most servers have APFC so they can operate on 100v up to 240v. Often the computers power supplies operate at higher efficiencies at higher voltages. I think he was also was trying to say its important to balance loads, any electrician who doesn't do that sucks at his or her job. Also depending on your utility you can get absolutely hammered by power factor surcharges if you don't have a high power factor.
This is a dope video, which UA-cam has seriously been missing. Big lol at the shower curtain! Great video L1T!
Check out Fiber Ninja's videos if you want to see those Server closets being untangled =D He is a Ninja
JoneKone - will do. I enjoy some good cable porn.
Yeah i put in the exact title of this video word for word and it wont show up i dont know whats wrong is this video contrversial or what.
Well. I just came to the same conclusion. At least YT has not recommended any other video on this subject - A server video, but the room isn't built yet.
It's built now...
Interesting video, I'm a fridge engineer in the uk. American voltages amuse me, we have 230v single phase and 415v three phase. Our usual calculation when installing air con in a server room is calculate what the servers need now, then go to the next size air con unit and fit two of them. We set the air con units so that the back up is a degree above the differential of the master, then swap the systems from master to slave at each service. This gives a decent life time as, if the servers are significantly upgraded in terms of heat generation, the second can take over till the air con can be upgraded to suit the new requirements. One issue with going too far with the air con specs is, the air con units can get the temperature down before there is adequate moisture removal from the atmosphere ( As I say, I live in the uk, we get humid heat far more than dry heat).
in North America, our typical house and small office voltages are usually single/split phase 220v. As in only one 220v phase coming in and to get that 120v we seem to be stuck on, the Neutral wire is connected to the center of the 220v phase of the transformer. So i'm not sure if he misspoke and meant single split phase or if that larger building has 3 phases feeding the whole building. I'm not an electrician, but i've listened to many at work and how over the years getting 120v, 220v and 208v from our incoming 480v 3 phase is interesting and yet i still don't understand it all. I've been annoyed at our continued use of 120v for average things. 220v would seem to be much better for home use.
What on Earth are you doing with 208? And 120 makes perfect sense at work means you don't get fried, too bad.
I really don't get it. I think it's just old transformers and that's what they stepped down from 480v for somethings. the plant was built in the 60s and things change is all i can say.
you are very wrong about the "fried" part, Volts dont kill you (till a certain point) Amps kill you. higher voltage means lower amps. i have been shocked a few times by 220V and its just a scare
Tomas van eccelpoel I think that is very dangerous advice, since the current is usually limited by resistance and therefore increases with voltage. This video explains it very well i think ua-cam.com/video/8xONZcBJh5A/v-deo.html
Fancy, hope we get a detailed overview of all the equipment within. Maybe even some of the software. Also thanks for mentioning the redundant a/c unit, the company I work for has had so many a/c problems, and it only take a couple of minutes before all the equipment over temps. A++
A server closet was the best thing I did in my house. Almost have every thing you mentioned checked off, but it is still a work in progress.
I wish I had room for a closet in my house. Right now I just have a 9U rack bolted to the wall for all of my networking stuff.
Right now my house just has an office with no server rack, just a (cheap?) 10g switch, 10g router, and a NAS on a shelf. If I have to look at another place, I will definitely consider a creating a server closet of some decent space to just put a 42U Server rack that'll cover all my needs in and call it a day with some of the specifications in this video. Definitely been looking into the soundproofing aspect.
I'm a Data Center Manager for an ISP company, and we use hot and cold isles completely differently from what you explained here. We have pressurized zones to help with air flow, and cooling costs. Hot isle is negative pressure, separated by Plexiglas from the cold isle which is positive pressure. It cut down on our energy usage and costs significantly when we did that.
Did he mention hot and cold aisles at all?
He mentioned cold/hot racks. At this scale (
TheLULZNINJA
Hot rack, not hot isles. He was referring to racks that require more power, like servers.
The way a large scale data center is managed is completely different, and the whole hot aisle/cold aisle thing makes sense in that context. It does not for a small business. Three racks does not an aisle make, and they aren't generating that much heat to start with.
This Old House Tech Edition. Very interesting stuff.
I’ve done server racks for years and see many water damage to them.you have a very good point about not doing it by pipes
More of this content please.
