Power and heat in a cupboard

Sunday, 26 July 2026

Tucking the server in a cupboard is tidy right up until the day it runs hot and throttles. A small enclosed space with a working machine in it is a little oven.

A quiet fan drawing air through the door and a temperature sensor that warns me past thirty degrees solved it. The machine runs cool and I stopped worrying about the cupboard in a heatwave.

The whole fix cost less than a single replacement drive, which is roughly what a summer of quiet throttling and heat would have eventually cost me.