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Tom O'Connor
Asked: 2012-07-03 06:56:13 +0800 CST

How would you measure the amount of atmospheric dust in a server room?

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We've been advised by our tape library vendor that one of the reasons we might be seeing lots of errors is if our server room is particularly dusty.

It doesn't look dusty, but that's not to say it's not there.

We've got an environment sensor cluster which measures Temperature, Airflow and Relative Humidity.

I should probably point out that the low-hanging fruit solution I came up with is to use Sellotape (scotch tape) in a loop, one side stuck to the server cabinet, the other side free-hanging.

I've also put a couple of other tape loops by the exit and intake fans of the hardware (not blocking airflow, naturally).

How can we (electronically, ideally) measure dust levels?

monitoring server-room

6 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Sounds like some push back from the vendor, but either way we used to have Air Particulate Meters in an old pharma company I worked for. They basically will measure everything in the air and tell you what's there. Dust is technically many different particles from various sources so you have to know what the individual makeup of the air is.

    Unfortunately the testing devices are not cheap and range from expensive to ridiculous. If it's a big problem ask the vendor to bring one, sounds like they have had the problem before!

    Either way I can't remember the brand we used but these look familiar: http://www.wolfsense.com/particle-counter-detector.html

    Here's one on Amazon for a decent price, not sure how accurate but I don't think you need it to be real detailed: http://www.amazon.com/Dylos-DC1100-Laser-Quality-Monitor/dp/B000XG8XCI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1341241387&sr=8-2&keywords=particle+counter

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  2. You could go with a standard APC NetBotz solution. They've added external particulate sensors to the sensor suite. This would give you thresholding, SNMP and alert capabilities versus some of the handheld real-time units.

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  3. First step would be a "househould" particle counter which you can get for around 200$, e.g. at Amazon.

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  4. I've seen a large trolley mounted monitoring device in a shopping mall before, but it may be overkill. For a quick and dirty check, VERY bright light, or a green laser pointer might do (dust will flash, you'd need to find some way to count the flashes and set a baseline tho).

    I'm sure there's a handheld version of a nephelometer or a variation with a datalogger - this is the proper tool for 'realtime' dust tracking.

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  5. In addition to particle counters, would it be out of the question to get small household air filters and get an idea of whether this is really a problem by measuring the dirt buildup in the filters? I don't know how much money you'd want to invest in measuring this, and this could give a very rough idea of whether it's a potential problem; similar to our office where we don't have something to measure humidity, but when the paper in the printers are spit out all curled up and they start jamming, we know there's a humidity problem.

    Not ideal, but it could give you a starting point at a relatively low price.

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  6. Another idea that's homebrew; use a small box fan, covered in a "filter" material. Cover one side of the fan with that material (fabric softener sheets? Actual air filters for home AC units?) and let it run for a few days, then measure the accumulated dust and debris in the catch. If you're looking to find whether this is a possible problem (as you mentioned using tape to get an idea before) this is a quick homebrew way to get an idea.

    If you used fabric softener sheets, you'll not only recirculate air but you'll have a spring-fresh smell in the server room as well.

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