It's nice that you mentioned the power needs of a server closet, I've dealt with clients that had the latest and greatest in server technology (fancy vm's failovers and fast local data storage) but using a power line that's older than me that have seen better days. There would be power outages once every 1-2 weeks at the very least, me and the other contractors ended up begging for the client to upgrade their power lines due to all the headaches that we face from the power outages. Thank god it was changed.
A lot of the server rooms where I work actually used to be bathrooms. We have until recently had problems keeping them cool because the previous techs thought a tiny window A/C unit was "good enough". These buildings were constructed before there was ever a need to have on-site servers or an "MDF" because everything ran off the telephone lines.
You can do the snake tray above, or you can install a raised floor with tiles that pop out and run the trays under there. I like doing that because it protects the server racks from moisture and also allows you to send cool air under the false floor, where it will rise through the racks, pick up heat, and then exhaust out the top. It's a bit old school, but every datacenter I've ever built has been that way, except for one, and that one has had cooling problems since day one.
At the first moment it looked like you were in front of a green screen
Patrick Burden yeah, the lighting and focus where really strange, I was really confused
Good tip about the water, I recall a data center where I used to work that somehow had a water leak directly above our rack 😐
For flooding, besides a raised floor, you can get a Simpli Safe system and they have water sensors that will trip the alarm to let you know that you have a water leak.
I'll do my best to briefly explain power factor. Once upon a time I was an Electrical Engineer so I had to struggle with this concept myself many years ago. Basically power factor is a ratio of "real power" & "imaginary power". Think of the real power as the real current-time power draw, and the imaginary as the lagged-time power draw. This has to do with the sinusoidal nature of AC power and the time varying nature of analog circuits that turn AC into DC and even the digital circuits that constantly change voltage and current over time.
When devices take in power from AC, even when adapted to DC like for computers, there are things like capacitance and inductance that are required for a circuit's systems to work that makes the real time power consumption not reflect overall power consumption because the electrical load is changing with time. Capacitors store charge over time by altering current, Inductors do the same (using current induced magnetic fields) for voltage. In order for power systems on both input and output, to work most effectively, the real power should be similar to the imaginary. Computer PSUs generally do a pretty good job at this, and when you see the Platinum/Gold/Bronze/etc. efficiency ratings that they advertise today a lot of that comes from actively monitoring the computer's power factor and making adjustments to the switching cycle of the power supply accordingly.
Electrical companies see the input side of the power supply however, and it is going to alter your mains' overall power factor. For home systems it's nearly always not enough to warrant the high cost of installing power factor correctors that work on certain circuits of your house. But if you're running a business's IT closet like here, then those electricity costs add up and it has an even larger effect on the utility company delivering current into the building, so they upcharge you for it. The negative impact is that you get distortions in the AC electricity leaving the systems they power with less than ideal power delivery.
Hope this clarifies power factor in electrical systems at least a little bit, it is a tough concept to explain intuitively, and if you're just thinking about building a homelab, unless you're doing some really heavy electrical loads on it (5kW+ for the sake of argument) it's probably not even worth thinking about.
Rubber roofing can be an excellent umbrella or ceiling liner. If needed use plywood to create a large flat surface to support it, could be over a server rack or the ceiling etc. I would use 2x6 studs for more insulation and room for conduit. Add extra conduits for additions later
I've been waiting for this video for years. Only recently got the house. Now I can build the server closet. Divine timing Wendell. Thanks a million
Excellent. Cheapening out always seems to cost more down the road. Anticipating major but especially minor problems & neutralizing all of them works best. Doubling up or redundancy is just common sense. It's easier to backup & protect than replace & restore. A++
Our server closet is literally a closet with an AC vent and two internet connections (fibre for the servers and cable for the office). It fits a singular server rack which contains all the stuff that we need and quite a bit more.
MAKE A VIDEO WHEN ITS COMPLETED! IM EXCITED TO SEE HOW IT TURNS OUT!
I usually create a small office in the server room with a partition wall and room for a desk and chair. It's a great place for an overworked admin to hide while he looks for new opportunities!
