The Best $90 Spent For My Home-Made Server Room

[phoronix]

Phoronix: The Best $90 Spent For My Home-Made Server Room

Earlier today I wrote about how reusing the heat from the 60+ system Linux benchmarking server room can heat a home in the winter. The free heat is nice, but it came with a bit of noise; however, thanks to purchasing one product for less than $100 USD the noise level has been significantly reduced...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Server-Room-Duct-Silent

[Stunts]

Michael :
As a biologist, I'd say that the internal material is awesome... for growing bacterial and fungal colonies, which you probably don't want.
I would recommend that you add an UV light to that muffler. It should not significantly decrease the efficiency, but it will certainly kill anything growing in there. You just have to make sure to turn it on a couple of hours every day. And also make sure none of the light comes out.

[Kemosabe]

Michael :
As a biologist, I'd say that the internal material is awesome... for growing bacterial and fungal colonies, which you probably don't want.
I would recommend that you add an UV light to that muffler. It should not significantly decrease the efficiency, but it will certainly kill anything growing in there. You just have to make sure to turn it on a couple of hours every day. And also make sure none of the light comes out.

As a biologist i question myself: Are there microbes capable metabolizing foam (aka. plastic) with reasonable catalytic efficiency?
Please explain why you think anything can live in there.

[Stunts]

As a biologist i question myself: Are there microbes capable metabolizing foam (aka. plastic) with reasonable catalytic efficiency?
Please explain why you think anything can live in there.

Well observed. I'll try explain my reasoning without getting too technical, for the majority of the forum dwellers are unlikely to have a biological background.

Yes, you are right about the any microbes being able to metabolize the foam. Most microbes do not feed on plastic. However, the foam like porous material that muffles the sound, is great for depositing other biological material that gets pushed (epithelial cells, and all other kinds of dust particles) by the fan from the server room (which, IIRC has an air intake from the outside of the house) thru the air vent.
After some time of air flowing, you can imagine that there will be *a lot* of deposited material that bacteria and fungi can feed/grow upon.

The Legionella bacteria[1] is one such example of a pathogenic microorganism that often grows in similar environments (I'm not saying this specific organism will thrive in this particular duct, it's just an example). However, in most cases you get allergy inducing organisms in these environments. Using an UV light is a good way to at least keep the microbial populations under control.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legionella

[Apopas]

You learn a lot in a Linux forum

[zika]

My humble opinion: This muffler shoud be fitted with a tube inside so that air would not get in contact with foam and tube could be cleaned regularly and easy, leaving the task of silencing (virtualy) intact. My .02? in this non-Linux conversation...

[jason.oliveira]

Basically, Michael should invest in a carbon scrubber for the air intake.

[Michael]

So far everything is still going good and happy with the investment...