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I operate a bunch of machines in a datacenter but do my sysadmin from home. As a result, I have a nice installation here, in a side room of my basement near my home office, connected to the Internet through a Covad T1.

I use (2) 2-post relay racks from Great Lakes Case & Cabinet, they were ~$300 each. I bought 19" shelves, rack power strips and mini keyboards (that fit on a rack shelf) from Milestek (very inexpensive), and some used APC rack mount 1400W Smart-UPS (one per rack, mounted at the bottom). I did as others have done and built machines into 4U Siliconrax-Sliger SRCX475 rack cases. They are not quiet, but I haven't found them as noisy as others have mentioned.

I used a 15" CRT for the KVM monitor (both because it was cheap and because, unlike flat panels, they will sync to many more video signals.). I'm using a Black Box ServManager KVM, and it works well, but I don't recommend it because you can do the same thing with cheaper equipment (Belkin). The relay racks are incredibly strong, and I've mounted quite a bit in them. Between the two racks I have several 1U switches, a firewall, the 4U ServManager KVM, a 15" Dell monitor I picked up cheap with the purchase of a server, keyboard, 7 mixed 4U and 1U machines, a 4U robotic tape jukebox, 3 2U power strips, and a 4U lockbox for storing loose bits. All the cables are run along the sides and behind the relay racks -- with a full installation I don't see the wires too much. The relay racks have the option of using casters, and while I didn't buy them, I recommend them to others -- it lets you roll the relay racks out to
get behind them.

I had an electrician run separate 15A circuits from my mains panel to each relay rack's UPS, and I also had him install a manual generator transfer switch and heavy-gauge cable to an outside junction box, so I can plug in my generator. (An aside -- if you are going to use a generator to keep things going in a blackout, put a cheap, low wattage light plugged into one of the UPS and turned off, so that it is available to be turned on so you can see what you are doing while switching over to generator and for general tinkering if the place you have your equipment doesn't have a light fixture.)

It looks impressive to have everything mounted this way, and keeps everything tidy.

(reposted from an old Ask Slashdot on almost the same topic)

I needed a cabinet that I could use to house a server, a hub, and my stereo. I used plywood for the bottom, top, and two sides. I used oak for the facing to reinforce it, and left the back open. I wanted something presentable so I used biscuits and wood glue to hold it all together.

I bought a pair of rails from MilesTek and for the back rails I used aluminum from Home Depot and drilled my own holes. In retrospect, that was a bad idea, you'll save yourself a lot of trouble by just buying two sets of rails. It's good to have a solid metal frame built before trying to attach it to the wood part.

It's not quite finished yet, I plan to either use glass or perforated metal for the door.

Here here is a picture.

If you don't care about aesthetics, it would be a lot less trouble to buy something from Ebay or a government auction.

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

Check out milestek.com... They have the rail stock that is predrilled/tapped and conforms to spec. Not too expensive either.

Rack rail from milestek

If you don't want to spend the $$ on a "real" 110 punchdown tool you can get a cheap (~$3) plastic one and cut the wires with diagonal cutters.

If you have a crawl-space you can use a trick an electrician friend showed me. Cut the bottom part off of a bunch of coathangers so you have a long straight piece of stiff wire. Find the studs on either side of the spot where you want to mount the jack then chuck a piece of the coathanger wire into a drill and drill right in the corner of your baseboard or just above the baseboard - whichever works well for you. When you go to the crawlspace you can find the wires sticking down and check to see if there are any obstructions to drilling then use the wire as a locator to drill up into the wall space. It's easy and you are far less likely to drill through a hardwood floor than if you tried measuring the locations.

It might be worth looking into BNC networking, the cables are heavier and less flexable but it is entirely passive. For a small ad-hoc network the low bandwidth and maintenance issues can be overcome. Older PCMCIA cards should be realtively easy to find, I have one in a box somewhere myself and there is one on ebay or there are converters .

SmartHome also sells the same stuff.

But this is a heck of a lot cheaper. I personally would like some CAT-6 or -7 STP matched up with the Quad-shielded RG6 to run through my home (project in progress), but this is the best I can find. There is _no_ need for fiber.

I am preparing to build my own house as well and have been looking at this very issue.

What I have decided was to run 6+ normal CAT5e wires to each room. This may seem like a lot but... Comready.com has 1000' spools for 40+$ so price is not that great of an issue.

Now for the secret ingredients. First of all.. For network just use 1 or more standard CAT5e cables to do that in each room. You can then run up to 4 phone lines on another CAT5e cable. You then have 3 left.

Milestek.com has cat5 baluns that let you transmit everything from S-video to Broadband Video in case you ever want video in any room.

That also leaves a couple cables free for intercoms and such.

If you want to lessen the cable runs or hook more things up in each room in the future you get something like the NJ-100 that we saw the article on slashdot about a couple weeks ago.

Happy home hacking!

I am preparing to build my own house as well and have been looking at this very issue.

What I have decided was to run 6+ normal CAT5e wires to each room. This may seem like a lot but... Comready.com has 1000' spools for 40+$ so price is not that great of an issue.

Now for the secret ingredients. First of all.. For network just use 1 or more standard CAT5e cables to do that in each room. You can then run up to 4 phone lines on another CAT5e cable. You then have 3 left.

Milestek.com has cat5 baluns that let you transmit everything from S-video to Broadband Video in case you ever want video in any room.

That also leaves a couple cables free for intercoms and such.

If you want to lessen the cable runs or hook more things up in each room in the future you get something like the NJ-100 that we saw the article on slashdot about a couple weeks ago.

Happy home hacking!

I am preparing to build my own house as well and have been looking at this very issue.

What I have decided was to run 6+ normal CAT5e wires to each room. This may seem like a lot but... Comready.com has 1000' spools for 40+$ so price is not that great of an issue.

Now for the secret ingredients. First of all.. For network just use 1 or more standard CAT5e cables to do that in each room. You can then run up to 4 phone lines on another CAT5e cable. You then have 3 left.

Milestek.com has cat5 baluns that let you transmit everything from S-video to Broadband Video in case you ever want video in any room.

That also leaves a couple cables free for intercoms and such.

If you want to lessen the cable runs or hook more things up in each room in the future you get something like the NJ-100 that we saw the article on slashdot about a couple weeks ago.

Happy home hacking!

Try MilesTek. They've got a good selection of racks in various materials and sizes, including oak.

BTW, audio racks use the same mounting dimensions as computer racks.

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Usual disclaimers apply, etc etc...

Take a look at MilesTek they have a large selection of rack mounted stuff. I don't know if they carry cases but they have a large amount of other stuff.

MilesTek has quite a bit of cheap rackmount equipment - racks, shelves, cable routers, patch panels, power strips, etc.

the web site isn't great, but the print catalog is excellent.

no PC cases listed, but a 20U 19" rack ($106), with some rack shelves ($25 - $45), a keyboard / mouse shelf ($70), and a power strip ($45) could handle a couple of minitower cases.