Looking at the sprinkler heads over the server racks at my work while watching this... I try not to think about it. It was my first complaint when I started. I still bring it up now and then, plant manager ignores me.
that is nothing short of idiotic, wow...well that plant is going to get shut down for a while WHEN the fire alarm trips (not if, the fire alarm will go off eventually, and bye-bye servers)
You see that a lot. I saw worse though. A hospital had it's servers in the basement. Right above them was a ward full of therapy pools full of water. This was mentioned a lot during the earthquake upgrades being done to make sure the servers stay running after a major quake... They eventually relocated the servers.
It seems bad and is better to avoid it and have the server room covered with its own system. There are worse things. like improper Building AC being installed. A plenum AC installed in a building that was designed for and specked to have complete duct work. When this happens, lots of condensation builds up on the celling and drips. At work, it seemed to like dripping and finding its way to our server room. I had plastic draped across our rack for a few months before the problem was fixed. fortunately i found it and got it covered before we lost anything. Boy that made a mess of the drop celling tiles all over the office area.
We also ended up with a sprinkler head in there. It was out of my control. Thankfully the sprinklers don't discharge when the alarm is triggered though. As far as i know, that's only a TV thing and nothing like that in the real word works like that.
Fire sprinklers only put out water for 2 reasons. One, someone breaks it off. Two, enough heat in the room melts the solder pellet. Alarms do not set off sprinklers in most systems.
When I worked at Wal-mart during college someone took out a low sprinkler head with a forklift in the back room. It was a wet system and it was hilarious how much water came out before they got it shut off.
If you know exactly how many wracks you will do from the start and their precise location, also use a scan/3d model of the room and ventilation simulation program to see where exactly you need to set your cooling unit(s) and to which direction to point the vents. Will help you shave off a few C off and depending on optimization might even save you an entire unit of cooling so for example instead of 3 units you could cool off the room well enough with only 2 well placed ones.
You could use pond liner above the ceiling. It's 40mil rubber, and even though it's more expensive that plastic vapor barrier, it's very strong and helps with sound deadening. You can also get water sensors that can shut off the power (magnetic circuit breakers)if the area floods.
If you don't have the budget to get snake tray or need to hide the wires better above typical eye level plastic rain gutter works pretty well.
conduit, patch panels, and extra power & cooling no matter how much you have in a rack now, you will have more coming in the future bulletin board & a white board are nice too
That wall you're asking your contractor for is a staggered stud wall, or a double stud wall. Either will do, the one in the video is a double stud because there are two separate bottom boards.
On this episode of This Old House with Wendell....wait, what's happening? It's my two passions coming together!
Great video dude. Would love to see more of this in the future :)
Cable management and server closets or home network closets is a great topic, Please do more of this kind of stuff. New or interesting products for this topic is interesting as well.
Very nice. I'm building a lower end setup for my house. It's nice to see I'm already following a lot of you tips just by common sense. I love your shower curtain story.
Good timing I have to make a server room at my new job. I'm on my own. I have no idea what I'm doing.
HAHAHA Nice! Good luck Human!
We all started somewhere! GL
Don't worry. If you merely care at all you'll do a better job than probably 50% of the "closets" you come across. I put closets in quotes because sometimes the "server room" is just a bunch of computers and wires on a floor.
@@dycedargselderbrother5353One thing I would suggest is to have enough room to walk around your racks. so that about 30" clear space with 36" in front. . Ever try to remove a router that was back mounted in a rack and only have enough room to pull it out 12"? Or how about trying to get behind the middle rack when you have six inches between the servers and 12" on the back? and 12" on the sides? But we left two feet in-=ront of the servers...and the new server is 32" long! how do we get it into the rack?
1:58 check out that ceiling, must be an old building....level1techs and ThisOldHouse crossover?
finally someone who is into tech and this old house
Looks like our (where I work) old server room (not closet! that's for clothes). Beware of that AC though, its good but does have some issues, like the cold line if insulated will condense on humid days and the water will collect and eventually spill out of the top if there is no escape hole at the bottom, add a drip pan as well. I would place my water sensors at the bottom of the condensor lines and at the top where the lines meet the AC. If like our model there's a shelf/drip pan up there and it will collect water even if its not meant to be a drip pan. We had ours spitting water at the racks once, not a pretty situation. Don't forget, no crossing of power and data lines.
