Project: Rackmount Overkill

[Automata]

floor looks good. is that a tiny closet

Yeah, it's a small pantry in the kitchen. There is another just out of frame next to the mud room.

 

[zachj]

Good job on having the cat6 run to the basement with a separate electrical circuit; that crap is always hard/expensive to do after the fact. What about cooling? If that's a closet you need to make sure you've got a supply and a return of some kind so you aren't trapping heat. A proper supply/return are overkill if it's just a single low power server but you should at least think about poking a hole through an interior stud wall and putting a return air grill on it so that there's some semblance of air exchange between the closed closet and the rest of the basement.

Is that fiberglass batts and wood studs against a below-grade exterior foundation wall? That should be a code violation in many jurisdictions...

 

[Automata]

Good job on having the cat6 run to the basement with a separate electrical circuit; that crap is always hard/expensive to do after the fact.

This is why I was happy to hear the place starts unfinished, and they allow modifications. Cost me a bit upfront to have it done, but certainly cheaper than doing it later.

What about cooling? If that's a closet you need to make sure you've got a supply and a return of some kind so you aren't trapping heat. A proper supply/return are overkill if it's just a single low power server but you should at least think about poking a hole through an interior stud wall and putting a return air grill on it so that there's some semblance of air exchange between the closed closet and the rest of the basement.

Is that fiberglass batts and wood studs against a below-grade exterior foundation wall? That should be a code violation in many jurisdictions...

Cooling should be fine. The basement is unfinished, so it is wide open and cool without the AC running, even with the 90-100f days we've been getting. The insulation/studs below ground is following code here, as far as I know. The company is known for doing a good job, so I'd be surprised if they overlooked something that obvious.

I don't have pictures of my basement, but here are a few from the unit which has the same floor plan. There are a few differences (location of the electrical box), but its basically the same.

 

[zachj]

It's interesting that your basement is unfinished but they built stud walls around the perimeter and insulated them...I guess they're just trying to leave it ready for a handy homeowner to install drywall and flooring??? Interesting indeed...

Code or not, your specific concern with that type of assembly below grade is moisture and mold. The fiberglass batts absorb water and hold it up against the wood, and the wood in direct contact with the concrete does the same thing. Mold feeds on water and organic material, which wood obviously is (as would be any paper backing on the Batts). A basement that is not perfectly dry will invariably have mold issues with this type of assembly, and keeping water out of basements is still voodoo.

Now all that said, there's lots of fun stuff a developer can do to waterproof a foundation that won't be visible to the eye at this stage of development; along with proper exterior and interior drainage systems--perforated pipe at the footer through which any water can escape to the storm drain, which should be code requirements in many areas--there are also all kinds of waterproof membranes that can be installed both outside and inside. One approach I've seen is to lay down plastic sheeting over the gravel base before pouring the basement floor, or pouring the floor and then laying down a sheet and then pouring an additional inch or 2 of floor. Obviously none of the above would be visible in your pictures so some or all of it might already be in your home.

I'm not saying you need to go rip everything out; I'm saying now is a better time to do it than later. A more mold resistant assembly would be metal studs and foam insulation. In theory carpet and wood floors are terrible ideas for basement finishes but even I would be hard pressed to select tile and inorganic wall materials--doesnt sound very inviting.

Regardless of metal studs and mold, if your basement walls are still open you should seriously consider at least spraying foam around the rim joist; this area is a giant air leak in every home on the planet. Along with making your energy bills higher, this is one example of how moisture (in the form of humidity in outside air) and critters enter your basement wall assemblies.

 

[Automata]

That is really good information, thank you. I'll have to do some research and see what is feasible.

 

[Automata]

I've been seriously considering going back to ESXi or something similar, with ZFS for storage pooling. Storage Spaces has weird issues where it will fail silently, even if the array loses parity, which is alarming. I was writing some data to the array yesterday, and got a "disk full" error. Thinking this was some weird program error, I remoted into the server, tried to copy a file to the array, and got another disk full message. I checked the storage pool, and had 3.91 TB free on the backup pool, which made no sense. After some digging, I found out half the disks were "Retired". Searching online, it seems a disk is retired when there are issues. The chances of half the array's disks suddenly having issues is vanishingly small.

Ok, so, I'll just put the disks back online, yeah? EASY. Except there is no UI option to online the disks. You have to pull up a Powershell window and issue the command, which will put the disks back online.

Set-PhysicalDisk -FriendlyName "<name in Server Manager>" -Usage AutoSelect

I have no problem with using a command line interface to manage an array (see ZFS earlier in the thread), but if you offer a UI to do something, make sure it has important features available. There is no error in the Event Viewer, Server Manager doesn't make a peep, and I had to dig to find out the disks were offline.

 

[Automata]

I forgot to update this thread with more pictures of the place from this weekend. All the cabinets, flooring, fixtures, appliances, doors, trim (etc) are in. There are a few things yet to be done, but the bulk is completed.

 

[Silver_Pharaoh]

The kitchen looks good Corey
I do like darker cabinets like that.

Are you doing a tiled backsplash between the cabinets on the stove wall?

 

[Automata]

Are you doing a tiled backsplash between the cabinets on the stove wall?

Not initially, at least.

 

[Automata]

Parts for the rest of the network arrived today.

 

[Silver_Pharaoh]

Looks like a fair bit of work

 

[Automata]

Stopped by earlier today and saw the electrician finished the networking ports.

 

[wagex]

 

[Automata]

I got moved into the new house and I'm officially not renting the old apartment. The garage floor is painted, and I finished painting the walls this morning.


















I got the rack placed, but nearly nothing is setup. The wireless network is setup, but all the equipment is on the floor. I need to terminate the CAT6a cables and setup all the servers. I haven't even touched my desktop yet.

 

[Automata]

Hung LED lights in the garage and it made a huge difference. The pictures below are with the garage door closed. I also have quite a bit more space compared to the old place.

 

[Silver_Pharaoh]

Coming along nicely

 

[Automata]

Been busy over the last few days. I just finished installing all the keystones in the basement. When I painted the garage, I noticed the keystone was wired wrong. Today I found out the keystone was wired very wrong and had to redo it. Tomorrow, I'll hook up the network and fire up the servers.

Started by bundling the cables together to make them less unwieldy, then trimming them to the same length.








Then I started wiring up the keystones.

 

[Automata]

I mostly worked on getting the network running again.

Started by hooking up the keystones.


Zip tied the cables in and moved them around to untangle as much as I could.


Installed the patch panel into the rack.


Re-did the local ISPs wiring job, which was messy.


Started by getting the router and wireless AP stood up.


Threw the wireless AP in its "hidden" spot.


Have to make a bunch of short cables to hook the keystones into the network.


Example completed cable.


What I got done before I threw the towel in for the night.

 

[Ben333]

Good job Thid love those neat lil cables!! Great patience brotha lol

 

[Automata]

Server rack is finally fully up!

Started by finishing the wiring on the patch panel.






Racked the servers, hooked everything up, then fired the servers up.