Converting an amish shed into a data center
I am taking my hard drive mining to the next level, so far I have only deployed Evergreen miners, which are plug and play chia farmers HDD mining rigs. I have several more on order, and Chia farming will become my second biggest mining deployment, behind Bitcoin mining.
So it’s no surprise I have an affinity for converting sheds into mining farms lol
for example the original VoskCoin mining shed
I’ve also been working on a 2.0 VoskCoin mining shed
This HDD mining shed would be entirely dedicated to sensitive low power equipment, again for the time being just HDD mining rigs, so it makes sense to use something simple and small, like an 8x10 shed. I think a single door would be fine and better for my needs here, and that gable vent would be removed.
I was always made fun of for my trash handwriting growing up, so I really never share anything handwritten… the digital age was definitely a boon for me, but hey here’s my ugly sketch of what I am thinking with a couple of notes on the VoskCoin Data Center Shed plan lol
The goal with this redneck data center is simple, I need it to be cool and clean inside in order to preserve the hard drives for maximum mining lifespan because if you take the HDDs at the cost of preplotted for Chia farming they are basically $250 a hard drive. If an entire evergreen miner starter kit pro was to fail it’s nearly a $3,000 loss… I plan to deploy 10 or more chia farmers of 160 tb+ by the end of 2023… crunching the numbers I want to ensure my hardware is deployed effectively, efficiently, and safely ensuring the longest possible mining lifecycle.
So far I have 320 TB of Chia XCH farming POWER! I’ve also hit 6 blocks mining chia!
How much will this data center shed cost?
Let’s make a mining farm build list with estimated pricing!
- Shed $2500
- Gravel $500
- 2x Racks $200
- Electrical wiring $1,500
- Trench Ethernet $500
- 2x Mini Split AC units $2,000
- AC install $1,000
- Insulate & seal (drywall?) $1,000
- Air filter $100
- Misc parts $250
This brings us to about $10,000 in infrastructure, parts, and labor. Another obvious excluded cost are the actual mining rigs, and a PDU to deploy cleanly on the metal shelving “racks”. My cost can be reduced by the fact I have spare racks, gravel I can use, an air filter I could put in there, and DIY some components such as the insulating and drywalling of the interior.
Something, in particular, I am unsure of is the interior wall finish, should I just throw up what I know, drywall? Or explore a different material… Electricity amps? I am thinking of putting in a 100 amp subpanel, to account for the mini split ac running 24/7, and then 2x 30 amp circuits, one for each rack, which should be plenty for the very low power consumption of these miners.
I asked Grant Cermak who’s CEO of Evergreen miner how much their mining rigs use in electricity, if I round up it’s basically 100 watts. 1,200 watts at 120v, a normal US wall outlet, consumes 10 amps, but I will wire both legs of my 120v to create 240v electricity, meaning that 1,200 watts will only consume 5 amps. Deploying 12 kits is actually twice my 2023 goal. I am only planning on using 6 pro kits, which consist of 10 hard drives each, and if they are the 18 TB version, then I will deploy 1 PB of mining hashpower on Chia. So really 30 amp circuits are huge overkill but I would rather have a fair amount of electricity deployed, and simply use less of it.
I’ll hang a row of LED lights because let’s be honest, my eyesight is not getting any better with age! Transom windows should provide sufficient lighting during the day though. I will also hardwire a security camera into this building, which would consume a small amount of electricity and add a bit of cost on materials and labor, see when you really brainstorm through the entire plan and process things really add up!
My main motivation for simply dropping another building instead of trying to work it into anything existing I have, is that I have plenty of space, and this gives me full control to ensure its 100% purpose-built. I also just like buildings, and building things lol, when I was a kid I would just watch construction video after construction video, all on good ole VHS.
Please share your thoughts, ideas, input, feedback, critiques, whatever! I don’t think this is a perfect plan by any means and would love to do it once and get it right the first time!
Update 1
Mapping out a rough electrical schematic brings me to 1 30 amp 120v circuit, a sub panel breaker box, 2x 20 amp 240v circuits, and 2x 30 amp 240v circuits. I tend to always go overboard on 120v outlets, but staying focused with the 240v connections, wiring in 3 LED light bars for excessive lighting as well as a hardwired security camera on door gable side, I will also use an in-swing door for tighter security on the Chia Compound HDD mining bunker!
Video walkthrough of the initial chia xch farming shed plan
Update 2
Been brainstorming a lot, even recorded a video running through my plan with some additional brainstorming lol and seeking input from evergreens team as well as the genius gurus in the VoskCoin discord server…
My shed builders electrician sent me this electrical diagram…
I think the biggest takeaway is I just don’t have enough space, another thing I was thinking about is the fact I record videos for this little youtube channel I’ve been working on called VoskCoin and trying to get a decent camera angle when I’ve only budgeted ~1 ft on each side in the original design will be impossible lol 
2 racks can definitely be filled up with evergreen miners alone when I account for some space for airflow between the units, and the original design hardly leaves me room for any sort of server rack deployment.
July 5th 2023 hard drive mining shed build update
Updated VoskCoin HDD mining shed electrical diagrams by me…
Sent this to their electrician, and got this mock-up back from him
The only changes were moving the elec panel to the left side, adding another floodlight and camera to the left side, and a dimmer to the light switch by the door. So unless I come up with anything else or someone has some last minute input… going to send this to fabrication! also decided to go up from the original plan of 100 amp subpanel to 200 amp, so skies the limit for future servers lol
) for chia plotting/farming