If your wireing is high quality copper cabling you can put your broadband through the mains wiring using Ethernet over Mains Adaptors.
I randomly watch level1 techs videos, with the exception of the news - I watch all of those. Anyways, just came to say - I am so glad Wendell launched his own channel.
Great information about the server closet. You guys explanation are always awesome and easy to understand.
It's been a long time but I think you should do a video on building a server closet for your home.
It'd be interesting to hear your ideas for adding a server closet to an old house or new construction.
If I ever win the lottery I want to hire Level1 to help design the networking in my new house.. this is pretty awesome
Two important things I feel you forgot to touch on were 1) fire suppression. Most places will just put in water suppression and call it a day. And 2) EPO (Emergency Power Off). In the event of a ups capacitor blowing or some other unforseen electrical mishap this can help mitigate the damage before a full fire. However be sure to at least place a plastic cover over it and clearly label it, lest it become a resume generating button.
Oh one more thing, if you're looking to get the most efficiency out of the cooling system be sure to pay attention to air flow, it can make a noticable difference.
Nice video. I was hoping to see Wendell on a 12 foot ladder pulling some Cat6a to the SysAd's office.
This is great, no one else is doing this sort of video.
Awesome vieo, but the end killed it for me, Wendell. Only 1 AC unit and one portable backup? You should always have 2 AC units and have them work 12h each / day, (or even in 6h intervals) with the portable one as a last resort, in case both of them fail. Although there are some cool ACs that work on WiFi and you can check their stats from your LAN, you can still do the job with normal ACs and just set time periods in which they start and stop. Running an AC 24/7 for very long periods is bad.
Just this week one of our server ACs broke and the other one has been running for 5 days without pause. We've prepared the portable AC and I'm ready to go to work at any time if the other one breaks too (I live near my workplace). Hopefully the new unit will arrive next week.
MrBiky the office ac is oversized and the secondary zone for this room can be another backup, apart from the portable unit. A louver wired to a simple thermostat will open that zone. All 3 are separate. It's not a crazy heat load in this room.
It's not really about heat, it's about redundancy and life span of the ac units. As for our setup, we have old acs, so we have a USB thermostat and it sends us alerts via Nagios. Our 2 racks (1 cold, 1 hot) don't have crazy heat output either, it's about safe of mind.
I had one small (25 people) medical office I took over the IT for where the last IT guy or someone put in a window A/C unit and ran it off an old outdoor power extension to the other side of the server room with no dedicated plug. Coming into another IT guys build is sometimes frustrating and challenging to reverse enginer and fix things that will go sideways eventually like a water pipe bursting.
Medical practices are notorious for not spending money... At least in Australia. And the doctors that own them are usually incredibly resistant to change unless it was their idea.
I suggested one here should get one proper copier to replace the aging inkjet all in one they used for scanning, the standalone fax and the laser printer they printed to.... Nope. Can't do that in case someone wants to print while a fax is coming in.... Which would probably happen about once a year and hold them up for 10 seconds.
Nice video, and I remember when that was studio space a long time ago. Love seeing project videos like this
Thanks for the tour. If I can add. Reduce single points of failure as much as possible. Systems with redundant power supplies should be plugged into separate UPSs and electrical circuits. Redundant systems should not share the same circuits or UPSs or switchs. Switches again if at all possible shouldn't share power with host systems. And so on.... within budges of course.
Always make sure that your strike plates are designed for your locks so there isn't a gap that can be used to jimmy the lock.
Wiring for 220v will cut power bill by half cause power consumption drops by half even more for 3 phase power this was talked about around 10:00 mark
good to see they are using quality framing nails! Gooooo GRIP RITE!!!
My dads company does pretty much everything wrong you mentioned in this video.
The server is in the main plumbing room. And there was already a pipe that burst a year ago. Fortunately the server survived. But nothing has been learned. The server is still in the same location....
At least he considered a UPS. Well that was until it broke a few years ago. Then it just got unplugged....
Its really horrible what he is doing. And I told him this so many times. But until there will be a real catastrophical failure with data loss there won't be anything changing. And maybe even then nothing will change...
nice, I was thinking about building this on a much smaller scale for home use, eg, running the home network, home security, and home automation.
