There is one thing guaranteed on a Linux Server, heat kills. When you work hard as a Linux administrator and your company has important data on physical hard drives you need to manage the heat on those drives. Excessive heat will cause those drives to under perform, be erratic and finally fall apart. This of course will happen on Friday night when you can spend your weekend working on another disaster.

Here is an example of 5 SCSI drives crammed together on two separate SCSI chains. This kind of set up will create tremendous heat as the drives are rotating at 10,000 RPM with little way to dissipate heat. You are better off have larger and fewer drives as this will decrease the heat issues and provide longevity as well as greater reliability for drives.

Here are several SCSI drives that have been inserted into the drive slots, notice how they are spread out and not jammed together. Rearrange your cabling so that you can create as much air flow as possible.

The cabling should be thought through so that you can gather it together to enhance the cooling by increasing airflow.

Take snap ties and control the cabling to control the air flow.

Often in front of the SCSI drives on a server are fans that contain a filter. Clean those filters and fans on a regular basis so that they are working correctly. In this example the filter was almost completely blocked creating a real problem.

Take a class to learn how to manage Linux Servers!

Live Class Descriptions:
Linux Server Management - course focus on running a Linux Server correctly (Ubuntu 8.04 or CentOS 5), see class outline below.
Linux Server Daemons - course focus on step-by-step install of servers (Ubuntu 8.04 or CentOS 5), installation and management of web servers, DNS servers, mail servers, DHCP,SSH, FTP,etc.

Self-Teach Packages:
Linux Server Management - course focus on running a Linux Server correctly (Ubuntu 8.04 or CentOS 5), see class outline below.
Linux Server Daemons - course focus on step-by-step install of servers (Ubuntu 8.04 or CentOS 5), installation and management of web servers, DNS servers, mail servers, DHCP,SSH, FTP,etc.