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I had the house run with a star config, multiple drops in each room, and multiple runs for both rg6 and cat6 to the utilities all back to my central server area. I have a DWR-24-17PD http://www.middleatlantic.com/enclosure/wall/dwr.htm mounted to the studs. Plenty of room in the rack, it swings out and I'm able to access the back. I've been running this config since 2006. I had custom enclosures made for my machines, as the rack can realistically only hold things about 13" deep, but the folks at www.protocase.com made the process of getting custom cases easy.

Here are somethings you really should think about:
Add more drops then you think you will need before the drywall goes up, trust me a few years down the road you will wish you had more.
If you ever plan on getting satellite remember that you need far more runs of rg6 then you would think.
Also think about multiplexing OTA from the attic and the output from a media server from your rack.
Have your builder install a HVAC supply and return in the room that will house the rack.
Most importantly install sound proofing in all the walls around the rack, consider even adding a muffle on the bottom of the door.
Plan to replace fans with quieter ones, and harddrives with quite or silent ones.
Get a good UPS for the server room.
Get a good firewall to cover the entire house and allows you to place a machine or two in the DMZ.
Use separation on the switch to keep the wifi/LAN/DMZ separate
Have all the cables simply terminate at a patch panel, trust me this will save you a headache when you need to reorganize something. Also do not let the builder install any of their usual splitters, say for phone distribution, as they tend to degrade the signals and if you run it to the patch panel you can map the rg6 and cat6 drops as needed, and split things with higher end equipment. The builder will likely add a surcharge for everything they do. So stick to just have them run the cables, sound proofing BEFORE the drywall goes up, and framing it proper for the rack if you want to attach it to the wall.

My builder used a structured wire panel insert in the wall which makes sound proofing that portion nearly impossible.

I found that my builder was unfamiliar with networking and I had to redo several of the drops that did not test right. So you might be better off not having them connect it up and getting your own patch panel that handles multiple types of cables.

They have racks that wall mount, floor mount, mount in custom woodwork and built into desks. They have fans to deal with heat and power strips too.

It's basically a rack shelf with a laser cut panel in the front that perfects fits the components (it doesn't work for Game Cube or any other "top loading" system, unless you put those on a sliding rack shelf, which is certainly doable.) I've not only racked my game systems, but everything else...DVD players, DSS, etc. And I've got a neat, clean, "custom fitted" appearance for everything.

Check them out...http://www.middleatlantic.com/

I agree with these... but would toss in a recommendation for a well designed desk.

This is the closet thing that I know of that would work:

Middle Atlantic Rackmount LCD Keyboard and Touchpad

It's a 1RU keyboard/mouse/LCD monitor. 15 LCD @ 1024x768, with a 101 key keyboard with a touchpad.

Granted, its rack-mountable, but without the mounting hardware it could serve your needs.

It really isn't true that anything associated with audio gets an automatic 500% markup.

I recently built a new workstation, and decided to built it in a rackmount case this time. I though it would neaten things up a lot to get my (rackmount) UPS and extra battery, server, switch, and all those pesky little boxes (firewall, cable and DSL modems, etc.) into an enclosed rackmount case. (That way, most of the cable runs are inside of the case...)

After looking at surplus racks and not finding anything that I would have in my home (my office is in my dining room) I decided to splurge and buy a brand-new rack cabinet.

I wound-up with a Middle Atlantic Products WRK-24MDK "presentation enclosure system" which is a 30" deep 24U enclosed cabinet.

At about $800, it was less than similar products designed for the server market. (Which, IMO, has by far the highest markups!)

There are somewhat more affordable choices available from Middle Atlantic, if is doesn't have to be quite so pretty. Particularly if you want a full-size cabinet. They also make some pretty nifty cabinets intended for in-wall roll-out installations, which are popular in home theatre applications.

One thing you have to watch-out for with audio racks is depth. Most audio equipment is not very deep, and most enclosed racks for the audio market are not going to be deep enough for most servers.

The cheapest way to go, if you are handy, or having custom furniture built anyway, is to just buy rackrails for a few dollars and build them into something.

The next-cheapest is to use an open rack rather than an enclosed rack. These are commonly used in corporate server rooms where individual-cabinet security is not needed. Severs typically sit on center-mounted shelves rather than actually being mounted from the ears.

And, yes, you can pretty easily find full-size and smaller racks on the surplus market (I found several locally) but they can be rough.

Keep in mind that 1U servers are VERY noisy! (The smaller the fan diameter, the more the noise, for the same volume of air moved.) This is a consideration if this is in your home or even in your office if it is in a work area. If you are a build-it-yourself type, get 4U enclosures and add your own motherboard.

I used a Chenbro RM412 case, which comes with a hot-swap SCSI backplane, and takes extended ATX mother boards.

