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Rack Mounted PCs for the Home User?
andrewa writes "Do any folks out there have recommendations on available gear for building a small, but extendable, rack-mounted system? As a developer of software for use in contact centers I want to put together a small development system that consists of at least three PCs to create a simulated environment to test my applications in.
Why rack mounted? Well, I want to save space and only have the bare minimum systems (no need for multiple CD-ROMS, monitors, no sound-cards, just lots of memory and HD space).
I also will add to this in the future, so don't want to limit myself to just a few pcs on the system. I've scouted around a bit, but didn't see too much. I'm in the UK at the moment, but will be moving to the U.S. in about 6 months, so power requirements (although I guess most equipment has switchable voltages) is a consideration."
Rack mounted system? I think Pamela Anderson might be a good investment to look at.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
Ha!!!
Get a bookcase, flip the tower computers on the side.
Rack mounted indeed!
Rack mounted PCs? No thanks.
But an Xgrid cluster something like VA Tech's in my closet I can hook up to the laptops would be nice.
If I sell this scratchy iPod mini I should have enough loose change...
You can buy 19" rack equipment that was designed for musicians... Something like this might work, if you cooled it properly. 6U of space will hold 6 1U servers. And they're made to be shipped around, so when you move you won't have to do too much to pack them up.
Couple of thoughts here on this as I've done what your looking to do. First suggestion is wait to buy your stuff until you get here in the US to save yourself shipping fees and possible import duties. Once your here and settled look on ebay for a local auction so that you don't have to have the rack shared.
Going back to school to pick up Cisco and SUN I wanted a rack to hold all the requisite lab equipment for my sandbox - and I thought it would be nifty. I did this last summer and I was able to buy a 42u rack for $100 by watching a week for a local rack on ebay and avoided $200 in shipping fees. Of course no data center I have ever seen was willing to personalize their their rack by painting it metallic green like I did:)
When your buying your rack mount systems bear in mind that 1u cases tend to cost a lot more and have lower capacity. If you have the room, and at home you should, buy either a 3u or 4u rack case and then you don't have to use low profile memory, cards, power supplies and the like that are a fair bit more expensive than standard issue fair.
You can easily get the 3u or 4u cases on ebay for the same price range as a normal computer case. However the rack mount keyboards, mice and monitors cost a pretty penny. If you buy a full rack it will be far cheaper to just by a couple rackmount shelfs and put an old 15" Monitor, KVM, Keyboard and still have plenty of room left over.
Also bear in mind your electric capacity with where you place it. In my experience you'll get around 6-8 systems for a LAN party on your standard 15 amp outlet before blowing the circuit. If you can put it on a circuit that is as isolated as you can make it.
I have good luck with a mixture of Virtual PC for Macs and VMWare for Linux. VPC doesn't run on the G5s yet, though.
Maybe a virtual solution will work for you?
Get one big system and a VMware license... saves lots of space and hardware costs... plus - when you aren't running the other systems... you have one kick ass box.
BlackNova Traders
Apple has a Xserve mincluster that has done some things right - small size, acousticly shielded, and on wheels. I must stress the acoustic part if you'e going to work next to this machine - My dual athlon with raid's drone got irritating very quickly.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
much cheaper and even less space
You didn't say much about your application, but you might want to look at using vmware instead of a stack of hardware. I've been using it since 1.0 and it has completely quenched my need to buy and maintain a suite of servers for testing my distributed apps.
I take it the person who asked the question wants to run on server boards, which basically excludes any of the cute little shoebox cases available. They can also be rather large, which excludes many desktop mid-tower cases as well. Most 1U cases I've seen are intended strictly for datacenter use and aren't built with acoustical ergonomics in mind--They usually run several 40mm 7000RPM fans and generate a lot of noise.
I usually just go to Antec for enclosures, but in this case it might just be wiser to have your boss order a few extra nodes that you can take home. Modern Xeon and Opteron systems tend to get very, very hot in 1U enclosures and require wind tunneling for more efficient cooling and require enormous amounts of power from PSUs that cost several hundred dollars in 1U form factor.
I currently work with servers, specifically rackmounted servers. I can tell you that for home use they are not worth the effort. For one thing heat is a big issue. Its no longer trivial to add some case fans to the back and let the air flow freely. You also can not use standard heatsinks because they will not fit in a 1U case.
The main and possibly only benefit of the rackmounted server is because it saves space. This is essential when putting servers in a datacenter as they charge you for how much space you use.
If you are not going to put the servers into a datacenter just put the computer in a standard case which is about (4U) and save yourself the $300-$600 that a rackmount case will set you back alone.
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.
december 2003
and
November 2001ish
No, I don't. Sorry.
HP's got some really cheap (sub $2000) rackmountable hardware available, with decent specs. They are intel based, so could run Linux, Solaris x86, or if you must W2k, W2k3.
e rvers/prolian tdl140/index.html
Checkout the Proliant's:
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/s
That's not to bad for the hardware.
I agree that having your own rack would be cool, and I would build one if I had the money, but I can't help but wonder what the benefit is over some mini-ATX boxes aside from the bragging rights. Shuttle's XPC line might do the trick and actually take up less space...
Seriously, laptops are great as far as size is concerned and as a bonus come with battery backup! Rackmount cases really aren't that small (atleast not the 1U type), just thin and long. A few small factor form PCs would probably work better unless you're really sure you want rackmount. Rackmounts are better left in the server room I say.
There was a similar question asked about the PC with the smallest footprint. Maybe there are some suggestions there.
Why not just a good pc and vmware?
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire
Supermicro makes a great 1U system that's only 14" deep. it's pretty quiet and can take a celery or P4 chip. The 14" depth means you can get an enclosed networking rack and not have to listen to them.
Plywood. Duct tape.
What? It works for mah gun rack!
'If you're flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit.'
Enermax makes some low-cost 4U cases that I've seen used successfully for home media PCs, but the fit and finish are remeniscent of 70s-era supercomputer projects. Keep in mind that the BTX form-factor motherboards are due out this year, and will likely make ATX boxed obsolete in terms of cooling and noise.
The thing about rackmounts is that they're terribly noisy, especially 1U units, because they've got numerous, small, high-rpm fans. It's a real cacaphony of noise and heat so if you don't have a separate room for them, you'll get sick of them really quickly. There's also the price premium you pay for 1U cases and low-profile memory compared to normal parts. If you need multiple systems at home, I'd suggest mini-PC's from Shuttle. Small, quiet, and cheaper than rackmounts (slightly more than regular whitebox PCs). They're flat on top so they're very stackable... 3 or 4 of them would take up the space of a normal fullsize tower. They take normal PC components, and they have 100mbps network adapters built in (some of the high-end P4 units might have 1000mbps, I'm not sure) A barebones Shuttle w/ sound, network, and video costs between $220 and $400. After that cost you just need to drop in a CPU, ram, and disk drive. Quite affordable. At least one supercomputer cluster chose Shuttle PCs, I forget which one. This is my second Slashdot post in a few weeks extolling these things. I don't work for them, honest. I'm just a very satisfied customer. :P
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
It was a little bit of a surprise to me when I visited rackspace.com a year or so ago, but they have a very high density scheme with no racks to speak of. Instead, they get steel-wire shelves like these, put cheap x86 boxes -- they actually assembler their own from commodity parts, which certainly makes sense if you're setting up thousands of boxes as they do -- in minitowers on them, and cable them with conventional cables tied with plastic cable ties.
Works great, relatively cheap, and you can do something else with the "rack" later if you want.
Rack mounted PCs are not built for home use. Their cooling fans are deafening, so if you don't live alone you'll either have to sacrifice a room to them and keep the door shut (which then might lead to cooling issues), or risk driving your housemates insane. You' be better off buying a few small form-factor systems, like Shuttles or a small ATX case with only the drive bays and slots that you plan to use.
You could also go the virtual machine route and buy one extremely tricked-out machine and a copy of Virtual PC. Microsoft appears to be using it for multi-machine setups when they send out training and demo CDs now, so having several real PCs to do testing and training is no longer necessary.
They provide a fair amount of silence too (a bit of foam along the sides where it doesn't obstruct air flow dampens it a lot.
There's a switch, a terminal server, a patch panel, a router (IOS testing mostly), and 7 computers.
The patch panel is new and GLORIOUS. It means I have all the serial ports and network ports and ports for the rest of the house in one panel.
3 of these computer have rack ears. I found rack sliders, put 3/4" ply between them to make a pull out shelf and have a couple Sparc20s, a NeXT and an SGI sitting sideways on them. beneath is another shelf with 2 tower cases sitting there.