WIll you be showing the tech that was installed as you install it?? Was hoping for a multipart cable running, server tech building and cleaning up detailed work log as you go. The ending was quick and made me wish there were more tech stuff and detailed walkthroughs. Could have been a 3 part series. Enjoyable but sadly mostly only construction. :(
Great video, love it. Do make a video showing off everything when It's finished. Like the cabling.
Gotta love all of that lead paint! Careful.
x4 if you're really big. Production, Audit, Testing/Development, Backup/growth. All equally spec'd at the productions capacity.
I want more of this content, Wendell, you're the boss!
Is this for L1T or was this for a client or something? Also lol at the shower curtain!
Wendell has his own consulting firm. He has a building for the company. Hes given minor tours of the facility before when he was part of Tek Syndicate. Wish he would give a more in depth look at his location.
The water heater thing might be a career milestone of sorts. I too have had a site go dark due to said water heater, and again to fiber's natural predator the backhoe.
You should do a crossover with FiberNinja
It’s not yet messy enough to call the FiberNinja
I was searching for this comment. Not that messy but still could use his touch.
100% Onboard with this idea!
Another top tip !!! Don't put your AC right next to the rack , if it leaks you will be in the building at 5am sucking water out of the carpet.
Andrew Joy
Also, before it starts leaking, it'll spit water everywhere. If the rack is directly in the path, water will spray across the rack. If there's no door (or the monkeys don't close it), the servers get a shower.
I would love to see more like this. How about for a home server or small office setup with backup and firewall?
Brilliant video! Very informative and shows a lot of thoughts often overlooked!!
Hey @level1techs, did you ever do a follow up and show the new server closet?
Three-phase power may or may not also be available.
i love those old ceilings and stuff. i remember where i lived i been in houses with tin ceilings. i get sad when people paint them though. as they were normally for better reflective light at night time. sad to see them covered up but what can ya do. at least not being removed though like most would do at least so i feel bit fine with this aha
Not sure I’ll have to use this, but this was fun to watch
As they own from wallmarlt to all social media as provision the web hell , so smooth,
In Oregon we now have to have fire sprinklers in computer rooms / data centers.
Awesome video, please do more server videos.
Got a question for you wendell, I have a x3650 m3 server from Lenovo private which is 700mm deep. My rack case 800mm deep,but the rack unit steel beams in the rack is only 600mm deep which I did not know or anyone told me about.
Whats the ideal deep rack case for servers? 1070mm deep?
anders gjerløw Hey man wendell really doesn't respond to questions, that being said if you go to the level1techs (link in description) you can get an answer a lot faster from wendell and or someone else
Great video, then I saw the trash rack @ 14:33 I hope your guys are going to take care of that.
liking this direction
Offices to left of us, offices to the right of us. Server room in the middle of you.
Well I don't know If my cable is in tight,
I got the warning light that something ain't right,
I'm so scared in case I fall out my rack,
And I'm wondering how I'll get down the costs,
Offices to left of us,
offices to the right of us.
Server room in the middle of you.
Cue the rocky horror tech show
Transmit This Great, now I’m picturing Wendell dancing around with the severed ear of a recalcitrant accountant. *shudder*
Perfect - Loooves "Go with Wendell to work days"
I'd like a part 2 video detailing everything after the installation.
If you have a staircase in your house with a large walk in closet under them it makes a good home server closet.
love it wendell,.. been a fan forever brother.. cheers
Great and interesting video. Thanks and greetings from Germany
For soundproofing, use metal studs...
Need a follow up now to see how it turned out. 👍
Useful video, I'd love a version for network enthusiast apartment renters.
Badass video Wendell! Love content like this!
Great video. Would like to see more stuff like this!
It’s a bit like a house, location location location.. and I love the shower curtain idea! What about Cat7? Doesn’t that go to 10GB over longer runs?
Great video!! What about fire protection? Overkill?
Ivan Jovic What's that stuff, uh, "halon" I think, for putting out fires without ruining electronics.
