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Cheap Rackmount Enclosures/Systems?
gasp asks: "At work, our computer rooms use high-end rackmount systems. At home, I use the '8 year-old folding table piled high with computers held together by daisy-chained power-strip rat-nest' system. I find plenty of ATX and AT style midtower cases for about $30, but I haven't found any simple rackmount cases for less than about $200. Does somebody make the equivalent of a midtower-size case turned sideways with a couple of 19" rackmount brackets? It sure would be nice to find an affordable solution for home." Man, with four and soon to be five boxes sitting in my living room, I sure could use something like this!
Drill your case, bolt on, then bolt into the rack. Add a simple rack mounted 8 way extension lead, wire up and forget about it. Sure it's not elegant but it is cheap. If the case is a little short, buy some cheap thick metal to widen it with.
If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let'em go, because, man, they're gone.
Enlight makes a mini-tower that can be used in a rack for about $140. It is deeper than a standard mini tower so your drives are seperated from your mobo. Not bad looking, but the Yeong Yang is far cooler.
This reminds me that I have a similar problem to solve. We need to find good rack-mounted, slim servers (1" high or so) to use as 'internet appliances' - firewall, TCP redirectors, cache servers, and so on. It may run any kind of *ix - Linux, BSD, Solaris, it doesnt matter. Just to make things harder, I need to find it for sale in Brazil...
I know that companies like Penguin computing have this kind of gear. Sun have it also - they have a pretty nice Netra series of servers, including a 1" high Ultra 440 Mhz. However, it seems that all this gear is targeted for the high end of the market - expensive, high performance servers. I would be very pleased to find a mid-performance inexpensive box - even a Celeron makes for a pretty good proxy box, you see.
I think that there could be some kind of standard for this class of computer, just like we have standard ATX towers. The power supply needed to be modular also -- an optional -48 Vdc would be nice for telcos, including colocated equipment.
For now I would like to knwo more about this, including some recommendations...
The hi-tech music industry has pretty much standardised on the 19" rackmount format for synthesisers, samplers etc. so your best bet might be to look in the specialist music press for rackmount PC boxes. I'm not in the US so I can't give you the relevant title, but in the UK it would probably be "sound-on-sound". You'll also find this field to be a good source of the racks themselves, and even 19" rack-sized flightcases (should you need a bit of portability).
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
I myself, tired of all my machines lying around, took it upon myself one day to go to the local metal shop. I bought some of those L-bar things (those l-shaped bars with all the holes in them so you can bolt just about anywhere on them) and some sheet metal to cover it with. I bolted them together and covered it with sheet metal to make it look all pretty. From there I threw out my old cases and made my own rack-mount cases, complete with hotswappability via the removal of a bolt or two from internal mountings. Those L-bars come in handy too, cause then I can just slide the new cases in and bolt them at the front. Of course, the back of the rack is still open so i could easily hook up the wires. All topped with a converted deskfan on the top to pull air through and keep things cool. This works well and came at just the fraction of the cost of a "real" rack and cases. I wonder how many other handygeeks out there have done something like this. :-)
I saw a 6-foot tall enclosure on sale in
a local fleamarket (Blackberry Fair, if anyone
from Dublin is reading) for 50 quid, and I was
very tempted.
Unfortunately getting it home would have been
difficult, as I don't drive. But it wasn't
the first such that I'd seen, is the point.
Spend a couple of Saturdays in RL(tm) and you
stand a good chance of finding what you're
looking for.
K.
-
-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
Good question.
Most of the reason the cheapest rackmount case out
there is the Antec 4U IPC rack (ipc 3480 with
pp303x 300watt power supply, $239 at McGlen Micro,
here is the target market: servers.
People who are buying a server and putting it
in colo don't mind spending a couple hundred extra
dollars to get a high-quality case; they usually
go in high-vibration, high RF environments and
thus need to be substantially more durable than
desktop/tower cases. Additionally, they
generally have dust/cooling requirements which
are substantial -- adding 6 fans to a system
raises the price. Rackmount cases are all-metal,
just like the best desktop cases, rather than
plastic; plastic would disintegrate rapidly in
a datacenter.
The ATX/rackmount form factor is rather complex
to engineer, compared to a desktop or tower case;
it has to support a lot of weight. There are
some tower case with rails conversion kits, like
for the macintosh minitowers, but those are
rather specialty. They also tend to come with
higher-end power supplies, something which also
adds to the cost, and locking doors over drive
bays.
Also, the number of units of rackmount case sold
is much lower than desktop and minitower, raising
the price.
If you want cheap racking, I'd suggest using rack
shelves and putting minitowers in, or using
wire shelves and regular minitowers. Most of
the beowulf systems out there use shelves and
minitowers, rather than racks, for cost reasons.