Why not all rackable computers? mainly cost. An $80 case with an enermax or antec power supply (I'll *only* use Antec, but enermax was acceptable when it came with the case. The rest are crap. 5V should not be 4.6V when the graphics card get hammered). 2U rack cases (cheaper than 1U cause you get a bit of headroom and can use regular RAM) cost several hundred. The ones I have I got from a dot com moving from dozens of random machines to dozens of the same damn machines. I won; they became maintainable.
I like 4 post racks. The shelves made it easy to put stuff in. Relay racks (just the front ears) work for many people to. If you have another room for the 'puters, then you can consider it. Shouldn't cost more then 120 Euro really.
Make your own
Any pro audio store (PA systems, not CD players) can tell you where to get rack rails. All my pro audio gear was rackable and I have several 4U (not deep enough for 'puters) road cases. So go buy a pair or 3' tall rails and build a nice box out of HEAVY ply. It will meet all your needs. If not, any carpenter should be able to build you a box for a few quid.
I spent some time looking at this found found a few flaws in using standard rackmount systems at home. First, the damned things are long; often extending to the full 36" deep that a standard IT rack holds. Rackmount systems are also very noisy, because they incorporate small high-speed fans.
For home systems, you would be much better off just using mini-itx. For some ideas, take a look at http://www.mini-itx.com.
Another option to consider is XBoxes, especially if you're handy with a soldering iron and can install mod chips yourself. Buy it for $150, add some extra RAM if you need it.
It consists of lots and lots of Mini-ITX boards :D
:)
Click here
I snagged my rack here:
http://www.gtweb.net/rackacc.html
It was cheap (~$350) compared to the big name branded racks and it's pretty darn sturdy.
I snagged some 1U SuperMicro chassis way back when and went to it.
My Rack
Well... IMHO, you don't want anything rackmounted.
Rack cases tend to be comparably expensive and have lots of loud fans, which isn't so nice at home, unless you put them in the closet or something.
I would consider getting a few of those Shuttle `lunchbox' type computers (or a knock-off). You can even choose between AMD, Intel and Via for the CPU.
I saw on some pic from a convention a 6x-2.5"-disk hotswap case that fit in a CD-ROM bay. This might be available by now.
Of course, there's the coolness factor of being able to say you have your own personal rack at home.
If going this route, you can get small racks (like 10u) with doors, ventilation and whatever else you want.
I'm sorry, but I really don't know where to get this kind of stuff in the UK or US.
This could have been a FP... instead I chose to write something useful. You should all do this kids.
Just use these...
Not an actual rack, but many people seem to do well with standard enclosures (or bare hardware on insulated mats) on the good ol' wireframe shelving stuff. Perhaps you could rig up something respectable enough with a few simple 'desktop' form-factor cases.
When we did our house, I had a choice. We could afford a rack, or a few ebay rack mount cases (the 30 dollar 4u jobbies that were around a little bit ago). We went with the cases and I built a rack out of 2x4s and 1x2s
www.linux-skunkworks.com
... I'd need to start folding my clothes and doing my dishes before I started worrying about organizing my computers! =)
We geeks are not the most loved of social groups. A lot of this has to do with our condescending attitude towards less intelligent non-geeks, personal hygiene, and general social antipathy. Also evident in geek behavior is a strong misogynistic stream that infuses our vocabulary and humor with words and phrases that degrade women as a social group.
On an individual basis, you'll find that most geeks are not this way and in fact have female friends whom they see as neither a sexual object nor as a lower form of life. Most geeks are also socially adept, physically active, as well as capable of striking up a conversation with members of the opposite sex (or same sex for those who may be homosexual).
However the stereotype remains. I believe that this stereotype is reinforced by comments of this sort that takes a very simple request for "rack mounted computers" and turns it into a joke about female breasts. Not only is the joke unfunny, it is offensive to those of us who work hard in the offline world to build an image of the typical geek as a hard worker, community-minded citizen, and generally good person.
The parent comment took no thinking on the poster's part and was apparently the first thing he thought of when he saw the question. This kind of geek whose thinking has become as anti-women as this is exactly the kind of anti-geek-community person that brings the rest of us down. I ask the moderators to take the long view and think about what kind of image of geekdom they wish to present to the world when they moderate the parent comment.
Thanks for reading this far. I've had to get this off my chest for a long time.
I have been pwned because my
I recommed milestek (www.milestek.com) for the rack. I have one at home, and we have 4 in the office. They are well made and competitivly priced. They even have half racks and sell the individual rails when it comes time to extend that half rack to a full...
I believe they also sell enclosures.
I only need the Preview button when I haven't used the Preview button.
Easiest way of dealing with the power problems would be to buy another power supply when you move.
Equipment "made" to run on 60Hz/110v but *can* run on 50Hz/220v works, but it wears out quicker, from what I've heard. The slower sine wave screws the switching rectifiers up, makes em work harder, thus they wear out faster.
Aside from the "kewl" factor, rack mount systems for the job described will be very expensive, underpowered, incredibly noisy, and of limited expandability. This is mostly because if you're talking about saving space you pretty much have to be talking about 1U systems, which sacrifice a lot for their form factor (thinness).
What's a better plan?
I'd recommend Shuttle mini-PCs or similar (a few makes are available now). Hugely cheaper then rackmount, much quieter, better expansion (two or three internal hard drives if you don't use floopy or CDROM), and honestly SMALLER then 1U systems. Remember as thin as 1U systems are they are 19" wide (before you add the rack which adds a few more) and are typically very deap (20+ inches often). They are also much heavier then Shuttle systems. Furthermore, so long as you stay away from the mini-ITX based brands (Via, yuck!) they have every wiz-bang feature you could ask from a full size PC (duel channel DDR400, hyperthreading, USB 2.0, Gigabit lan, firewire, etc, etc) built in (see the Shuttle X in particular).
You'll have a much easier time moving three of these small boxes around (get a small carry-on suitcase) then a 4U rack case, and your ears will thank you.
My
I have a JBL rackmount amplifier sitting in my living room right now and it's over 22" deep.
Most pro audio rack case manufacturers make cases that are deep enough to accommodate most rack mount PC systems.
Putting moderation advice in your
I have a P3-700 box that currently has three Linux, a Win2k, a WinXP and a Win2003 partition running under VMWare.
Heck of a lot nicer than having to worry about the noise, heat and space requirements for the 6 physical systems I would require.
May be worth considering.. Disk space can be managed reasonably well, and as I am only actively using one (or perhaps two) systems at any one moment in time, each box claws it's way out of swap into real-memory pretty quickly and provides pretty reasonable interactive performance.
Red.
Wal-Mart has a selection of rack mount severs. Look pretty cheap to me.
No Sig For You
USB2 with chained hubs can go pretty far, so that covers the mouse, keyboard, and drive. Long audio cables are not a problem, so that covers the speakers (alternatively, I could use a USB "soundcard" and have that on the desk).
However, video seems to be the biggest problem. What's a good way to run video a reasonable distance? (By reasonable, let's say as far as USB2 for Firewire through the maximum number of allowed chained hubs can reach).
Talk about timely... I just installed my rack-mount at home this weekend. :)
Now, admittedly, it's a fully enclosed lan case, but still...
I got lucky with mine, in that I work for a company that sells all types of office supplies, including PC stuff, and I got the 6.5' beast for all of $10(CDN)... but I have seen them floating around for relatively cheap prices, especially as offices move and go for freestanding racks instead of enclosed cases.
Why an enclosed case? Noise is the big one. It's just worth it to have as much soundproofing as possible when you're running multiple PCs. It also looks cleaner, stopping prospective nerd-chicks from saying "I was going to do you, but your wires are all messy!". And, finally, it allows for nifty modding (word to the wise: If you're going to cut holes in the 2mm steel side with a Dremel, be sure to wear non-flamible clothing. A, uh, friend told me... yeah).
For cases... well, I considered getting a few 2U cases... but then I thought of noise, and cost, and it just wasn't worth it. I'm just now (literally, just took a break to let the dust clear) building my own cases our of 1/2" wood. Given the size of my rack and how I'm laying things out, I'll end up with 19" x 19.5" x 6" cases, more than enough to hold a full ATX board, 2 CDs and 2 HDs (and floppy [the drive, not the rabbit]). If you didn't need many externals, you could fit 2 ATX boards in there.
Cooling? I'm buying an 80CFM, 0.5 Sone air transfer fan... I'll hook all the cases up via dryer venting and PVC pipe, and the only noise in my entire case will be this one uber-quiet fan, and 1 PSU per case (which is made of sound-dampening wood). As I figure to max out at 3 cases, I expect excellent quietness.
Access? I hinged the side door of the case for easy access, and my case layout has all the hookups on the side of the case, not the back. Much easier when, say, you want to change mouse cables, or hook up a USB device. Sure, you think you won't do much, but whether it's rack or case, do you really want to be fiddling around back trying to plug a cable in without unplugging the other 150?
