Data Center Build

Day 1

Day one began the project.  I dont have any pictures from that day, but it was the day the floor was layed out.  It started with sizing up the ara, laying down some treated 2"x4" risers, and getting a level raised platform on top of the concrete.  It was toped off with marine plywood for a nice safe and solid base.

Day 2

Day two consisted of cutting the sheetrock at the bottom of the stairs to make a better entry, laying out the walls, and putting up some studs.  Its one of those days where it looks like the most progress is done.  The layout is the tough part.  The studs go up pretty quickly actually.  All the work is calculating where your sheets will land when you 'rock the walls, where your studs land, doorways and that sort of thing.

Day 3

Day three started with planning for how to get the cool air from my air chamber in my attic, downstairs.  It took a bit of twists and turns but it worked out ok.  It comes out of the air plenum, down through my office on the second floor, all the way down through the corner of the first floor bathroom, across through the kitchen pantry, and then down the first floor hallway/coat closet.  It didnt have a straight shot down, so it was lots of closet usage.

Day 4

Day four was a long day.  It was wiring day.  I had a buddy of mine help out with the electric - ok, he did alot more than "help out".  We bought the circuit wire (about 525 feet of 12/3), and the feed wire (about 60 feet of 6/3 for the panel to panel connection).  As you can see there are about 16 breakers, because we wired the hell out of this place.  Each of the back wall outlets is a 20 amp home run to the panel, so that everything can trip (hopefully not) individually without impacting other servers.  So all those double boxes, with the 4 gang outlets are the server ones.  Each receptical is its own run, hence the pair of wires feeding the box.  So thats 10 seperate 20 amp circuits to fire up all this gear.  The high level boxes on that wall are for the cieling exhaust fans which push ~350 CFM each, and are variable speed.  And the best part is that they're quiet too !  Lighting wise, I wanted to be sure I was never wanting for more light.  Nothing so tough as working on a server with small parts, trying to read part numbers you cant, because its too dark.  Ok, there's alot worse things than that, but still - more light, better room.

Day 5

Day five is where its really becoming a room now.  Insulation went in, and it got nice and quiet now.  It was mainly as a sound deadener, but in truth since the room will be cooled, its good for that too.  You cant really see the custom ductwork but a custom plenum was made at the top of the front wall to take the 8" drop from the attic, and split it into the two vertical ducts in the walls.  Its there behind the insulation on the front wall but of course you cant see it, and I dont think I have a picture showing it.  Thats where the four a/c grates will go.  2 are high level in case I ever re-purpose the room.  The lower ones are the ones I'll use for this server room though, keeping the cool air nice and low.

Day 6

Day six is the sheetrock going up.  Now its really looking like a room.  The green rock is for anti mold and anti moisture.  That is run on the house's outside walls only.  The rest of the walls get regular 'rock.  Sheets were all hung vertically to minimize waste.

Day 7

Day seven is now with spackle going on, smoothing out the walls, and making things look nice nice.  While it all dried, also boxed in the ductwork in the first floor passages.  Since I had already run my network, phone, and provider cables from the existing second floor server room we can safely box it all in now.

Day 8

Day eight was closing in and boxing in the second floor office closet now.  Thats the last of that.  You can see the door is now hung, and the dropped cieling going in too now.  Height was determined now that I have an idea of what server racks will be going in.  I need 87" clear, so we put the cieling as high as it will go.  Now its really taking shape.  Personally I love the way that looks.  So thats final coat of spackle done, sanding done, all prep done - lookin good now.

Day 9

Day nine begins the painting process.  Really this is just primer at this point, because covering the green is not going to be easy to cover.  My brothers in law helped out here with getting the paint up and it helped alot.  So the grid was taped off, and painting began.  So 2 coats of prime, and 2 coats of color (well, pure white satin trim/wall paint, but still ...).

Day 10

Day ten was about finishing up - or getting close to.  Oriented all the outlets, pushed them in, and put the covers on.  Spent alot of this day terminating the computer wires, and running the other ends of the wire.  To this point, there were 3 spools of wire in the attic that ran down to the data center.  Today was about running them back down from the attic to their destinations : 2 into the existing server room, and one in to the office.  But the look of the data center with all the outlet covers on is what ws ginving it a nice finished look now.

Day 11

Day eleven is flooring.  I had picked a nice commercial vinyl tile which I really liked.   A nice black tile with white specs.  Also put the A/C grates on now.  While it shows as day 12 in the pictures, today was really the day that the exhaust fan ducts were installed, and run to the outside of the house.  Check out those industrial exterior flaps - they look like they are HUGE, and they're just the 8" model.  The 6" ones look like dryer vents, but the 8" looks like it belongs on something much much larger.  Almost there ...

Day 12

Day twelve is really the last of it.  The base trim is down now and painted, the door trim is on now and painted, and floor is waxed and lookin really good - its shiny and thats always good.  Oh and the data center outside walls now have a base kicker on them, just so the 'rock doesnt get beaten up too bad.

Day 13

Day thirteen was picking up the racks.  Some good people around me really came through for this one - both in acquiring and shipping/moving/installing.  Tomorrow (day 14) they get filled with the gear. and the datacenter move is on.

Day 14

Day fourteen was spent adjusting the racks and populating them.  I swear I spent about 6 hours adjusting and readjusting the rails in these racks, trying to get them to accept my HP server rails - but no luck.  I left them as wide/long as possible, but still no luck.  Thankfully I ended up buying heavy dudty shelves for the servers, as a backup, so thats what I am using now instead of the rails.  There are pro's and con's to this mehtod - pro's are - Im done.  Cons are that I cant slide out servers for fixes like Im used to - and it blows.  You can see from the pix that ther middle rack has dual DL380G1's - well, after powering up, the lower one had a ram / chip issue tonite, and I had to shutdown and fully remove the upper DL380 to address the situation.  But hey - at least the move is done. 

So tonite I moved all the gear in, as you can see in slides one and 2.  Slide 3 shows the table I put in there to be able to sit at while I work.  The last slide is really just to show the audiotron I use (at max volume) while I work.  Artists like MegaDeath, KingDiamond, Lo-Pro and many many others play while I work.  

Day 15

Day fifteen was some modifcation to the cooling.  After bringing things online, the temps were a little above what I wanted.  Thats the main reason the rack doors remain off.  The house air conditioner / air handler pipes fresh air into the room all the time as shown in the prior days photos, but its not quite enough.  WIth the dual exhaust fans, but only one real stream of air in, more "input" air was needed.  So what started as an idea using outside air to cool turned into a little window unit sized air conditioner piped in so that its always cold air instead now.

So above you can see the custom plenum that was made for where the air exits the air unit, then its transferred via 8" insulated ductwork over to the room, where it then drops into the room via a grate in the cieling tile.  That helps the room keep cool now.  Also hung the large whiteboard too.