Slashdot Mirror
Building Custom Rackmount Systems?
Jobe_br asks: "I've spent the past few days scouring the web, trying to put together a custom 1U system that I don't want to cost a lot (starting out), but that should be quite expandable. The 1U system I've looked at and would most like to emulate is the 1U dual processor AMD system from Einux. I've looked around and can't seem to even get close to what they're able to pack into this 1U system. My price point goal is $700 for the base system (1 Athlon MP 1GHz or more, 128MB DDR SDRAM, 1 10/100 NIC, 1 3.5" IDE drive 10G or more) and I'd like the system to be able to handle another Athlon MP, at least 1GB DDR SDRAM, up to 4 10/100 network ports, and at least 2 3.5" IDE drives. As more hardware becomes necessary, price won't be an issue, but initially, I need to stay within $700! Does the custom building Slashdot crowd have any advice?"
For a 1U chassis, you're really restricted in your options. You may be able to fit a single PCI add-on card in somehow (IIRC, there are 90-degree adapters for PCI risers, half inch and 1 inch heights) Everything else would have to be integrated on the motherboard. The Tyan Athlon-MP motherboard offers two 100-Base-TX Ethernet ports, built-in 8MB AGP 3D video, SCSI and IDE, several GB of ram in slanted slots, 8 fan headers, and 64-bit PCI slots. You'd probably be able to use one of them with a 90-degree riser.
Other than that, you're pretty much out of luck. A 2U isn't that much bigger, and you can fit a lot more into it.
To hell with this stupid sheet metal stuff. You can build an awesome rack for almost nothing. I'm doing a five way mosix cluster on a rack made of fiber reinforced portland cement! No shit. It's all hand formed. You can use old rags dipped in cement to form the racks and go all the way to the ceiling. Get the finish you want by rubbing it down with a glove while it's still setting and then use some sandpaper after it's cured and you get an awesome finish that's not as dorked out as plywood would be and it's even cheaper! It's all curvy and sexy and it's a piece of cake. Bitch magnet, I swear. Invite your girlfriend over to help you hand form it.
If cement scares you, then use something else that's cheap. An epoxyed together rack of carbon fiber is probably cheaper than what you're looking at and potentially way cooler. Or weld something yourself if you're really hooked on metal. But why buy 1U cases? It's a suckers market. Just make racks and put the boards on them? What's the point of stuffing them into those little cases unless you're using thousands of them and swapping them in and out all the time and they've absolutely positively got to be modular and of that form factor. Otherwise, who needs them?
People who buy 1U cases think silk ties are for wearing around your neck, not for adding fringes to your cutoffs. Why get into that game? Those people need immersive LSD therapy. Don't do it. Don't borg out. Build your own racks and while you're at it, add a subwoofer enclosure. Ooh, sounding better all the time.
I'd like to build an 8-way xeon server with 64 gigs of RAM and stay within a $900 budget, but it ain't gonna happen.
First off, you want "1U" and "exapandable," which are inherently opposites. 1Us tend to be somewhat custom in design (NOT easy to build yourself from spare parts), and they carry a price premium. I really doubt you could hit that price point (with any level of quality at all) even if you dropped the 1U requirement. For a dual-AMD, Einux's cases alone run over $700!
So, step back and think about what you really need for this application. Why expandability in such a cheap system? By the time you get around to adding another CPU and disk, it might be more cost effective to build a new 1-CPU box from scratch. I would probably go with a single PII at around 933 mHz. Even then, $700 for a 1U will be hard to reach. You probably want to scour Ubid.com and eBay for failed-dot-com loot...
Good luck,
--JRZ