Interface? Forget rack-mount monitors and keyboards... get a KVM. They're cheap, easy, and I've had very few problems with any I've used. At high res they do ghost occasionally, but I only notice it now when I look for it. I'm currently using an Avocent Switchview 4-port, and it has behaved itself quite well. (Don't get a manual switch... autos are just all around better).
Overall, though it was a bitch to get here and get fixed up, I'm already happy now that it's in place. Instead of having 3 PCs with 2-3 fans each, 2 laptop docking stations sitting behind me looking ugly, and all my networking EQ sitting with it's wires hanging out, I have 1 fashionable case, with blacklights and other esoteric touches, that my cats can't run through and knock over, my roommates can't fiddle with, and no-one complains about unattractive PC equipment. It's quieter, more convenient, and damnit, it just looks cool!
The bottom line? Don't bother with rack rails and expensive, ugly cases and your wires flopping out in the breeze.... pick up a full rack case and build your own boxen. And remember, it gives you the best pick-up line a nerd could ever ask for... "Hey baby, wanna see my huge LAN rack?"
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
...we can't find a shelf for the rack. So someone hammers-in some bit of metal that doesn't quite fit, and we perch 2 sun blades and a dcp on top.
Keep it real, dood. Balance it on some bricks.
That way, you've got as many as you want, $150 each, running Linux... life is good! Get a decent switch and away you go! And, they don't take up too much room or make too much noise... just get a table and stack 'em.
-Joe
If we're all god's children, what's so special about Jesus? - Jimmy Carr
I notice you mentioned switching the power supplies. Do be careful when you come to the States. I did a location in New Zealand and took my systems with me. I asked around and everyone said no problem switching the power supplies from 110 to 220. When I hooked everything up it fried two out of three motherboards and cooked one CPU. When I came back to the States I didn't take any chances and switched the power supplies. Power supplies are a lot cheaper than motherboards. I'd do it and call it cheap insurance. For under a hundred bucks US you can swap off three power supplies if you do the work yourself.
Why don't you build something with mini-itx (http://www.mini-itx.com/) motherboards? I reckon you shold be able to fit a bunch of them into a small-ish flight-case... in fact I'm itching for an excuse to do that anyway. Which would give you three, or more, server PCs in very little space. Not the most powerful systems in the world, but cheap & quiet.
no taxation without representation!
It starts out innocently... then another rack, then another...
Old pic:
old picture
Southeastern Virginia REPRESENT!
You sound like the perfect candidate for a small-form-factor arrangement, either a couple of Via Epia systems in very small boxes, or low end Shuttle cubes.
This gives a nice compromise: Much lower cost (racks are expensive), LESS volume in practice (Racks are DEEP, its hard to find a deep storage closet, but small form factor systems may be taller but aren't as deap), and easily available.
True, reliability isn't as good, but you aren't talking about ultra-reliable systems anyway, and you said you didn't need high performance.
Test your net with Netalyzr
24Us of rack space. I recommend anything by Middle Atlantic. Solid construction, good quality. My 24U cost approx $600 (they don't seem to get much cheaper, new that is).
Bit of advice, though... You might seriously reconsider building a rack. I've only filled up a little over half the available space, and now that the novelty of 'having a rack' has worn off, I'm thinking about selling it and all the racked PCs that I don't use.
In other words, don't go through with it unless you have a strong need for it now and in the future. The rack equipment is expensive, as is the rack mountable cases.
I have a tiny little table/desk beside my racks to hold the kyboard/mouse/monitor. I use an under-the-table type keyboard tray. The whole thing is about 30" wide and is a lot more comfortable to work at than standing at a rack. Plus, Racks have a tendency to fill up really quickly once you get 'em so you leave that little bit of extra space open for the good stuff.
TW
Instead of 3 separate boxes ( with their associated power issues, OS issues, maintenance, etc ) to deal with, just get one really nice one.. and run VMware on it..
It should be cheaper, for a home user.. and has other advantages as well. Such as easy manageability, quickly recovering blown systems after a bad test, changing OS's on the fly..
Just make sure to get tons of RAM ( which is cheaper then an entire machine )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I don't see why this is such a bad idea. Especially if they can be set up as mainframe to a bunch of dumb terminals spread throughout the house. It is only natural that the ways of corporations 30 years ago be used in the home today.
--tarballedtux
a Dell rack system.
Don't forget to ask them about the complimentary ear protectors.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Eastern Pennsylvania. Any day, any time. You gotta help drag it out. Contact me. Bring a pickup truck. Used to house ooooooold DECtalk gear. Still has 1 4U DECtalk unit installed, if you ever wanted to do text-to-voice with DTMF readback over 8 phone lines at once.
I also am a strong proponent of virtualization if possible. I'm up to about 15 virtual machines running under VMWare ESX, and I started a new box intended to run Linux VMs using usermode linux. Now that "virtualization" is a key buzzword for 2004, I don't think I'll ever get around to populating the rack with gear. Get it out of my house.
Intelligent Life on Earth
If you want two systems in 2U of rack space, the lowest cost way to go is a 2UX2 case. You can use standard processors and cooling fans. Standard ATX power supply, etc... No CD-ROM, but you can use USB for media.
I've got one working as a testbed database server. They're pretty cheap on ebay, not very deep, not terribly noisy and they run Linux.
What's not to love?
They're fairly low-powered, but for testing/proof-of-concept, etc., they work plenty fine for the money.
1. Rackmount equipment generally costs more.
2. The space you'll save is directly proportional to the extra airflow (read "fans") you'll need. The smaller the unit and/or the more stuff inside each unit, the more fans you'll need and the more noise you'll end up with.
3. A 4U unit is about the same size as a tower PC. Invariably, a 4U is designed to use more fans than a typical tower PC and as a result will be noisier. A typical 2U unit is designed with 3 mid-case fans, and an exhaust fan (in addition to the fans on the power supply fan and the processor). Swap out all the fans for the quietest replacements you can buy, and you'll still end up with something you'll want to put in another room or far away from where you work.
4. Rack enclosures are expensive. Audio racks and relay racks, while cheaper, are NOT appropriate for any number of reasons. You can, however, find budget or used enclosures (still not cheap), just as you can design your own (a week in the garage). Rack accessories are also expensive. You can find a Slashdot article on the subject of enclosures here.
If by home use, you're implying you intend to put everything in a specially-ventilated and sound-proofed closet or recording-studio grade enclosure, another room, or basement, I'd say go for it. If not, you'll regret it.
Just buy a 4 foot painted aluminum 19" open telco rack. Put heavy duty rubber casters on it. Install an APC SmartUPS 1200XL RM in the bottom of the rack . . . will keep the rack from tipping over. Tie the rack to the power ground of the feed to the UPS for static dissipation. You can then rack-up three or four 19" rackmount cases, with plenty of room to spare for a rackmount ethernet switch or a router at the top.
We use them at all of our ISP POP locations.
My home rack has been working great.
:)
First, be carefull about where you put it. Mine is tucked away under the stairs in the basement. A 19" rack fit perfecly in the closet that I built around it. I have an automatic dehumidfier and some (motherboard based hacked) temperature sensors, and a bathroom ventalation fan. When I'm in the basement, I can't hear anything at all.
Next, buy yourslef a CAT 5 KVM Extender. It is absolutly indespensable. I very rarely have to go down to manually press a button and the KVM extender has eliminated the need for an expensive rack mount keyboard and monitor. I just have a cheap KVM switch connected to my family rig in the den.
I agree with other posters, go buy a 4U rackmount case and make sure that you have at least a couple of rack mount shelves for routers and other misc stuff.
The neighbours all know that I work as a geek, but showing them my Rack when they come over demonstrates that I live like one too
rejected (19) accepted (0)
Is there a psychological term related to getting your stories rejected on slashdot?
Consider getting desktop cases and putting them in a cheap stereo cabinet?
Some of the new mini-atx, and smaller cases from Antec (like the Minuet) and Shuttle would be quiet and fit the bill.
I'm not very good at building things like this but my Brother works for a local fab shop and they built it for me. They charged me for the labor but even with that it cost me a grand total of $100. I filled it with cheap home built 1U systems from Supermicro, a rack mount UPS and switch from ebay. Build Your Own Rack Cabinet
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
A couple years ago I decided to build a rack for my home servers because I was tired of having them stacked precariously on a desk, and also was adding some Cisco rackmount equipment to my collection. I didn't have the ability to mount the rack into the ground or wall, so decided to go with a rack on wheels. I found a company on the web that sells some very durable racks (http://www.rackmountpro.com, no personal affiliation). Although I bought my 3 computer cases from another company, I did get their 36U model and it has worked out perfectly. I was able to assemble it myself and it has proven to be very durable and stable.
