I am sick of paying US$1000 a year for a professional commercial datacenter colo for merely a hobbyist Minecraft / Space Engineers / Factorio gaming server that makes no money and is not run to make a profit.
I would instead like to build a gaming server that will sit hundreds of miles away from me in someone's closet or basement on their Google fiber, and I want this mini-server to be as close to zero maintenance as possible for the friend acting as my server host.
I know that dust is the death of technology, and this thing is going to run 24x7 for years in a mostly unmonitored location, so it needs extreme reliability and dust protection.
I want to use a professional HVAC high-end deep-pleat furnace filter with high particulate retention, not the cheap blue US$1 filters that let fine dust through.
Something like this 20" x 21" x 5" deep MERV 16 filter: https://www.filtersfast.com/P-Lennox-X8790-MERV-16-Air-Filter-Replacement.asp?kpid=X8790
This high grade professional filter is likely going to take a bit of static pressure to drive air through it as it builds a dust layer, so the case likely needs more than the typical low-pressure axial fans, possibly a small squirrel cage or centrifugal horticultural blower.
Though I am also trying to go for something quiet, so the blower likely needs to be of a large diameter, to be slow enough and still have sufficient static air pressure.
I have spent many months trying to find a super-low maintenance computer case or enclosure like this, and so far it appears no such thing exists. It probably would have to be custom manufactured in a makerspace on a CNC router table or with a plasma cutter.
Any ideas?