I added a 4U shelf for all of the little boxes, and got a new low-cost rack-mount gigabit switch. (An SMC 8508T)

It really isn't true that anything associated with audio gets an automatic 500% markup.

I recently built a new workstation, and decided to built it in a rackmount case this time. I though it would neaten things up a lot to get my (rackmount) UPS and extra battery, server, switch, and all those pesky little boxes (firewall, cable and DSL modems, etc.) into an enclosed rackmount case. (That way, most of the cable runs are inside of the case...)

After looking at surplus racks and not finding anything that I would have in my home (my office is in my dining room) I decided to splurge and buy a brand-new rack cabinet.

I wound-up with a Middle Atlantic Products WRK-24MDK "presentation enclosure system" which is a 30" deep 24U enclosed cabinet.

At about $800, it was less than similar products designed for the server market. (Which, IMO, has by far the highest markups!)

There are somewhat more affordable choices available from Middle Atlantic, if is doesn't have to be quite so pretty. Particularly if you want a full-size cabinet. They also make some pretty nifty cabinets intended for in-wall roll-out installations, which are popular in home theatre applications.

One thing you have to watch-out for with audio racks is depth. Most audio equipment is not very deep, and most enclosed racks for the audio market are not going to be deep enough for most servers.

The cheapest way to go, if you are handy, or having custom furniture built anyway, is to just buy rackrails for a few dollars and build them into something.

The next-cheapest is to use an open rack rather than an enclosed rack. These are commonly used in corporate server rooms where individual-cabinet security is not needed. Severs typically sit on center-mounted shelves rather than actually being mounted from the ears.

And, yes, you can pretty easily find full-size and smaller racks on the surplus market (I found several locally) but they can be rough.

Keep in mind that 1U servers are VERY noisy! (The smaller the fan diameter, the more the noise, for the same volume of air moved.) This is a consideration if this is in your home or even in your office if it is in a work area. If you are a build-it-yourself type, get 4U enclosures and add your own motherboard.

I used a Chenbro RM412 case, which comes with a hot-swap SCSI backplane, and takes extended ATX mother boards.

I added a 4U shelf for all of the little boxes, and got a new low-cost rack-mount gigabit switch. (An SMC 8508T)

It really isn't true that anything associated with audio gets an automatic 500% markup.

I recently built a new workstation, and decided to built it in a rackmount case this time. I though it would neaten things up a lot to get my (rackmount) UPS and extra battery, server, switch, and all those pesky little boxes (firewall, cable and DSL modems, etc.) into an enclosed rackmount case. (That way, most of the cable runs are inside of the case...)

After looking at surplus racks and not finding anything that I would have in my home (my office is in my dining room) I decided to splurge and buy a brand-new rack cabinet.

I wound-up with a Middle Atlantic Products WRK-24MDK "presentation enclosure system" which is a 30" deep 24U enclosed cabinet.

At about $800, it was less than similar products designed for the server market. (Which, IMO, has by far the highest markups!)

There are somewhat more affordable choices available from Middle Atlantic, if is doesn't have to be quite so pretty. Particularly if you want a full-size cabinet. They also make some pretty nifty cabinets intended for in-wall roll-out installations, which are popular in home theatre applications.

One thing you have to watch-out for with audio racks is depth. Most audio equipment is not very deep, and most enclosed racks for the audio market are not going to be deep enough for most servers.

The cheapest way to go, if you are handy, or having custom furniture built anyway, is to just buy rackrails for a few dollars and build them into something.

The next-cheapest is to use an open rack rather than an enclosed rack. These are commonly used in corporate server rooms where individual-cabinet security is not needed. Severs typically sit on center-mounted shelves rather than actually being mounted from the ears.

And, yes, you can pretty easily find full-size and smaller racks on the surplus market (I found several locally) but they can be rough.

Keep in mind that 1U servers are VERY noisy! (The smaller the fan diameter, the more the noise, for the same volume of air moved.) This is a consideration if this is in your home or even in your office if it is in a work area. If you are a build-it-yourself type, get 4U enclosures and add your own motherboard.

I used a Chenbro RM412 case, which comes with a hot-swap SCSI backplane, and takes extended ATX mother boards.

I added a 4U shelf for all of the little boxes, and got a new low-cost rack-mount gigabit switch. (An SMC 8508T)

It really isn't true that anything associated with audio gets an automatic 500% markup.

I recently built a new workstation, and decided to built it in a rackmount case this time. I though it would neaten things up a lot to get my (rackmount) UPS and extra battery, server, switch, and all those pesky little boxes (firewall, cable and DSL modems, etc.) into an enclosed rackmount case. (That way, most of the cable runs are inside of the case...)

After looking at surplus racks and not finding anything that I would have in my home (my office is in my dining room) I decided to splurge and buy a brand-new rack cabinet.

