In my previous house, I kept my network equipment and server under the stairs. It got a bit hot during heatwaves but otherwise never got too hot and had excellent noise isolation. My new house has no under-stairs cupboard so I have a few options for storing this stuff: the (attached) garage, the loft, or the utility room. Which of these would be better in your humble opinions? Here's my thoughts:
- The utility room is south facing and with the boiler, washing machine, and tumble dryer, probably gets quite hot in the summer. In the winter it's cool with a window open but still quite humid. Doesn't seem ideal. One wall backs onto the garage so cable routing should be quite easy.
- The loft has reasonable insulation and half of it is boarded so keeping stuff in there is fairly easy. It's the most annoying room to access if anything goes wrong or the setup needs changing though. I would be a bit worried about heat during the summer though.
- The garage on paper would be a great place to put it for noise isolation and cable routing and it shouldn't get too hot except during heatwaves. However, I'm worried about creatures, humidity, and dust. Are there any insulated cabinets with fans and dust filters I can use to keep my stuff reasonably clean in there? I need 3U of space for the networking equipment but my server is in a (huge) desktop case: a Fractal R5. I'm not even sure non-commercial cabinets exist that are big enough for such beasts!
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