hmm, running my server at night with the door closed still might not be the best decision. :/ in just a few hours, like 4 or 5 hours, it elevated my room to uncomfortable levels and disrupted my sleep while I was practically naked over the covers (just undies). I’m naturally hot so not good. I don’t have to do anything to sweat, it just happens. anyway, I need a better solution.

  1. Continue to shutdown the server at night while the door is closed to give the AC a break.
  2. Install a vent above the door to allow air to circulate without having to keep the door open all the time.
  3. Replace the server with something more efficient for 24/7 runtime and either keep or sell the R710 (preferably keep and just upgrade it for ram hungry tasks during the day if I wanted). I do have a “small” OptiPlex running as a server but it doesn’t have a hdd setup or enough ram or cpu power to run a handful of windows servers and whatnot. I just use it for plex and a few small Linux VMs.
  4. Consider single room AC units. I like the wall mounted bar shaped ones. They are expensive but silent. That could easily keep a small rack of servers cool if I ever build up a collection of them.

I’d probably end up doing #4 anyway. I was considering that simply for the noise levels of the R710 but after my “quick” fan mod, it’s quiet enough to run 24/7 if I wanted to and still coexist in the same room all day. It’s just, as it turns out, I ran into a cooling issue. lol. I’ll likely alternate between #1 and #2 until I find another powerful but cheap used computer that’ll run ESXI.

The temperature issue kinda sucks. I really like my R710. Even better with the fan mod. Speaking of, I need to mod it into the chassis somehow. There’s a little bay below the DVD Drive that I’m guessing was for a tape drive years ago, it only measures like 4 inches with my handy ruler. Too narrow for a 3.5" HDD and way too narrow for a 5.25" ODD or panel. So I thought of poking a hole in the grill and mount the potentiometer and secure the Arduino somehow or pick up a Chinese PWM generator and mount that in that space. I will also need to source 5v power for either solution but I have a couple ideas on that for a future post.

I think that’s it for now, cheers my fellow nerds!