For large server rooms(data centres) we use Novec 1230. Halon has been banned due to its effect on the ozone layer. I was thinking for this size you could use one small bottle(ballpark 125kg should be enough, do mind this stuff is expensive ) of Novec or go with something like Sevo systems Cube(sevosystems.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Cube-2pg-Brochure-052716-web.pdf). Adding a standard system would require additional ventilation elements, fire detection etc. . I am in Europe, so we do not usually have wooden construction for anything so maybe even structural elements. Is soundproofing fire rated? CUBE is much more sensible for this use but is it necessary? Do you consider fire hazards for the room this size?
There's no need for double wall.... rather, cheaper to make a 6" wall, and double the 5/8ths fire-rated drywall with green goop inbetween if you're also running in rack-row cooling, use 5/8-mass vynil-5/8 sandwhich instead. Also, dont forget to finish off the room by sealing any air gaps. The main transfusion of sound is through the same gaps air travels.
There is no solution better than decoupling. Mass loaded vinyl is great, though.
Server closet in your bedroom is the best kind of server room!
MisterJar Cuts down on heating costs in winter!
toy machine even in canada whebit hits minus 50c!!!
What are the other things we should do for putting together a server into your bedroom closet!
Is this at L1T headquarters ?
The Bob Villa of server rooms :D
You need to brush up on power factor :) It's to do with voltage/current phasing, not transformer phasing. Also only really applicable to you if you get charged in VA/VAR and not real power.
Videos featuring Wendell in a sweater are the best xD
engagement
I’ve been wanting this for so long!!!
Super cool and informative video. Thanks.
15:00 what is the current thinking on backer board coatings? I thought I read BICSI specs that the exposed side of the board is supposed to be fire retardant -- yet I have NEVER seen anyone actually do this. Like the wood here -- board is raw. I've seen fire retardant paint that is supposed to be used if specialized wood isn't, but I've yet to see it used.
Has anyone here seen fire retardant paint actually used?
3:34 that "Wall" or more precisely roof is Victorian mid 19 century! Probably an former administrative building!
Any particular reason why you went with hard ceiling instead of drop ceiling? Speaking from experience, drop ceiling is much better for expansion and maintenance.
In office space yes, in server room no.
well im a union carpenter. so far the server rooms that i worked on (multiple charter communications and at&t data centers) have drop ceiling. most use fineline grid with clean room tile. otherwise if anything happens and you need to access above the ceiling you are screwed and have to cut a hole vs just lifting a tile.
Security would be my guess. Like he mentioned about security doors. if that's all you have and the other walls stop at 10 feet while celling is 14 feet. if the rest of the wall isn't built up around the server room, all you typically have to do is raise a celling tile outside the door, drop a hook in and catch the door handle on the inside. Assuming you aren't using mag locks and are following code for accessibility for door handles. sometimes building/fire inspectors will make exceptions for this type of stuff. sometimes they may not. Even if they did and you had great door security, you still could just droop in through the celling.
Those large 4 or 6 inch pipes above the cold rack is how you get through the hard celling and typically remain compliant with fire code.
makes alot of sense but in most cases those pipes fail fire code due to breaching the firewall if it is considered a firewall. usually they have to install these rings around any pipe that breach the wall. if they heat up they expand and collapse the pipe closing off the airway which slows the fire. also if you were to climb up the 10' wall and remove the ceiling tile, why open the door? you area basically already in there. in comparison if you climb the 10' wall with the solid ceiling, 1 step on the drywall lid and you are through weather on purpose or accident.
@@kylewinder2221 if you're busting through the drywall to get in, why even bother climbing up to the ceiling? Don't know about the rest of the world, but where I am we typically hang a heavier sheetrock on ceilings to avoid sag and because ceilings are at higher risk of direct flame contact. Combine with a layer of ply for a storage space over a room like that and the ceiling is far harder to break through than the wall.
No fire rating for the walls? Id recommend that
What do you do if your access control system has a failure locking you out of the server room? Do you have an analog backup?
Nice video but im confused that in a comercial space you are allowed to use wood studs? In Canada all comerciall spaces have to use metall studs.
Are you sure?
Funny thing my school put at least 2 server rooms next to bathrooms.
Looking at nas drives. I see 5400 rpm and 7200rpm, and whats the difference with the pro, doo they last longer or has better hardware