I didn’t post my home office setup, but rather the closet in the office, that I am struggling to figure out what to do. Would love to know how everyone stores their NAS, Battery Backup, Modem, Router, and anything else that is hardwired in.
This is just a shelf from Target that is my sliding closet in the office. As soon as we moved in here, just slapped it all together quickly just to get us up and running.
Top Shelf -
Netgear Nighthawk X6 Router
Old Macbook Pro (it’s on it’s last legs, it has 1 job - backup my Synology to Crashplan)
Second Shelf
Arris SB6190 Modem
Lutron Caseta Bridge
Netgear 5-Port Gigabit Switch
(2) Old Western Digital MyBook 500GB drives that need to get destroyed
Canon Macro Lens 60mm
Canon Zoom Lens 55-250mm
Third Shelf
Coil of 50ft cat6 wiring
Canon DSLR T3i
Canon Vixia Camcorder
Synology DS1513+ (with upgraded RAM) (5) 3TB WD Red Drives
Bottom Shelf
UPS Battery Backup (APC Power-Saving Back-UPS Pro 1000)
If anyone has ideas on good ways to store all this, but the amount of heat in the closet…and this room already has poor circulation from the AC, and the floor is carpeted, but has a good decent 10 ft ceiling height.
Suggestions for better setup? I’ll post the rest of the office shortly.
for both heat reasons and wifi, you could try and move things further up in the closet? Heat rises obviously so if you can get the heat generating items up higher, maybe you won’t feel it so much. Also moving your wifi higher will give you better distribution.
I have been seeing Mini AC units that look like a small space heater, for about $35 dollars on amazon and I think they have a USB plug on them. I don’t have one but they look pretty nice.
Let’s look at this logically for a moment. Heat rises. Moving stuff up in the closet will not change the amount of heat generated. You will still feel the same amount of heat. Except all that stuff you moved is now sat in a hotter area. Those devices are trying to get rid of the heat. Do not put them back into it.
Air conditioning units are an effective way of removing the heat … except it’s really more of an exchange. It doesn’t actually get stored in a heat battery or anything. You need to ensure that you have a place that your AC unit can efficiently exchange the heat with. Typically this would be outside … but if you live somewhere hot that AC unit is going to have to work exta hard. But given your devices look to be 24x7 devices, think about access to an external vent for any AC.
AC is however your best option for getting the closet cool. That’s why enterprise data centres make use of AC … or being set-up somewhere really cold!
Another option you might consider is separating the devices into different locations. Whilst the overall heat produced would not change (well maybe a little but that’s more complicated to explain), the volume of air the devices are dissipating heat to would increase and so the overall localised temperature around each device should reduce.
Something else I’d consider for the closet is the shelving. In my home office I have a wire rack set of shelves from IKEA. There’s minimal noise from my devices (occasional HDD clicks) and I sit right next to the rack, but some devices I realise can be noisy. The devices on my shelving have lots of space and because the rack is relatively tall (over 6’6" certainly), and the shelves are made of thin metal rods, the heat dissipates away from the devices really efficiently - better heat conduction through the rack and better air flow because the shelves are actually mostly empty space; also no side panels, just spaces there.
The issue is one of establishing adequate heat transfer. The units are on solid shelves in a corner. This translates to little or no air flow around them. The main heat flow in the stagnate air is low levels of convection. Improvement to the natural convection heading to forced convection can increase the heat flow by one to two orders of magnitude.
Use wire racks as noted. That will improve the heat flow by natural convection. As the hot air from the devices rises through the wire racks, colder air will be pulled in from the floor and/or surroundings.
Move the units out of the corner for the same reason as above.
Add fans. This will move from natural to forced convection and give the greatest increase in heat transfer.
Consider how computer and network servers stack the components in mesh-framed racks with extensive sets of fans. That is the set up to mimic.
Do you keep the closet door closed? That would trap all the heat in there. If it stays open then you need some way to move the heat out of the closet. A simple fan might do the job.
I have all my equipment in a closed cabinet (from Wayfair) that sits in a hallway. I cut a hole in the top and added a muffin fan to blow the hot air out. Temperature in the cabinet is only a degree or two higher than the hallway.
If at all possible I would recommend moving anything on the network to another location. Ethernet via Cat5e/6 has a max distance of 100m. Removing as much gear as you can will defiantly help the heat issues. As for organization, the image attached is what my setup looked like (below) when I lived in a SMALL apartment. Its not fully populated with my full nerd array in this photo, but you get the idea.
The Container Store Elfa system (https://www.containerstore.com/elfa/index.htm) is very customizable. The shelving comes in sold and wire. You can mix & match size, color and type. I think it would be a great upgrade for the closet.
A low powered bathroom exhaust fan in the top of the closet will do the trick. That’s all that is needed. If you can wire it to a switch (to turn off in the cooler months), you’re good to go.