Unless you're going in a facility with existing
19" racking, there's no reason to do racks.
Stainless steel wire shelving looks almost as
sexy as 19" racks, and can actually fit more
machines per unit volume than 4U rackmount boxes.
The shelving itself is cheaper, too.
Additionally, if you're putting a machine in colo,
the prices are usually such that spending $500
on one of the 2U cases rather than a cheap 4U
case will pay off in the long run. It's for
this reason that Yahoo originally designed their
2U high custom case -- they have thousands of
machines in colo, and when you pay $50-150/U/month, saving 2U per machine adds up
quick! People are even going to 1U now; there's
allegedly a Compaq DS10 in 1U rather than 3U on
the way, which I plan to buy in quantity for colo
use.
void my_two_cents(void)
;)
;)
{
It depends on the cases/system you have. We have several IBM Netfinity 5000s in a 19" rack here and they come with a cabling fixture on the rear. (ie you attach your cables in there, make sure they are long enough and then you're off.)
Fiddling around with them is no problem either. The mounted cases are sitting on rails so you can slide them in and out of the rack and the server case can be opened at the top. (Just slide out the server, remove the top and you got the innards of your machine right in front of you
As I said, it all depends on the system you're using. With a little keyboard/mouse/screen switching system and lots of looooong cables you can easily put multiple servers in there and still be able to use them normally. (Of course the prices for such solutions can rise sky-high
}
Rackmounts are going to be expensive, no matter what. Outside of the corporate computer industry, rackmounts are most commonly used by live sound & lighting production companies to mount amplifiers, effects, etc in sturdy cases to protect them. I know, I used to do it. So, the best place to find affordable rack-mount equipment is from the places that cater to the production industry, such as Middle Atlantic Products (among others).
One such solution is to buy a rack frame (by the way, a standard rack is 19" wide. and racks are measured in Units, 1U being approximately 1 3/4" tall, the average component size is 3U, like tape decks, amplifiers, etc.), get some flat rack pans, and simply place your ATX cases on the pans, you can fit 3 towers side-by side.
With the frame, rails and pans, depending on the height you need, this will end up costing you (sans puters) about 100-200 bucks.
If you're cheap like me, you'll go to Sam's/Office Depot and buy a set of adjustable steel shelves and put all your crap on them, organize to your heart's content. I think they go for the outrageous price of $20, no additional equipment needed. I have 3 towers, 2 cable modems, a hi-fi system, printer, and other assorted crap (omniview) sitting on the shelves, flanked by two smallish computer desks. It's neat, organized, and impresses the hell out of your non-nerdish friends (although they will probably leave with the feeling that you are a mega-geek with way too much free time) without spending a small fortune on enterprise-class gear. I mean, we ARE talking about home stuff here.
doc
This is a sig. It is like every other sig in the world, except that it is mine, and it is different.
The reason: well, you pick your battles, and the one battle I don't want to have is the one with the spaghetti in back of a table full of machines. Yesterday the power went out and I had the luxury to relax, knowing that every single system was on a UPS, because all that is planned out. Instead of worrying about getting a maverick box up and running after the outage, I could worry about more important battles.
I even bought a Brother P-Touch and labeled all the boxes with their addresses. The first day I'm on vacation and someone else has to yank one of these boxes, what if they get it wrong?
The anal ones are the people who buy the enclosure racks where all four sides are enclosed, for $500, instead of a cheap aluminum rack for $100 (or used for $50).
How to Build Your Own 1U Rack Mount Server and Save a Bundle
CS 440 1U Rack Mount Chasis $268
Intel CA810 Motherboard $119
Intel Celeron 466 MHZ processor $85
Single Port Adapter $20
64 MB DIMM $80
13 MB Hard Drive $125
CD Rom and Floppy add $75 (Optional) -0-
Total $697
It also has links of where to buy all the stuff. Interesting article too.
I read a review of a midtower that can be made into a desktop unit by changing the drive bay cage and cover plate(see link to story below). It is $110.00 online from the manufacturer. Review at arstechnica.
Byte me, Doughboy!!!
Why spend all the money on a rackmount case, when you can just go to the hardware store, buy some cheap supplies, and make some rails?
If you have access to a machine shop, you can even make metal rails. If not, a few sturdy pieces of wood screwed into the mounting holes inside the rack should make nice rails. Then just get another piece of sturdy wood the size of the rack (19" by 22" or whatever) and you've got a shelf.
To see an example of our cluster's custom built rack stuff, check here, and here. (Note these are ~650k images)
Granted, it won't be extremely efficient on rack space, but it's not THAT in-efficient. If we needed to, we could fit another row in there; space for 16 computers.
Here is a diagram I just made of how I constructed my own rack-mounting enclosure from cheap and readily available components: the most expensive components were the telescopic drawer rails. The drawer rails are mounted to the enclosure and then the runners are simply screwed to the side of the machine chassis; if you then leave the lids off the machines, you can easily pull a machine out for maintenance.
