Dang, doesn't really fit any particular forum descriptions, so I'll stick this here. Moved about a month ago to a much smaller house, so I don't have my own computer junk room. If you had your choice of the attic or the partial basement (with vented crawl space), where would you put your spare Macs, hard drives, spare mother and analogue boards, etc.? So far, the attic has been about 65-70% humidity, with a high temp of about 88, which I expect to be *much* higher come summer (this is Memphis remember). The basement temp is fairly cool, as expected, but with humidity up around 85%. The humidity of the house hasn't been that much lower than the attic, around 50-mid 60s% depending on the weather, but I'm concerned about the heat up there.
Hopefully in the fall we'll be able to convert the garage into a climate-controlled studio. For now, what do you all recommend?
Where to store Mac and assorted computer stuff
June 6, 2004 - 6:18pm
#1
Where to store Mac and assorted computer stuff
You're kinda stuck with humidity in both areas, though the basement might be manageable if you picked up a used dehumidifier.
I picked up one for $50 CDN and it's made a real difference...now my boxed up cords and cables don't go moldy, and the insides of CPUs left on the floor don't rust.
the heat in the attic will ruin all floppys and some of the hdd's, my grandfather stored all his writing(typed on his mac classic) on floppys in the attic nd they all went unreadable in less than a year, then again it gets like 50-60 degrees celsius up there(120+ fareinheit) buy a dehumidefier off ebay, patton makes good ones(they used to anyway) and leave it running on its medium or low setting all year round, the cold of the basement will help everything last a very long time, just a note: in the winter if you pull a computer out from down there, give it like 24 hours to warm up before using it so it will get up to normal room temputure
I appreciate the comments, however, I'm not sure a dehumidifier would work all that well because that area is vented outside through the crawl space vents. It might be akin to turning on an air conditioner while all the doors and windows are open.
If I were in your position. . .
I'd box everything, label the boxes, get some desicant packs (typically silca gel or stone packs, kitty litter works too but not as effectively), and double bag everthing in clean, heavy mil, plastic trash bags, with as much of the air squeezed out. If you do this without the desicant packs, you might get some mildew action inside the bags.
If you stash things in the basement, be sure to put things on a raised platform, like a warehouse pallet. If you get any flooding, you'll thank yourself later.
Good luck.
Pallettes are a great thing. I pulled several from dumpsters and put them in the basement. I then moved a bunch of my equipment down for storage and put it all on them. Only a few months later I got some water in the basement, but in a different section, over in the lab area where most of my equip was pyut when we moved in. I'm kicking myself now for not getting enough pallettes to put it all on. A simple 4" raise with the pallettes would have kept everything dry...