I wound-up with a Middle Atlantic Products WRK-24MDK "presentation enclosure system" which is a 30" deep 24U enclosed cabinet.

At about $800, it was less than similar products designed for the server market. (Which, IMO, has by far the highest markups!)

There are somewhat more affordable choices available from Middle Atlantic, if is doesn't have to be quite so pretty. Particularly if you want a full-size cabinet. They also make some pretty nifty cabinets intended for in-wall roll-out installations, which are popular in home theatre applications.

One thing you have to watch-out for with audio racks is depth. Most audio equipment is not very deep, and most enclosed racks for the audio market are not going to be deep enough for most servers.

The cheapest way to go, if you are handy, or having custom furniture built anyway, is to just buy rackrails for a few dollars and build them into something.

The next-cheapest is to use an open rack rather than an enclosed rack. These are commonly used in corporate server rooms where individual-cabinet security is not needed. Severs typically sit on center-mounted shelves rather than actually being mounted from the ears.

And, yes, you can pretty easily find full-size and smaller racks on the surplus market (I found several locally) but they can be rough.

Keep in mind that 1U servers are VERY noisy! (The smaller the fan diameter, the more the noise, for the same volume of air moved.) This is a consideration if this is in your home or even in your office if it is in a work area. If you are a build-it-yourself type, get 4U enclosures and add your own motherboard.

I used a Chenbro RM412 case, which comes with a hot-swap SCSI backplane, and takes extended ATX mother boards.

I added a 4U shelf for all of the little boxes, and got a new low-cost rack-mount gigabit switch. (An SMC 8508T)

Middle Atlantic Products makes some nice, inexpensive rack hardware in their musician's section that's suitable for a home rack. I have one of their 36" racks and its served me well. In it I have racked a few homebrew PC's, mostly with rack-mount cases purchased from NewEgg. Decent rack-mount cases, not overly priced, and many will take standard sized motherboards and power supplies.

The solution here is very simple. You need to isolate the noise coming from the computer. As many people have suggested, keeping everything in different rooms is ideal. That's why "real" recording studios have a control room, a record booth, and a machine room. Since this is not possible in this situation, make it possible with a little sideways thinking.

We know the computer needs to be in a different room since that will isolate the noise to that room. What's to keep us from bringing the other room into the recording booth (or control room)? Size mostly...

So bring a smaller "room" into the room. Mid Atlantic has some nice solutions for you. They aren't that expensive. Using an iso-rack in the control room is quite common in most Pro Tools installations.

I've used Pro Tools in professional situations for about 6 years now. Basically, since the point it became "ready for prime-time" (literally). I work on a prime-time television show. We used to use the AMS-Neve Logic3 and Audiofile system. Then, Pro Tools finally became good enough to use. The problem was the noise. We "stole" one of the Mid Atlantic iso-racks from one of the unused Avid suites, and have been very pleased at the result.

True, you can still hear an old 9600 in there, but a dual G4 or a new G5 would be under the noise floor for the room.

Rack mount hardware is made for business use. This means that the price is set by how much a business would be willing to pay for it. If there were a large demand for a consumer oriented rack mount solutions then you might be able to find less expensive rack mount hardware. As there is not a large consumer demand yet the prices are not likely to drop.

What are your requirements? Requirement examples would be; physical security (the kids keep hacking my hardware), floor space is at a premium (help, I live in a Manhattan apartment) or display (damn that looks slick). Rack mounts are not necessarily the right solution for the home or office or even the data center.

Do you like to be hands on with your computer/network hardware? I personally like to be able to take a machine down and rip into it on a workbench. Depending on your rack mount equipment that may be easy or it could become very difficult. In my experience it is usually the latter. (Think of how the dynamics of disconnecting plugs, accessing innards and lifting out hardware would actually work.)

Do you need a cabinet or will a stand do? If you have wall space available and your equipment is light/small you might consider a wall mount rack.

If you decide that you are going to go with a rack mount solution, these are my personal favorites:

Middle Atlantic - These guys have some really neat enclosures that are recording studio quality.

BUD Industries - Some of the lowest prices I have found.

MilesTek - Good selection of smaller rack mount solutions.

If you don't absolutely have to have a rack mount solution then my recommendation is a wire shelving unit and plenty of cable ties. You can come up with a good looking and highly effective bit of equipment. Here are some links:

Metro Shelving - The big kahuna of wire shelves. Great stuff but can be pricy.

Costco - Seville Classics Commercial Shelving unit and a bundle of cable ties from Costco is the best $70 solution I have found. (I have four of the shelving units and have no complaints.)