WARNING: you must either counterbalance or attach this assembly or it will tip - over when you pull out a chassis!
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
I have bought 2 units off them for work: a 42U for £345 and a 32U for £245. Both came with all the fixin's, lockable doors and side panels, elecricity distribution panel, etc. They have been in place about a year now, and no probs
Please note, I have no personal connection, yada yada yada, only a satisfied customer, blah blah blah
Being a bit of a Quake nut with a penchant for traveling to distant LAN parties, I've created what I think to be the ultimate in portable LAN party systems. Portability, ease of setup, power, and of course good looks all being of primary importance. To start with, you need a portable rack. SKB cases makes just such a thing, shock mounted for your computing pleasure. If you get one, I also suggest picking up the caster set, cause once you load all your stuff into it, it's gonna be heavy. Check outh tml for the racks. Next, you can find ATX rack cases for about $150 new on pricewatch. One PII 400 running win 98 and one dual PPro 200 running Mandrake 7 fill the bottom 8 RUs of a 12 RU rack. The 98 machine for Quake (of course), and the linux box for running game servers, file sharing, etc. A rackmount KVM you can find for $100-$200, depending on the features. Some of the more expensive ones fit into one RU, which I'd recommend as it leaves you more room for other stuff.
.pdf. Their prices are good and their service is great, and they have all sorts of nifty rack mount stuff (cases, power conditioners, and more...)
http://www.skbcases.com/cases/racks/shockmount.
You might want network electronics in the rack - I chose an 8 port 10/100 switch that again fits into one rack unit. Cable management is nice to have (and looks good too), and it's cheap! Pick up a one unit cable management tray from Mid Atlantic for 20-30 bones. Finally, the system just won't look good enough without the Fhurman power conditioning and light module. The power conditioning you can get with any power strip, but it won't be rack mounted, and it won't have those two pop-out dimmable lights to illuminate your rack. For $20 more, get the unit that also displays the incoming line voltage - more blinking lights are good! With all this, I'm out of rack room, which is a shame as I'd like to get something mounted in there for sound....
I found most of these pieces at Full Compass (http://www.fullcompass.com) a pro audio mail order outfit in Wisconsin. I only mention this because my customer experience with them has been great, and they have their full catalog online in
I did recently an lookup about rack chassis
;-))))
in Web and here are the results:
http://www.gtweb.net/rackmount.html
http://www.sliger.com/
http://www.famous-computer.com/
http://www.inco.de/
http://www.pcwmicro.com/Rackmt/compare.h tm
http://www.rackmount.com/
http://www.aberdeeninc.com/abcatg/r ackmount.htm
http://www.technoland.com/chassis.htm
http://www.ittools.com/Products/ap ollo_cases.htm
http://users.cwnet.com/fotra/CHASSIS/
http://www.vatyx.com/rackmount/rackmo unt.html
http://www.uslogic.com/igc/igcrackraid. html
http://www.dcsis.com/rack.htm
I don't know prices - go find yourself. Some of
those are pretty expensive, but there is cheap
ones also.
I prefer my local dealer's (in Finland) chassis, since those are pretty good and nearby me.
Pages are only in Finnish, sorry about that.
http://www.damicon.fi/rakki/index.html
And sorry about possible Slashdot-effect-meltdown to every site in this list
Black holes are where God divided by zero.
A friend of mine ran into the same problem recently. His solution was a heavy duty stainless steel number. It's 6' tall, about 5' long, and 3' deep. Or there abouts. It has four shelves. It's not a solid shelving unit, it's one of those ones with criss crossing bars. I've seen them used before, but I can't remember where he got it, so I can't point anyone to it. But it only cost a couple hundred. He's got four servers, a kvm, monitor, laser printer, deskjet, and tons of files on the thing. It's a great space saver. Anyway, the problem is it isn't grounded. He's a one man show working out of an apartment complex, so he can't really play with the electrical wiring. I don't think the owners would go for that. Is there an easy & safe way that it can be grounded? With all that stuff on there, it gives off a pretty good shock pretty often. He already lost one P90 mobo because of it, too. I'm sure a lot of people have come across this problem while using alternative racks.
I too have been working on the same type of setup for quite awhile and have had about the same results. Forewarning, if your anything like me, the $200 you planned on spending will easily turn into $1000.
First off, the rackmount chassis. Although you made no mention about cabinets, I think it's on topic and others might be interested as well. My only advice: check Ebay. I spent months looking for EIA rails to mount in a custom desk/lan station I was building but I couldn't find them cheaper than $100 for a pair. I was so close to buying them when I found a rackmount chassis on Ebay for $150. It wasn't the prettiest but it was exactly what I wanted. $300 later and countless hours, I was sick from getting paint in my system but I had a beautiful painted rackmount cabinet. However, I'm still looking for doors :( .