Wesley Willis Fiasco forever!
Just purchase a standard 19" rack for telecom. You can get some short ones, around 36" tall.
Mount it to a chunk of 3/4" particle board (or steel plating) to keep it balanced..
For 3 PC's why bother with a rack? Go vmware GSX -- $2500 will easily support 3 virtual machines on a AMD Athlon 1700+ with a gig of ram.. Unless its just the spare heating you want in a rack.. I know form experience with a 42U rack in my den. If you go rack go all the way Rack, KVM, racked ups, rack monitor/keyboard/mouse and a switch. For 3 machines I would go gsx myself cost in the short term out weighs the long term costs and increased elecriticy and cooling, unless you want your own private data center.
I can only fully recommend the Mappit A4F 19-1HE , which comes in a black chassis ready for a 19" rack. I bought my first one recently, and it's doing a great job. This box is ideal for servers run in private homes, since they are low-energy consumption (low-$$ when run 24/7 like mine) and low-noise (can live in a corner of your living-room without being noticed).
It's built by a German company, but they shipped it to the UK quickly and hassle-free, so they might as well ship to the US.
A friend of mine, who had first recommended the Mappit series to me, runs a set of smaller ones. All solid metal cases, and Linux/BSD installed easily (no 'Microsoft tax').
> Rackmount? For 3 pcs? Something small? ... ATX!
Yes and yes -- luckily, that's not a contradiction at all.
Happy Easter, all!
We have some rack-mounted vmware servers which we can install several concurrent operating systems on where I work. If you're looking at Win32 deployment, consider getting 2003 Server and using terminal services into it, or Windows XP and remote desktop. If linux, it works really well for that too. The systems are Dell poweredge servers. I think they were about $5000 each (including the vmware license).
I run a couple of dozen PCs with a couple of terabytes using garden-variety mid-tower cases sitting on 2 parallel steel shelving units with an aisle in between.
The backs of the machines are to the aisle and I have a common keyboard/monitor/mouse setup with long extension cables that I swap as necessary.
I run Linux so I only need the keyboard and console in exceptional circumstances. If I were forced to run Windows, I would use VNC and a similar setup.
Each machine has 4 ATA hard drives and no CD. For system setup, I do a network install initiated from a floppy. All other maintenance is over the network.
While this setup is a little bit clumsier than a rack system might be, it is far cheaper because it is built 100% from commodity components.
Rackmounts of the 1U and 2U variety are handy when you can get them with the connections in the places you need them. Most have connections in the back, which for a geek is a bit of a pain since it means moving stuff around a lot every time we need to change something. A few have some important connections (or all of them) in the front, which makes for supreme ugliness but really handy to work on. Other than that, you need to pay attention to the size of the expansion cards you plan on putting in, as a riser card (to allow full-size cards in a 1U or 2U case) can often be more expensive than the cards you're planning to install.
At 4U cases and larger, it's pretty much the same size of a regular case in a horizontal configuration and at a fair premium over a standard case. Rarely are there any additional features other than for cooling. Unless there's a need for hot-swappable drives or something like that, it's not terribly useful.
Remember that 1U and 2U cases tend to be a fair amount deeper than a standard case, which yields somewhat about the same case volume as a cheaper standard case. So unless you have depth available with how you want to set it up, it can case trouble. But if you need to stack things up, stuff someting next to ceiling joists, or have a dedicated 19-inch width area for electronics, you're not saving yourself much. When that's the case though, this is a really great solution.
And it looks cool too. My $400 linux server/router sitting in a box that says "Intel NetStructure Traffic Director", which probably cost ten times that much. I feel like someone who has a car kit where they turn a VW bug into something that looks like a street rod.
The used/surplus market can really be your friend once you get to the States. Some areas are better supplied than others. For example, the Seattle area has RE-PC, which bills itself as the largest used/recycled computer place in the northwest (probably true -- I've not found any other computer surplus place in the region quite so large). I see rackmount cases and parts turn up there all the time, at both the retail locations, and the prices are generally pretty cheap.
The SF Bay Area part of California has a generous supply of used electronics and computer places too numerous to list in any detail here. At the risk of load-testing my web server, I have a page at this link that lists all the Bay Area surplus places that I knew of as of my last (annual) trip to the area in 2003.
I would, however, like to point out one place in particular in the Bay Area. Weird Stuff Warehouse has to be seen to be believed, though their prices can be a little on the high side, IMO.
I also have store and swap meet listings for the Puget Sound region and the metro Portland area of Oregon.
Outside of the retail surplus scene, amateur ("ham") radio swap meets can also be excellent sources of such parts. I bought my original rack case from one of the Bay Area events back in 2000, and it is still serving me well today. You can search for hamfests close to whatever area you'll be moving to at this link.
I hope that helps. Rackmount stuff is great fun, and scrounging for it (and other parts) even more so. Definitely part of the "Tinkerer's Spirit."
Enjoy your travels.
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
You might want to consider virtual machines as an alternative. See www.vmware.com.
Take a look at IBM's Blade Center. While it might be overkill for your application, they have a number of strong suits. You can fit up to 14 system boards in the chassis, each having 2 CPUs. The chassis itself is a 7U unit, which is quite small considering what you can put into it. It has a dedicated system management system. And the best part is the cost -- the chassis will set you back at first, but the system boards are quite reasonable after that. There's a refurbed one on eBay that has the chassis with 7 system boards, each having dual Xeon 2.0Ghz, at $9,800 Buy It Now. A lot of money, yes, but trust me, you can pay more than that for a single low-end 1U unit new from IBM.
Rack mounted hardware is hideously expensive to begin with, not to mention fairly ugly. If you honestly need discrete hardware for testing the system I would suggest considering used laptops (or even new laptops), get several identical units. Benefits of laptops over rack mounted hardware :
Built in battery backup.
Discrete hardware so you can use it like a regular computer.
Very quiet, low power consumption.
Reasonably priced compared to 19" rack mount machines.
Get a spare hard drive and carrier and the laptop serves double duty as a personal laptop simply by swapping out the drive.
Stacks easily.
You can get new Dell laptops for under a grand apiece including upgraded hard drives and memory.
That said, I suggest you give VMware a serious look. It has a 30 day shareware trial version (full feature) and will let you run multiple virtual machines on the same computer - memory limited to 1G across all the VMs on one physical machine (ie you could run four 256M machines or two 512M machines or eight 128M machines at the same time, or mix and match.) Networking is emulated very well, as far as the virtual machines are concerned they are all real machines on your network, in fact all the real machines on your net will treat them like real machines also.
Total cost for VMware = $300 for the software and enough to fill your existing computer with another Gig of memory. If you are doing prototyping or experimental work it is really something worth looking into.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
"Also bear in mind your electric capacity with where you place it. In my experience you'll get around 6-8 systems for a LAN party on your standard 15 amp outlet before blowing the circuit. If you can put it on a circuit that is as isolated as you can make it."
I have lan parties regular at a friends place and we get 18 people on the one 240v/10A circuit no problems with room to spare as well...
If you shop around you will find what you need for a good price... it may just take a while to find
Warning: Excessive usage of stupidity may be harmful to your health
I got lucky. A company I had connections to
dumped a bunch of older equipment, and I managed
to get a very nice full size rack, for free!
that said...
rack stuff is more expensive, though it's getting
less so.
put the rack on casters, and make sure that they
are rated to carry the weight of your rack
maxed out with equipment.
I love this. Combined with hard floors, it
makes it very easy to pull the rack away from
the wall to make changes, or clean under it.
*** Make sure the combined height is less
than the doorway. This will allow you to
move it out of the room for painting or other
room maintenance. In fact, when I got the
rack, I put my desk and two file cabinets on
casters, too.
Get rails for the cases. I leave the case lid
screws off, too. Makes it very easy to slide
out the cases and pop the lids for changes and
maintenance.
Be sure to make cables long enough to
accomodate the length needed when the cases
are fully pulled out.
Tiewrap cables that can be pulled out,
(i.e., usb, keyboard, mouse) to the back
of the case to act as strain relief when
sliding the case.
Check the alignment of the rails that the
equipment screws into, left to right, front
to back. Use a couple of 2U blanks at the
top and bottom.
When I built my first rack case 5 or 6 years
ago there weren't as many choices, seemingly,
for manufacturers as now, and I over did it
with a big Sliger. Since then I've built a
couple more using Compute-Aid 4U boxen
http://www.compute-aid.com/
which are well built and fairly priced,
though it's been of couple years since I checked
them out.
Heating isn't a problem with 4U cases.
ATX mobo's leave plenty of room for chassis
fans. Cases frequently can be ordered with
a cross brace that accomodates additional
chassis fans.
