TF Farm: Tips When You're Away for Some Days

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TF Farm: Tips When You’re Away for Some Days

Hey guys,

The subject has been brought often in the Telegram channel, so I thought we could start a thread here and share our knowledge.

How can we ensure our TF Farm is safe and secure when we are away for some days?

The following is the information I gathered from our talks. If you have more ideas, please reply below!
Also note that these are just guidelines and ideas. You must make sure your farm is safe and secure on your side as Threefold cannot be responsible for any accidents or problems.

Let’s go!

Note: It can be a good idea to start with small period of time away from the farm and to progressively increase the period of time away from the farm.

First let’s see what ASHRAE has to say on server rooms:

  • Room monitoring, the temperature has to be maintained between should be between 18°-27°C / 64°-80°F.
  • Humidity range is 40% and 60% rH.
  • Dew point temperature should be 5.5ºC DP to 60% RH and 15ºC DP.

“Monitoring humidity is equally important than temperature and often omitted. Did you know that the relative humidity (rH) in server rooms and data centers should be between 40% and 60% rH. Too dry will result in the build up of static electricity on the systems. Too humid and corrosion will start slowly damaging your equipment resulting in permanent equipment failures.”

What is very important here is that what can be risky is static electricity (SE) on the systems. Low humidity can cause SE. This can be a cause for fire so make sure there will be no static electricity in your Threefold farm!

How To Get TF Farm Data Remotely

  • Check the Status of Your 3node:

  • Use Remote Management Tools:

    • For Dell servers, use iDRAC
    • For HP servers, use HP ILO

  • Monitor Temperature and Relative Humidity (R.H) Remotely

    • Some remote temperature and R.H sensors can be used and connected to a phone

Main Things to Check:

  • Remove batteries in laptops.
  • Make sure your surge protectors are sized correctly to their electricity loads (3node servers, routers, modems, etc.).
  • Set Shutdown Temperature/Thermal Shutdown in BIOS (so the serve shuts down if the internal temperature exceeds a certain threshold).
  • Make sure your 3nodes have the setting AC Recover Power, or the equivalent, enabled. This will ensure your 3node powers back on if it loses power momentarily.
  • Smart plugs may also be used. With a smart plug, you can power off electronic hardwares remotely. This can be used, for example, to restart modems and servers from afar.
  • Make sure temperature, relative humidity and dew point are within the ASHRAE norms. (special care for static electricity). The use of an AC unit is recommended.
  • Aim between 10 to 15 ACPH for a computer room. ACPH goes for Air changes per hour.

The Overall Strategy

  1. If you can have a AC unit with cooling+humidifier+dehumidifier+air change, set with proper settings according to your 3node farm and the information above, you should be OK as the AC unit would regulate the room. If the power shuts down for a long period of time, it would not only shut down the AC unit, but also the 3nodes. In this case, heat would not build up in the servers.

  2. You can check your servers’ states remotely with remote management tools.

  3. You can check the server room temperature/rel. hum./dew point with remote sensors.

  4. If you need to shut down your 3nodes remotely, you could then use the smart plugs to shut down the power. The Thermal Shutdown can also do this automatically. Some smart plugs can also shut down automatically when a certain temperature threshold is reached.

  5. You can always check with the Telegram bot and/or the TF Explorer if your 3nodes are online.

Note: If you are unsure about the safety of your TF farm when you are away, simply halting the TF Farm activity for some days can be preferable. Be careful and DYOR.

Closing Words

That’s about it. Following these steps, your TF Farm should be safe and secure while you’re away. Of course, you must check everything by yourself in your specific situation as Threefold cannot be held responsible for your TF farming.

What do you guys think?

Do you have anything to add on this topic?

Thanks for all the TFarmers who shared their ideas and thoughts on this subject.

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