Hi All,
Recent 1st time homeowner, which I viewed as a trade of having to mow my lawn for being able to drill holes where ever I wanted.
To wit: I have a basement that is just barley to short for me to stand up in, and is generally pretty dry. Bummer as a basement, awesome for running wire. Humidity can be higher, but I’ve been monitoring it and it seems like I can have pretty good control with a dehumidifier. I have growing frankenstien of a home assistant setup that I use to monitor and control the humidity; I do not let the dehumidifer do that on its own.
**The question: ** What humidity would I need to target to move my server to the basement? I see some pretty huge windows when I look around.
I also have some dust concerns, but I plan on addressing that by making a very large cabinet/ small room with some fabric sheeting; enough to allow temp exchange but restrictive enough to keep dust out/ reduce volume a filter needs to clean (I also have some AQ sensors linked to home assistant I can deploy).
thanks for any help!
Without expertise in computer equipment and long term storage with humidity specifically:
Generally targeting less than 60% humidity is sufficient for long term storage of many items.
As for dust, depending on the form factor you are targeting, some cases come with built in dust filters, while you may also be able to buy some dust-specific air intake material. If you have any intake fans, then you can cover those with that material and clean it from time to time.
Dust is not likely to be your biggest concern.
That’s a solid starting point, it did kind of seem like thats where the online sources were pointing, just nice to hear it from a human.
Re: Dust: The basement is only a few steps up from “root cellar”. It’s got stone walls and a concrete floor, but it still generates some decent dust. I wouldn’t mind having a clean-ish space to work with stuff when I’m down there.
Determine the dust source and address it? Or just isolate your gear from the dust source.
Alternatively, box out an area for the lab that’s mostly air tight, then use an air filter to pump filtered air into the mostly-sealed space. Positive pressure with filtered air, essentially.
But I don’t really think that’s necessary unless you’re down there kicking up dust all the time.
Higher humidity helps keep dust down, too. As someone else mentioned, about 65% is kind of a general number to target for max.