Try and keep the heavy stuff near the bottom.
For me, top to (near) bottom:
ham radio stuff
17" monitor for the router box
(I'd love to change this to an lcd,
but they're too much money)
mini-keyboard for the router on sliding
shelf
1U shelf for the dsl box
1U shelf for the 8 port hub
workstation 4U box
old workstation now file server 4U box
router 4U box
APC rackmount UPS (heaviest of all)
That's all I can think of.
Good luck
I got a rackmount enclosure and some rackmount equipt, it's awsome despite the markups, find a good deal on eBay. My ProLiant 5000R and 24 port switch has all the guys at the lug envying me.
Sig: I stole this sig.
The first URL should have read: http://www.mappit.de/content/computer/bilder/a4f19 /a4f19_cd.jpg (image) / http://www.mappit.de/ (homepage)
Listen to this guy.
Go with 4U rack mount cases. They are cheap, and easy. They will fit all your standard hardware out there.
For the rack itself, they can be expensive new, but you can get them used often enough. Look on ebay and find one in your vicinity. My friend got a nice compaq 42U rack for cheap that way.
If you can't wait, you could do as one has suggested and use a 19" audio rack. Just make sure it's deep enough; some audio racks aren't deep enough to fit some computer cases.
If you're on the cheap, get yourself a cheapo belkin KVM and hook up a small monitor and get a cheap keyboard/mouse combo and put it in the rack on a rack shelf. After that, you can most likely do everything else over the network, so you shouldn't have to use it very much.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Try the Defense Reutilization Marketing Office (DRMO), an agency that DoD uses to get rid of surplus equipment. All of the armed services use the standard 19" form factor and sometimes you can get lucky and find one at DRMO for very little money. You can probably refurbish one for the cost of a couple cans of paint, maybe a power strip and a couple fans.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
Supermicro makes super server barebone systems that are very nice. I've got a bunch here at home and at work.
Check it out here.
Building your own 1u box is a pain. Just try to find motherboards, power supplies and 1u cases that all work together. You'll find it is not easy. Intel makes some boards and cases that go well together, but they are pricey. A super server from supermicro includes:
Case (1u, 2u, 3u,....and up)
Power Supply (no reliablity problems so far)
Floppy and CD-rom/DVD drives
and
Motherboard that fits the case correctly.
All you need to do is add CPU(s), memory and hard drives. This way you can choose how much "horsepower" you need with out all the system integration hassles.
Good luck.
-ted
I bought an Axentra box 2 months ago and I never had any problem with it. A real KISS box. And now, they just introduce three new models with AMD chips (www.axentra.com). It's not rackmount, but it's small, and it works.
A few things to consider:
If you think about it, and do your research, rack-mount equipment is the way to go. It is certainly more expensive, but the extra money will buy you reusability and longer life.
"Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things."
Regardless of what people are saying here - do not just show up with one large machine. If you are demoing a product to sell to people to put into their environment, you'll likely run into "will it work behind a firewall?" (that is if they have any clue about security). Can't do that with yjust virtual machines.
I buy stuff from
http://www.rackmountnet.com/
they've got a nice 12" deep mATX form factor 1U case that I put my firewall in.
A couple of these with some Epias and off you go.
h an t.mv+Screen=PROD&Store_Code=SC&Product_Code=GH1-10 6-9inches&Category_Code=1UE
http://servercase.com/miva/miva?/Merchant2/merc
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
they make a 1RU 15 inch deep rack case (they'll build it out if you buy all the components from them). I think that the case is called a firewall case. I've got about a dozen of them that we built out a couple of years ago. They don't have much expansion room, but they work perfectly fine for what we use them for. They don't have a cd drive and only have one slot for a hard drive, but if you use the right components that shouldn't really matter, right?
I find that plugging my laptop into the 240V circuit tends to make it really fly...from the ensuing explosion!
I have a Shuttle XPC for gaming purposes fitted with an Athlon XP 2800+, 512MB RAM, a DVD-ROM and an 80GB hard disk. For full featured computing needs in a small package, you can't beat it.
It really doesn't sound like you need to spring for a rackmount system. It will cost you more in the end if you go that route. Still, if you want to, I would not build your own system. You'll drop a couple hundred at least on a rackmount case and $50 to $100 on a PSU for it. The mobo will be at least $300 since it's a rack mount mobo and thus a server mobo. Add in the 1U CPUs and fans and possibly short DIMMs and you'll find you could have spent less money buying a complete system. I recommend you look into the SuperMicro line. They have dozens to choose from. I have a 6013P-T and love it. I bought might from Wendy @ Acmemicro also known as 8anet.com.
http://www.skyhawkusa.com/products.htm
They sell 1U 2U 4U and 5U ATX cases for about $100, and I have been very pleased with mine. Sure it's probably not the best on the market, but it's pretty darn good for the cheapest. The rack itself is probably best bought used from a closing company. I got mine for $80 when my work closed an old building. Most tower cases start at $50+ these days, so it's not that much of a premium to pay.
Not only do YOU FAIL IT!, but YOU FAIL IT miserably. This is more like the 17th post. Kill yourself now.
i know where someone has thrown out a full height rack. two blocks from my place. interested? ask for details
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
Also, keep in mind that most rack mountable computers are REALLY LOUD (think "idling jet engine loud). The smaller the "U" of the case, the louder it is. Those 1U and 2U cases are jam packed with all sorts of stuff that gets hot. They compensate for that with high flow fans and those fans are LOUD.
Also rack mount cases for the "build it yourself" PC's cost $100 - $150 more than standard cases.
The "gee-whiz" factor is great, though.
What I would like to see is more versitale Motherboards. If you look at some of the server boards out there? Things are split up. The I/O and memory board are mounted horizontally (but seperate), while the main board is mounted vertically(1). Makes it easier to put the ports and cards were they work best. Not were the manufacturer feels they should go.
(1) Put in a double wide tower case (with vertical divider) and go to town. HD RAID on the left (with two big slow fans), with MB on the right with floppy, and CD-ROM plus tape drive. With cooling shroud over the quad-cpu MB.
The owner of a local ISP and collocation center that I'm friends with runs the whole operation out of his basement. He has a "rack" for all of his Cisco core routers and Sun Sparc systems (what you might call the infrastructure of the place), which he made by simply setting up two parallel 2x4 boards from the floor to the ceiling. They're secured to the floor with rivets (cement basement floor), and into the joists overhead with screws.
Probably not the flashy solution you're after, but it holds the equipment perfectly and securely.
It's actually quite funny to see that to your left, and to your right a full-on, professional, centrally-cooled Sun rack. His basement is geek heaven.
It's NetPlex, by the way. Yes, he hosts a WinZip mirror.
--
The Bailiwick - DESIGNHUB2005
Hmmm...build your own? How about a cluster in an old chest style freezer? Quiet and cool, just don't forget to use lots of silica gel.
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.
-- Gary Goldberg KA3ZYW 301/249-6501 AIM:OgGreeb Digital Marketing Inc., Bowie, MD
Anyway, Silicon Mechanics is a small-but-growing systems integrator (with some pretty large-name clients, but I won't drop names at the moment). We're (very) linux friendly (but sell plenty of Windows-based machines, too), specialize in 1u servers and our clients tend to think we offer the best support in the business. We're also pretty competitive price-wise (although there's no way we can compete with a build-it-yourself project, you do get what you pay for).
Do you really need reason for beer? Wingman Brewers
built in work-surface if it has sliding rails. Usually access to components is extremely easy. This is great if you're in hardware tinker mode.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
People always talk about rackmount cases in a rack. I can see how this makes life a little easier, but in a sandbox is is hardly necessary. If you only need a few machines, I would recommend something smaller. Consider a half height rack, get some rack shelves, and mount regular ATX mid towers in the rack on their side. For power, just buy a good surge protector (or 2) and place them at the bottom, the standard cables will reach. Then get a good 4-8 port KVM and set a keyboard, monitor and mouse right on top of the rack (or do what I did and have the rack next to your desk so you can just operate it all from the best seat in the house.) It is not the perfect rackmount solution, but it is a heck of a lot cheaper to use a $25 Mid tower case than ANY rackmount case. Also, when you are ready to move, you have half the weight to transfer, and the surge protectors and power cables are the only thing you will have to replace when you upgrade your location. :)
To find inexpensive equipment. If you want to go ubernerd, then you can download the standard demensions of a rack and build one yourself. If you are lazy (like me), you can just stack your cases on shelves. If you are just looking for cheap rack cases, check out www.plinkusa.net
The best road cases, by far, that I ever saw were owned by the grateful dead. Not batteries Anvil cases, but what looked like handmade polished wood racks with canvas covers. But they can have nice looking things when they were on the road 200 days a year.
