Fine dust

[Jan Ceuleers]

Hi there.

I have a question on the use of a home server in a dusty environment.

I am about to move to a house which has recently been renovated. The
renovation included, among other things, sawing through the concrete
slab that separates the ground floor from the upstairs (i.e. the
upstairs floor). This has deposited lots of very fine dust everywhere.

I've hired an industrial vacuum cleaner, but even so I don't think I'm
going to be able to get rid of it all before the move.

I have a consumer-grade server (mini-ITX motherboard in a NAS chassis,
along with 5 SATA disks (also consumer-grade; spinning rust).

I would be grateful for any advice, such as:

- "don't worry, it'll be fine, your disks actually need dust to feed
themselves",

- "don't under any circumstances turn your server on until you have
vacuumed the house down to clean room specs",

- "this isn't where you ask questions such as this, go /here/ instead",

- ... ?

Thanks, Jan

 

[Mike Tomlinson]

I have a consumer-grade server (mini-ITX motherboard in a NAS chassis,
along with 5 SATA disks (also consumer-grade; spinning rust).

The server (is it a HP Microserver?) will very effectively pick up any
fine concrete dust in the atmosphere. Normal household dust won't do any
harm - PCs can become absolutely filthy inside and continue running
quite happily:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/13/ventblockers/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/18/ventblockers_2/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/01/ventblockers_3/

but I think you're right to be concerned about very fine concrete dust.
If nothing else, it is quite corrosive.

Suggestions:

* use a vacuum cleaner with a HEPA filter and change it regularly -
brick/plaster/concrete dust will block those very quickly.

* 'deep clean' one room prior to moving in and locate it in there.

* A portable air conditioner/humidifier in the same room with a fine
particle dust filter? Install and run it for a week or two, sweeping
the room regularly to stir up the dust to it makes its way into the
aircon, before moving the server in?

* If the chassis is the conventional "sucks air in the front and blows
it out the back" type, you could position a piece of filter material
over the front, hold it in place with a bit of tape and washing it as it
becomes blocked. Perhaps have two - one to put on the PC while
washing/drying the other.

You'll need a fine filter to trap concrete dust, which means foam rather
than a metal mesh. You can buy the stuff in various sizes and cut it
with scissors to suit. I've seen air conditioner foam filter suggested
for this, e.g. eBay 110937632359. Cheap enough.

As regards the hard drives themselves, they have a hole to allow the
inside of the drive to equalise with atmospheric pressure. This is
protected by a filter. Once equalised, I would have thought there would
be little or no movement of air through this filter so it's unlikely to
become blocked. I'd concentrate on keeping the dust out of the entire
chassis.

 

[Arno]

Hi there.

I have a question on the use of a home server in a dusty environment.

I am about to move to a house which has recently been renovated. The
renovation included, among other things, sawing through the concrete
slab that separates the ground floor from the upstairs (i.e. the
upstairs floor). This has deposited lots of very fine dust everywhere.

I've hired an industrial vacuum cleaner, but even so I don't think I'm
going to be able to get rid of it all before the move.

I have a consumer-grade server (mini-ITX motherboard in a NAS chassis,
along with 5 SATA disks (also consumer-grade; spinning rust).

I would be grateful for any advice, such as:

- "don't worry, it'll be fine, your disks actually need dust to feed
themselves",

The disks are sealed with filters that will keep the dust out
reliably. What you should worry about is contacts (they will
abrade and may have poor contact later or from non-conducting
concrete dust) like PCI-E connectors. You may also run into
thermal problems when fans blow the dust onto omponents.

- "don't under any circumstances turn your server on until you have
vacuumed the house down to clean room specs",

No clean room needed. But you may want to vaccuum all places that
have air-flow in your PC monthly for a while. And before you plug
in any extension cards, you may want to go though the slot with a
soft brush (non-plastic to avaid static electricity) and vaccuum
over it.

Arno

- "this isn't where you ask questions such as this, go /here/ instead",

 

[Rod Speed]

Hi there.

I have a question on the use of a home server in a dusty environment.

I am about to move to a house which has recently been renovated. The
renovation included, among other things, sawing through the concrete
slab that separates the ground floor from the upstairs (i.e. the
upstairs floor). This has deposited lots of very fine dust everywhere.

I've hired an industrial vacuum cleaner, but even so I don't think I'm
going to be able to get rid of it all before the move.

I have a consumer-grade server (mini-ITX motherboard in a NAS chassis,
along with 5 SATA disks (also consumer-grade; spinning rust).

I would be grateful for any advice, such as:

- "don't worry, it'll be fine, your disks actually need dust to feed
themselves",

- "don't under any circumstances turn your server on until you have
vacuumed the house down to clean room specs",

- "this isn't where you ask questions such as this, go /here/ instead",

- ... ?

You won't have a problem. I choose to spend all but the hottest
weather in summer with the massive great patio doors all open,
for an outside inside effect, in a very dusty environment where
we do very spectacular dust storms indeed in droughts and have
never had a problem with any of the computer hardware, even tho
you do get considerable dust that you can write rude comments in.