The cases I'm currently still working on. For right now, I have some telescoping rails that I bought with the cabinet with some melamine screwed in between as a shelf. I religously check ebay for used rackmount cases. Do a search for rack and rackmount. The stuff seems pretty popular because it usually get's bid up pretty high.
I pretty much gave up on looking for a case to buy. They're just too damned expensive. $300 times 5 computers adds up real quick. Within the last couple of days I've been talking to a buddy who works in a metal fabrication shop. He seems to think it wouldn't be too expensive to build a _simple_ case. If you decide to go this route, consider looking at some old computer shops for some ATX cases. You can rivet in an ATX back panel to a flat piece of sheet metal perfectly. The cost alone to get that fabricated I'm sure would be at least $50. You can also get power supplies in old cases, just make sure they don't have the fan sticking out 'cause you need all the room you can get. I was lucky enough to be able to bastardize all the old computers at work here, so I got most of the complex pieces for free. I'm hoping my case will be a couple of simple folds, some riveting and I'm done.
Too make a very long story short, BE PREPARED. It's a hell of a lot of fun to build, but it gets _extremely_ expensive, _extremely_ quick. There are a lot of things you have to buy. Cabinet, cases, power supplies, new motherboards, ps/2 extension cables, moniter extension cables depending on where you moniters are, old ATX cases for parts, fans or air conditioning units to remove the heat from the rack, everything. A good place to find misc rackmount parts is Bud Industries
Have fun and good luck!!
>Racks are dumb for end users
Hmm, you leave out the musicians from your "end users" set.
Most musicians have rackmounted gear: PA Amp, EQ's, Effects, Signal Processors, Midi Synth, power conditioner. It's extremely nice to have the computer on the same rack.
>What's the goal... coolness or organization..
Having your equipment in one piece when it arrives. If you've ever had otherwise, you know the value of that.
For the "end user" who already has some rackmounted equipment, which is far more commonplace than you seem to think, it makes a lot of sense to have everything on the rack, and not have some stuff on the rack, and other stuff that has to be lugged around, put on a table, shipped in a separate crate, etc.
The "living room" comment that you made seems to imply that everybody who is on a budget is also merely a hobbyist, with trivial needs. Believe me, there are many professionals who are also on a budget, yet have real needs for certain things; rackmouted equipment being one of them.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Enlight ATX mid tower cases are almost exactly 17" tall, which means that they will fit sideways in a 19" rack if you add the appropriate mounting ears/rails. These cases run around $65-80, made entirely from metal, and have good cooling.
Make your own! A buddy of mine bought some mid AT cases(the sides come off), turned 'em horizontally, and attached four 3-inch metal L brackets to them with epoxy and 1/4-24 stub bolts. Two brackets were placed flush with the front of the case on the 'upper edge'. The other two went on the upper edge of the back, but protruding an inch. The 'cage' was nothing more than four 7 1/2 foot lengths of perforated stock. The back of the rack was spaced off the wall with chunks of 2x4, and secured with machine screws and heavy-duty wall anchors. The front was double bracketed to the floor and ceiling, and secured by standard sheetrock fastners and lag bolts into the floor joists. Bolt the cases onto the perf stock. I'd suggest using 1/4-20 carraige bolts secured to the frame with SAE lock washers, then slid through the case 'L's and held with some push-button Fas-Nuts or wing nuts.
.sig: Now legally binding!
There's a few things to consider when you look at the $200 (and up) cost. ObDisclaimer: My company makes SBCs and chassis.
1) Many of them are built in the US. The down side is the cost (of labor, etc), but the up side is that the chassis is desinged and built here. We had one industrial customer come to us and say "well, that's great, but can you make it 16" instead of 17"?". So we look at the customer, go back to our engineering group, and pump one out in a couple days.
Compare this to the headache I went through trying to find a power supply that fit my needs. Call the US rep. US rep calls taiwan. Taiwan sits on it till I bug the rep again. Rep confuses message from taiwan. We threaten having a UL inspection of their manufacturing facility. They say "Oh yeah, *that* power supply has a problem with it."
2) Many of these are nice thick metal through and through. Take a look at your typical PC and see how much metal is in it. The metal is there for FCC/CE stuff. In a rack-mount, the metal is there to hold the thing togetherand make sure it stays on the rack. Thicker metal. $$$$
3) Quantity quantity quantity. Do you know how much engineering goes into making one of those things? You need to amortize the cost over only a few thousand chassis instead of a hundred thousand that you'd get from a typical PC case.
-- Ever notice that fast-burning fuse looks exactly the same as slow-burning fuse? I didn't... (Edgar Montrose)