You ponder showing plans or construction tips for those who follow (when this q is asked again in December?)
I use racks and like them but I don't use them at home. I run a DP service out of home and use 30-40 small form factor desktops (not towers). I used to use a small form factor Compaq that I could stack 7 in less space than a 14" monitor. Now I'm using IBM PIII 800's that are selling for $250 referbed. If you really need racks because you are buying blades or eserver Ms, then I suggest you purchase them through your dealer, because there maybe reqiurements you are not aware of.
Here
Deja voodoo.
Why rack mounted? Well, I want to save space and only have the bare minimum systems (no need for multiple CD-ROMS, monitors, no sound-cards, just lots of memory and HD space). I also will add to this in the future, so don't want to limit myself to just a few pcs on the system.
I had the same idea you did, except it was for small businesses who wanted to start with a small rack system, then add later.
So I had this built, a scalable rack. Since a standard rack is 42U high, I had it built to be 1/7th the height, or 7U. The piece sitting on the front is the cap for the rack top, and another 7U rack module is already installed, so the rack in the picture is 14U high (BTW, if anyone wants that synpotics 10Mb hub, they can have it for nothing...just gotta pay the shipping...it's heavy!)
Unfortunately, there's not a lot of interest in a scalable, modular rack system. So there my prototype sits in fire engine red looking very pretty, but no buyers.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
Many of those little switches don't work. I've moved around the world a lot, and changing things from 220 to 120, and 50hz to 60hz is a real hassle. Especially when the cheapskates who made item X put a dummy switch in the back that is not tested. Or it is so cheap that it looks like it switched, but instead, the plasticy thing you touched broke internally making it look like the switch changed. So few people actually switch them that most suppliers can put in a dummy and no one will ever catch them. Buying power supplies locally is much safer. Plus you end up getting the correct power cords for the destination country. Just how many power cords do you think you have in your house? I bet you will underestimate it by a factor of around 4.
...and is absolutely useless for anything even remotely approaching performance testing, because you've got the overhead of the virtual machine software, and several systems fighting for CPU time, memory, and disk I/O(which is particularly a problem with IDE systems where disk I/O involves a lot of CPU overhead).
you have one kick ass box.
and if anything breaks, you now have ZERO working systems, instead of 2/3rds etc. IBM's big iron gets away with this because damn near everything is redundant and hot-swappable, so the machine never has to go down.
I don't consider the parent answer particularly insightful, sorry...
Please help metamoderate.
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)
Your reward for reading all the way to the end of this old thread is this link to exactly what you are looking for.
You can either get a rackmount that is only 7" deep with a mini-itx motherboard or you can get a rackmount that is only 18" deep with two mini-itx motherboards. The prices are fantastic, too.
Very bad idea unless you're mounting very shallow stuff or very tall stuff; there is a reason they call them "telco" or "relay" racks; telco/network gear is never very deep(long), unless it's also very tall, so it doesn't exert much outward pull on the screws. Think about the mechanics of it- and yes, it's not pretty when that 2U DB server with 4 very expensive SCSI disks makes Unintentional Ground Contact because the screws all stripped out.
Go with steel unless you have a really good reason not to. Aluminum strips like a son of a bitch, even just installing the stuff if you're not careful (ie mis-threading a screw or even over-tightening it.)
Please help metamoderate.
using the rack enclosures used by rock bands for their pre-amps and effects processors. They are a bit pricy, but usually are air-frieght certified which will help when you move. We built a 2 pc system for a customer in one of these and they love it!.
here is a link to one
--Im an oven mitt, not an engineer! (SLArbys Radio Commercial)
Instead of rack mounting, how about a computer cabinet enclosure with slidable shelving plus a keyboard/mouse and monitor tray? I've been looking for something like this that accomodates 4 tower PC cases and has a ( quiet ) fan on top and bottom of the cabinet for air flow. That would give you some of the benefits of an equipment rack, but let you keep the PC's in standard cases, unless you really don't want to keep them that way.
Anyone see a cabinet like this around?
I can't afford a sig!
in this thread: not quite a dupe.
Hello on a related note I've been trying to find a 1U rack mounted vt100 terminal to connect to our equipment via a serial console server. Any advice on what to get? Basically I'm looking for a vt100 terminal equivalent of the rack mounted keyboard/display combinations you see for windows-based servers. Thanks in advance.
That scheme is most certainly NOT "high density". It is extremely LOW density; in the space of a dozen desktop machines(if that; probably more like 8), I can place FORTY TWO 1U rackmount systems. Uh huh. You read that right. That's not even as dense as you can get- the ultimate are blade servers, of which you can fit something like a dozen in 4-5U of space, complete with a built-in high speed network switch, KVM/LOM and power distribution all builtin to the case.
Desktop cases are a HUGE waste of space in enterprise environments because everything you need is usually built-in to the server mobo; I've never seen a server with anything save a SCSI RAID card in a PCI slot. So all the space for 5+ full size PCI slots is wasted...
Rackspace's 'scheme' is done when you have a)a boatload of space(because your target market is grossly oversaturated) and b)a need for as low a margin as possible(because your target market is grossly oversaturated and because it's low-scale, borderline consumer stuff, it's extremely price-competitive; in enterprise hosting, people ask about your financials before they ask about how big your genset is). Ie, Rackspace went the absolute cheapest route possible, and their customers will suffer as a result.
Why? Well, first cooling in rackmount cases is excellent; it's piss-poor in desktop cases, usually...so expect hard drive failures. NONE of the components are easily swappable; instead of "pull machine out on its rails, pop the top, place new memory in, push system back in", you've got "unplug the machine, pull it out of the shelf because there's no clearance on any of the sides, put it on a workbench, pop the case, put in the memory, put it back together, put it back in the shelf, plug it all in".
God help you if you need to swap power supplies- they're several screws and connectors all over the place; drives, fans, motherboard. You take 20 minutes, while I take 15 seconds to slide the lever, pull the PS module, put the new one in, lock the lever, and plug the power cord back in. Done, while you're on screw #2.
Yes, not an issue for this fellow, but your implication that Rackspace is somehow engaging in innovative thinking is ludicrous. No professional hosting company would even consider such bullshit.
And yes, I said professional; Rackspace caters to individuals, not corporations, and non-managed hosting- pretty much putting them a step above Joe and Bob's ISP, but not by much. I've worked for a commercial-only managed hosting company, and unlike Rackspace which let you "visit", it's an entirely different sort of place; customers don't set foot in the place, the building isn't marked, etc.
Please help metamoderate.
I know nothing about racks and servers but, could you use and old fridge and dehumidifier? Cooling and sound should be taken care of then all you have to do is drill holes for cable. It would be a little big. You could use any old pc and stack the inside if you leave the racks in the fridge.
Why is everyone so wound up about Mini ITX? Damn expensive, and if they are just to be used as server-substitutes, not needed...
Micro ATX Desktop cases are the way to go.
Cheap, small, stackable, upgradeable, easy to work on...And quiet.
I suggest these AOpen cases, along with an AOpen Micro ATX motherboard. AOpen even makes barebone versions of these.
My firewall is housed in such a system and has worked out very well. I plan to add a few more for various other purposes.
Some people are like slinkies--basically useless but they bring a smile to your face when pushed down the stairs.
You do realize that most computer power adapters are dual-voltage, right?
01101001 01100001 01101101 01101110 01101111 01110100 01100001 01101100 01100001 01110111 01111001 01100101 01110010
I can't believe all that crap posts I see here? Did he ask for mini-itx people? Is he your pet moron or something?
If you want emulation take a look at xenolinux, which can work for windows as well.
I live with my rack cases, and they do save space. I warned my cheap friend in the beginning, and now he whines about all of the cases that he has littering his tabletops/underdesk and begs my to buy a few all the time.
No, I haven't purchased a rack for them yet.
Take care of the PSUs you pick, and buy your fans with quality in mind. (ballbearing) Also industrial PSUs are not like the ones you buy from Antec.
Rack mounting your toys is great, IMHO. I don't do it (yet) at my home because I don't have very much stuff, but if I did, I would.
:) ).
There are a number of companies making "shorty" racks (that's my term, don't Google for "shorty"). They are normal 19" racks, but sit only 30 or 36 inches high. One I seriously looked at for work had a door on the front, too.
If you just want to mount a couple 1-2U servers, a switch/router, etc., this would be a sweet way to go. You can tuck it undera desk or in a (ventilated) closet and forget about it.