Dan

In addition to selling complete racks and cabinets, Middle Atlantic Products has parts you can use to make your own. They have some pretty details dimentional drawings of the cabinets they sell which should be good enough to base your own plans on. L

In addition to selling complete racks and cabinets, Middle Atlantic Products has parts you can use to make your own. They have some pretty details dimentional drawings of the cabinets they sell which should be good enough to base your own plans on. L

In theory you could machine one yourself, but if you value your time at all, there's one and only one name you need to know in affordable racks: Middle Atlantic [aka DataTel].

All products here:

http://www.middleatlantic.com/enclosure/main.htm

http://www.middleatlantic.com/dcm/wall/wm.htm

http://www.syndat.com

PS: DANGER, WILL ROBINSON: Never run a computer in a closet!!! FIRE HAZARD! FIRE HAZARD!

In theory you could machine one yourself, but if you value your time at all, there's one and only one name you need to know in affordable racks: Middle Atlantic [aka DataTel].

All products here:

http://www.middleatlantic.com/enclosure/main.htm

http://www.middleatlantic.com/dcm/wall/wm.htm

http://www.syndat.com

PS: DANGER, WILL ROBINSON: Never run a computer in a closet!!! FIRE HAZARD! FIRE HAZARD!

The ultimate desk is, in my humble opinion, the Middle Atlantic Edit Center line of desks. If you want a huge amount of stable desktop space, they're ideal. (and have nifty options, some of which involve 19" racks)

Just search Google, and you'll find a ton. I've used both an SPM2 (2U Sideways Panel Mount), and an SPM4 (4U).

You can use them to mount facing up or sideways, but I prefer sideways, as it's usually easier to read the displays.

Here are a few:

http://www.rackmountsolutions.net/WM_SPM.asp
http://www.middleatlantic.com/dcm/wall/spm.htm

That said, DataTel/MiddleAtlantic has a nice, affordable series of wall mount racks [the "WM" series]:

http://www.middleatlantic.com/specs/96_291.pdf
[PDF FILE]

http://www.syndat.com

If you want to put your consumer stuff on rails, Middle Atlantic can help you out, and at very reasonable prices to boot. They're what all the high-end custom installers use.

In this article we'll do something that so far we're not aware anyone has done yet - discuss building a small 18-unit ... rack cabinet for as little as $50.

I've got a 20-space Raxxess elite rack, and it looks and works great. The Raxxess economy rack series is probably closer to what you would get if you built it yourself. Zzounds (a leading online music store) has the best prices I've seen on Raxxess gear. Their website is down right now for some reason, but the cache of their rack section shows that the Raxxess 20-space economy rack is $84.95 (+$5.00 shipping).

A professional 20-space rack for $84.95 sounds better to me that a "do it yourself" 18-space rack for "as little as $50," particularly when you consider the cost of your time and labor.

They were Audio Engineers and they were freakishly cool.

They needed desks very similar to what us computer geeks would need. But because they needed a quiet environment to work with sound they made their rackmounts soundproof.

Oh, and because they were as much artists as engineers they made it all look really nice. Check it out:

http://www.middleatlantic.com/studio/main.htm

Dan

They make a standalone 24U isolated rack that might be just what the doctor ordered.

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They make a standalone 24U isolated rack that might be just what the doctor ordered.

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They make a standalone 24U isolated rack that might be just what the doctor ordered.

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Middle Atlantic has good, cheap cabinets. you can get as fancy or plain as you want - add doors and vents and fans or leave it open.

i'm looking at their ERK series, 18U with doors, fans & filters, and caster base. eventually i'd like to move all my machines (except the mac ;) in here and run a nice KVM, too.

their distributors list is available here. in the greater Boston area, i'm going to You Do-It Electronics in Needham.

Middle Atlantic has good, cheap cabinets. you can get as fancy or plain as you want - add doors and vents and fans or leave it open.

i'm looking at their ERK series, 18U with doors, fans & filters, and caster base. eventually i'd like to move all my machines (except the mac ;) in here and run a nice KVM, too.

their distributors list is available here. in the greater Boston area, i'm going to You Do-It Electronics in Needham.

Middle Atlantic has good, cheap cabinets. you can get as fancy or plain as you want - add doors and vents and fans or leave it open.

i'm looking at their ERK series, 18U with doors, fans & filters, and caster base. eventually i'd like to move all my machines (except the mac ;) in here and run a nice KVM, too.

their distributors list is available here. in the greater Boston area, i'm going to You Do-It Electronics in Needham.

I went on the search for the perfect geek desk and ended up with a Middle Atlantic Edit Center. It's made for video editing but also works well with the serious geek (especially those of us who have a multitude of equipment and like having a rack handy). It's not the cheapest thing you'll ever see, but it's very well made, attractive and will make you the envy of your geek type friends.

You can buy them at most any large pro audio-type place. I bought mine from Full Compass