Next up in the z uber move...Getting the tape libraries from the garage to the server room. This will require installing a much larger door (two doors really), building a ramp, and moving a metric ton of boxes of gear/cables/parts/etc.
The current plan is to move the workshop to the garage, move the 8'x4' block of rolling shelves to where the workbench is in the workshop/server room, and then move the libraries to the spot where the rolling shelve block is. This plan will require building a workbench that folds down along with figuring out a storage solution for my various lengths of stock metal and wood.
A bit of background: The first floor of the house is basically the garage and a room that's split by a vinyl strip door. One side of the vinyl strip door is the server area with UPS and dedicated AC. The other side is storage (a 8'x4' block of five rolling wire shelves) and a space for a workshop and workbench.
The workbench will need to fold down with the metal pegboard over it. Gary W and myself will probably use some of my square tube steel welded together to make a table frame and legs. Heavy plywood (3/4" or heavier) might be put on the wall to help support the pegboard and bench. Initially it'll be covered in wood. Down the road metal may be used so that it can be used for welding.
The pegboard from the current workbench will need to be moved to the garage and the existing workbench disassembled. Plus the three toolbox sets (two are floor stacked drawers, the other is the same but on casters) will need to be moved to the garage. Perhaps it'll go on the left side of the garage where part of the wood and metal stock current sits on a few wall brackets. Ceiling mounted platforms will also be used to add more banker box storage in the garage.
The real trick will be getting three or four lengths of wire shelving to use for holding the really long stock wood and metal. Only the short stuff will fit on the left side between the wall and the door between the house. The long stuff will need to go on wire shelving on the right side. With my 2001 Plymouth Prowler sitting in the big empty space in the middle of the garage when it's not being used as a workshop.
The welding cart and in-progress Caffeine Cart will be stored in the storage area. There should be enough extra space in that part of the room to hold both carts, the rolling shelves, and still have enough space left over for the shelves to roll out for access. The carts will probably block off the utility closet normally. But they're easy to roll around so no big deal.
Vinyl strip door currently separates off around 1/3 of the first floor workshop into an isolated area for the servers. The door helps keep the noise levels tolerable outside the server area, keep cool air isolated to the server area, and prevent dust from the workshop from getting to the servers. There is a good air filter installed that'll pull air from the non-server area and blow the purified air into the server area. This is handy when doing work that generates dust as it keeps positive air pressure in the server room while also removing dust from the room as a whole.
Once the move is done the vinyl strip door will be removed from its current location. A new set will be installed over the entrance to the room from the hallway that goes to the garage. There is a chance a second run will be added between the storage area and the server area. That'd help keep things a bit more isolated. The only issue with all of this is that the first floor intake for the house's centaral air would fall into the storage area. That'd result in air from the server room getting sucked into the system and house air making it back into the server area. This isn't ideal as it'd pull dust in and worst of all the air wouldn't be the right temp - it'd be the house temp, not the server side temp. This would make cooling the servers and heating/cooling the rest of the house harder. tl;dr that'd suck. So it'll probably have to be blocked off. Although vinyl strip door might be runnable so that the servers and tape libraries are isolated while the intake and storage are still linked to the hallway.
So once this is all done the three tape libraries can be rolled up a ramp that'll need to be built. The ramp will help them get over the 1' rise from the garage to the house floor. Plus an inch or two for the bottom of the door frame. Since the casters on the i2000 and i6000 are so awesome I'm not to worried about this. The new doors will also be big enough that the library can basically be rolled in the wide-way. Then it'll be easy to roll down the hallway and into the server/workshop room.
When the libraries are in place a couple of 4U right-angle mounts can be put on the ceiling to hold a fibre channel switch over each unit. They'll act as termination points for all of the drives in the library with 4x8Gbps uplinks to the core fibre channel switches. The advantage to this layout is that the copious number of fibre patch cables won't need to go as far to reach a switch; shorter cables are cheaper.
Long term four L6-30 plugs will need to be installed for each of the three libraries. But that'll need to wait as a massive new breaker box for the UPS-protected side will be needed. That's not cheap. Plus it's not a priority as the units use so little power that two can run off an already used 15A 120V circuit. So they'll get plugged into the C19s on the rack PDUs. Although I suspect I won't have enough of those available for all 12 library PSUs. So only a subset of the library PSUs will be plugged in for now. That's not a big deal as only one is required out of four in each unit. Two would be plugged in for redundancy's sake.
An H13 HEPA air purifier might also be a good addition. That'd really help get anything in the air that could affect the tapes out. Although the existing WEN non-HEPA filters would probably be fine for anything worth worrying about. At the very least I'll probably leave the existing WEN air purifier where it is and run it 24x7 in the server room. That'll keep things nice and clean in there for the tape libraries and the servers too.