Rack equipment (particularly computer) is more expensive, apples to apples, compared to non-rack hardware, but it's compact, often better-cooled (read: noisy), and probably bare-bones enough for your requirements. Many of the rack computers I've worked with also have full BIOS support for a serial/TTY console, so you can remotely access the computer, reboot it, etc. You can gang all the TTY's into a terminal server (Cisco makes a couple models) or use serial-to-USB adapters and run them off of one box (just make sure it stays up
Make sure you calculate how much rack space you need before buying a rack. Also, from my experience, you'll probably want to allow at least 20-40% extra for expansion, testing, etc. Also think about cooling and the cooling requirements of your hardware.
Another benefit of a small rack is that if you move or relocate, you just unplug the rack from the wall and move the whole bloody thing with you. No recabling your equipment or lost toys. And, if you put a locking door on the unit and bolt it to the floor, it's pretty secure too.
If this all pans out, let us all know and maybe post some pictures. I think this is a slick idea that more individuals and small businesses should seriously consider.
http://www.aopen.nl/products/Housing/H800series.ht m
>>Go with 4U rack mount cases. They are cheap, and easy. They will fit all your standard hardware out there.
This is a good point. Dell, in fact, sells "workstations" and "servers" that can be configured either as tower or 4U rack-mounts. You basically bolt on a couple rack ears and you're good to go.
If you find the right size case, you can buy rack ears, drill a couple holes in the case (be careful about the metal bits!) and bolt them on. Rack-mount servers on a budget.
If you're not much of home machinist, you could consider rack shelves -- I highly recommend that you find shelves that bolt on to the front AND back for stability. You can stack your tower/desktop systems on their sides. This gets a little messy if you ever need to move the rack, and it takes up a hideous amount of space compared to 2U systems (a shelf + tower consumes basically 5-6U of space), but it's an alternative or a way to rack-adapt existing hardware.
If you're talking about a small setup, i.e. less then a dozen systems, it's hard to beat the tradeoff of price versus slickness. Commodity systems in normal small form-factor towers and desktops are so much cheaper than rackmount systems, and it's really not hard to come up with a way to hook 'em up. True, your 'ideal' system can save on duplicate CD/ROM drives etc., and the cable runs look infinitely better, but this savings won't generally reduce your net cost.
Get good standard systems, used ones if they suit your needs, and put 'em on a set of tables or shelves. If space is tight, use rack shelves and snug the systems in, but I've never looked at my CPU jungle and said "I need to invest a few thousand bucks to trim this down from 30 cubic feet to 12." I ALWAYS use that money to buy something I need more (or more likely I blow it on a nice weekend). Space per se is just not that big a problem, not as compared to power, cooling, and component diversity. Besides, I'll need to replace the systems in a year or two anyway. And I'd probably be better off with more commodity systems, especially if I'm trying to duplicate field conditions.
(Unless you find a source for CHEAP rack mount gear, in which case obviously we'd all pick that. It does look much more engineeroid.)
-- We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of other people. La Rochefoucauld
Good points all around in parent post. Additional thoughts from my own experience:
As others have pointed out, another problem with 1U/2U rack cases is the noise. They typically use 40mm/50mm case fans, and the sound of those poor little guys whirring their hearts out is like living in an airport. While you might be able to tolerate this with a single computer, once you stack up 3/4/5 machines, the noise levels can become remarkably unpleasant. After 3 months of insomnia, I chucked those cases in the closet and replanted everything in 4U cases. (I've since seen low-noise 40mm Pabst fans popping up every now and then -- the airflow is much lower than the turboprop-wannabe stock fans, but I'm tempted to pick up a few of these, bring the 1U case out of storage, and give it another shot -- for a minimal single-CPU/single-drive system, the reduced airflow should still be sufficient.)
4U cases, OTOH, are much easier to quiet down. These typically use 80mm or 90mm case fans, and many have mount points for a couple of 60mm fans on the back. There's a variety of low-noise 80/90mm fans on the market. Not quite as wide a selection in the 60mm range, but they're not particularly difficult to find if you need the extra airflow. (FWIW, I've been happy with the Vantec Stealth line.)
The parent poster's comment about 4Us taking standard power supplies is good to keep in mind. The PS in a 1U/2U case is going to be a nonstandard size -- which can be a killer if it dies on you. With the standard-sized ATX PS used in a 4U case, if you lose a PS you can pop down to your local computer supply store, buy a replacement, and be back up and running in no time.
If you're running Linux, you can manage without a KVM once your machines are set up and running properly, since you can always forward X sessons from multiple boxes over to whichever machine your monitor is connected to. That being said, a KVM is awfully handy if you need control over a machine during the early boot stages -- you can't get to the BIOS settings display using X forwarding. :-)
Personal preference I've developed regarding rails is to use the 26" rails even though most 4U cases are only 20" deep. The longer rails make it more awkward when you first put the case in the rack (since they stick out past the ends of the case), but afterwards they'll let you slide the case out far enough that you can get to the connectors on the back. (Like flipping off the switch on the power supply or unplugging the cord while you're working inside the machine.) I find that being able to do all the work from the front of the rack is more convenient than having to hop back and forth between the front and rear to yank things off and plug things back in again. If you rarely work inside your case, it's not a big deal -- save a few bucks and go for shorter rails, or even skip the rails completely and bolt the case directly to the rack.
You mentioned lots of HD space. If you're planning something serious, like a 4+ drive RAID configuration, pay close attention to mountpoints and airflow. Many entry-model 4U cases only have 2 mount points for hard drives. You can pick up 3.5-5.25" adapter brackets that'll let you mount additional drives in the 5.25" external bays -- there's usually 3 external bays on an entry-level 4U case. If you pick up one of the inserts that fit into the 3 external bay area and allow you to mount 5 hard drives sidways, be very *very* cautious if you're using 7200 RPM drives. Those drives run hot normally, and there's almost no space between the drives in these inserts, hence little room for airflow. You'll want a dedicated cooling fan, preferably built into the rear of the insert, or you're going to run a real risk of the drives quickly overheating and dying. (Been there, fried that, bought new drives.)
Oh yes, and something that drove me crazy for a while -- if you pick up a second-hand rack and the mou
A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.
Try industrial distributors such as Advantec and such. They often sell hardware that really isn't targetted at data centers but may be useful in your case. There may be an advantage due to pricing structure.
Thanks
Dave
Racks are nice and professional looking, but if I was doing the same thing, I'd go for some shelves from IKEA and regular mini tower PCs. Se http://www.nsc.liu.se/systems/cluster-overview/ind ex.html for some professional opinions on these matters from a supercomputer organisation.
I now use a 6 foot Damac rack and 5 Anova 4U rackmount cases in my home.
The Damac is just a four post rack. You don't have to get all the doors and sides that it can be ordered with. Wheels are a must to move it out from the wall to make cabling changes.
The Anova rackmount computer cases have removable/washable filters. They are very easy to open and work with once unracked.
Running multiple machines is pretty noisy, but you get used to it. It also keeps your home 10 degrees warmer all year long.
You may also run into power problems in a house with substandard electrical power.
SKB Cases can be used for a more portable racking solution.
By the way - don't forget to check the voltages on your networking equipment. Most of the modern network hubs, switches, etc. will be ok for 110-220V, but you'll need several adapter plugs or power cords (if you're lucky and the cord can be swapped). Or replace the power supplies with "universal adapters" - something like this is inexpensive ($14).
Regarding extension cords and "power strips": I had brought my "high quality" power strips from the US - the ones with built in surge protectors - in hindsight it's no surprise that the "extra" 110 V is considered a surge. :(
So now I have a pile of extension cords and power strips that are completely useless.
One more tip: Before you go and purchase conversion plugs for your equipment, you may just want to purchase new power cords ($2.50) that are usually cheaper that the conversion plug ($15), plus it will be the proper size for US outlets. The UK plugs will usually make every-other outlet on a US power strip unusable due to the size difference.
If you, like me, can't afford the Chenbro, try the Compucase. It's cheap, takes a whole lot of drives (I have 8 in mine with easy room for 3 more). It has 12cm fans right in front of the drives so they keep really cool. Not much noise either, provided you use quiet drives (I have 7x160MB Seagate Barracudas and a 200GB on the way).
Money for nothing, pix for free
I've got a similar problem to you, and, after years of noisy living rooms and bulky kit, I think I've found a solution.
... aren't you?
Not racks, nor wooden bookshelves. I rescued four racks once. Bloody useless things. Free racks still cost 'cos they need expensive cases. If you put ordinary PCs in on the shelves, you might as well use ordinary shelving, like some guys have mentioned here. Since then, I've always wanted small, small PCs, and I've finally found them. They're silent. They're the size of routers. They're cheap.
