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Cases That Can House Multiple Motherboards?
full-case asks: "Due to some interesting politics at the ISP where I work, I can run two machines in the colocation room for free if and only if they both occupy the same case. As it turns out, I have two (standard ATX-form-factor) motherboards with associated sundry that would really like to be colocated, and I know I've heard of cases that will accept multiple motherboards, but I can't for the life of me find one that will take the right size. The only ones that I can find are either in the $6k price range, or this sort of thing, which requires special ultra-tiny motherboards. I figure I would be served better by having a 4U case divided internally to mount two motherboards; both machines will fit nicely into a 2U case separately...but does such a beast exist, or can it be (cheaply) assembled from parts?"
can it be (cheaply) assembled from parts?
:)
Yes. All you need are two of those 2U cases and a blowtorch. Be sure to remove your two motherboards first.
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
http://www.rlx.com/product/
The 1U unit holds SIX computers. The 3U unit holds 24 computers.
Not real cheap, but not outrageous, either. Neato remote management tools, too.
It does need to be done on the cheap (like $100 or so), but the options aren't all that limited, I don't think. The rule is that there can be only one box. It doesn't have to be a rack-mountable, it could just be a dual-board case of any kind. The thing is, I'd like to use the current hardware, and not have to roll my own case.
I have this case with two dual Xeons in it. With the SCA backplane it was like $650, but I think the case without that feature is much less.