But these PCs don't have any fancy extras, like video, keyboard or mouse (you use serial I/O, or SSH). They're only supported with free (as in four) operating systems, e.g. the BSDs and Linux. If you can work within those limitations, and I can, then you've gotta consider them. Since you didn't mention operating systems, I assume you want to keep your costs down, so you've gotta be going the not-unix route
I'm willing to bet there are a number of manufacturers about. I know of Soekris, from Santa Cruz, a town famous, so I've heard, for the silly decisions some people have made after long visits to its excellent beer festival. Soekris interest me because they specifically support Open BSD.
I'd suggest not buying any computer racks. They are pretty damn pricey, $400+ maybe less if you find them in used computer stores, and they are usually wayyyy too big, like 6 feet high and stuff. What I found works the best is recording equipment rackmounts they can be found from $80+. The one I have was $120 and it's rock solid. I already have 3 cases in it and a rackmount switch.
I am reminded of a geek friend who got really excited when he acquired a raised-floor system being thrown out of an ex-server room.
He told me his wife had even agreed to let him install it in their bedroom.
I said to him "why do you need a raised floor? I know how few cables you are running and you certainly don't have gas fire suppression or HVAC".
He looked at me like an idiot and said "yeah, but dude... It's a RAISED FLOOR!"
Sadly, I could totally see his point...
Do you or your partner snore? - Visit www.snoring.com.au
check this one. looks promising. http://www.electronicmusic.com/education/5326.html
it is not useless for performance testing: if your testing shows that performance is good enough on a vmware box, then your performance will be good enough.
Racks aren't that expensive, if you know where to look. Racks are used in many industries, IT, and music. Check this out. Get a 6U burnished aluminium case for ~$80. Sure, cut a few holes in it for I/O, but it's cheap and easily transportable.
Another thing too, is you can fit some of the slimmer mini-tower cases standing up three across. This makes pretty good use of the space too, and it's easier to manage then stacking boxes on top of each other.
Since he only wants three PC's to start, and maybe a few more, pretty much any combination would work. Even with mid-tower cases you should be able to fit at least six in a 42U cabinet.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
A ton, that is, 1000kg, is not cheaper than an entire machine.
I wouldn't knock that "raised floor" too bad. Imagine how much easier it would be to work on a house's "infrastructure" (plumbing, electrical, heating/cooling, etc), if all you had to do was lift a floor panel?
Disneyworld works on the "easy access" principle when it comes to it's infrastructure as well.
Get a wooden cabinet like a bedside cabinet tall enough for MOBO to fit vertically and to have a draw at the top. Buy 1 spice rack or similar shelf to take PSUs. Buy a few cheap PC cases - to gut out PSUs. A long hinge. and a power strip.
Route slots in some 2x1 timber (2 strips) or similar for the mobo to go vertical. Adjust spaces between mobos with same 2x1. Remove top draw front keeping draw sides/slide in cabinet. Refit front with the hinge.Cut holes in back for MOBO I/O ports.
Cut holes in back of lower partof cabinet for PSU cables. Cut holes in bottom of the top draw for round IDE cables. Fed low volt PSU cables in from back. Feed round IDE cables from top drawer. Have MOBO boards vertical and slot into slots. Leave PSU loose on a spice rack or shelf on back of cabine above where you'll be cutting the I/O slots.
Have HDD in Antec HDD coolers and plug into IDE cables. Leave loose on top draw.Plug mains cables into PSU and powerup.
Ideally also have the KVM in top draw with monitor on top and a narrow keyboard.
its head up its arse.
Get a mainboard that supports serial console redirection, like the Tyan Tomcat i875P, and hook the (first) serial port up to a multi-serial board in another box, or get the excellent (but expensive) Cyclades TS-Series console server.
We just picked up four of them as firewalls (in 1U cases from Chenbro) as well a backup server, and the redirection works like a charm.
Talk about timely
Talk about timely.
I just ate a sandwich at home this weekend.
I just ate a sandwich at home this weekend.
Millions of people around the globe were eating sandwhiches at home as well. Even factoring in the time zone differences, they were there, eating them in the morning, eating them in the dead of night, eating them in a house, eating them with a mouse.
Millions of people around the globe were eating sandwhiches at home as well. Even factoring in the time zone differences, they were there, eating them in the morning, eating them in the dead of night, eating them in a house, eating them with a mouse.
Syncronicity strikes again!
Syncronicity strikes again!
It's really a special time, because humans rarely do the same things at the same times.
It's really a special time, because humans rarely do the same things at the same times.
Now it's time to syncronously take a dump....
I would also recommend VMWare, but apart from that if You really, really need seperate computers take a look at VIA's line of Mini-Itx boards.
They don't perform very good, but You don't want to play UT 2004 in them anyways. They also don't perform very well for the buck, but they have everything onboard. On a small board that is. This way You could purchase them while in the UK and ship 'em over for not much money.
The M and CL series use DDR-Ram whereas the V series still uses SD-Ram. So You should get M or CL. The CL is slightly more expensive, but You get 2 nic adapters onboard. The CL6000 is fanless, but only has a C3 processor, whereas the CL10000 sports an Eden ESP with full SSE2 support, but also has a noisy fan.
Those are also cheaper than a Shuttle with a P4. And a lot quieter if You go CL6000.
You don't provide system characteristics orther than "lots of memory and hard drive space". So I'll assume that performance doesn't have to be earth shattering.
Since you are talking about home, space, noise and electricity *should* be concerns since your employer won't compensate you for those, even if you are the employer. Two Travla 147 cases and your choice of 3 different mini-ITX backplanes can be married to 4 mini-itx motherboards. That means in 2 rack units, you can have 4 quiet systems that don't use huge amounts of electricity with up to 1GB of RAM and a single IDE hard drive in the chassis. Travla 146 has 4 internal 3.5" bays. You won't kill yourself with expenses or noise.
Hiya, I also looked for a nice little system that I placed in my office closet. I run my mail, firewall, and raid 5 set off a desktop rail mount. theyre fairly cheap ($44). here is the site http://www.rackmountsolutions.net/DR8-12%20Enlarge d.asp
I bought 1 4U case for my IDE raid 5 set and 2 2u for my firewall and VMWARE server pc. The empty cases were fairly cheap (about $150) but i wish i bought them all 4u because I'd have the room to mess around more. Good Luck.
-G
I haven't tried one of these yet, but they look pretty darn cool!
10b||~10b -- aah, what a question!
I bought a 10u and a 15u 24" deep AJ case
n t/ index.htm
/ IMG_1551
http://ajcases.com/ajtext/products/di-shock-mou
, and placed 3x rave 2u cases with some ultrsSparcAXI hardware inside, couple of 1u switches, etc.
http://www.rave.net/PRODUCTS/axi-2U5-specs.html
The shockmount racks were expensive, (about $500 on ebay), but worth it so when I move out of the current house, I just decable the systems, and put the panels on for the movers. (It's nice to have the systems in a compact case setup as well, as oppposed to all spread out over creation.)
My wife got sick of the 3 tables/desks worth of computer equipment hogging up the rec room space.
Not so great picture, here: http://stick.tookmymoney.com/gallery/tanabday2003
The lack of clutter is well worth the expense.
(O yeah, btw, don't overbuy the rack space, I have 25u of rack space, and I'm only using 10u.)
--Adrian
Various things like the WiFi data storage units could be helpful in this way; hide one between the walls, and "forget" about it. The raid team then either misses it, or somebody rats about it (which is not likely if you keep it for yourself), or they do a TSCM scan (which is quite unlikely), or they have to disassemble the building (which they are unlikely to do as it is not standard way to secure the evidence and it takes too much work).
Instead of going rack mounted, you might want to try this pc case out. Its dimensions are 8" x 7.4" x 11.7". I think this is a slick little case here!
You have to be a real hermit to ask about rack mounting these days. Pick up any catalog and you will find hundreds of solutions. What a waste of web space to post this as a headliner questions. Bad slashdot editor, bad!
Call JS Custom PCs in Cincinnati. Excellent pricing. They'll build or supply parts only (same price either way). Check 'em out.
They do sell lots of stuff not listed on the web site.
http://www.jscustompcs.com/
You can disassemble the power supply, bravely ignoring the warnings on its case, and check for yourself if the switch is connected to the board (and where), and check by an ohmmeter if it is really switched. Very basic knowledge of switched power supplies is helpful here. Also, a test of the PS on some dummy (or at least cheap) load after the visual and functionality check of the switch will be good to be certain.
However, if you do want to live without a KVM switch, Windows 2000 Server, Windows XP Pro and Windows Server 2003 support remote access right out of the box. Or, you can use VNC for access, but it is *much* slower.
Just thought I'd throw this out. Let's see if it ignites a flamewar :)
Hell, there are no rules here. We're trying to accomplish something. - Thomas Edison
Honestly Its has been nearly 20 years since I saw a Powersupply that that wasn't switchable between the 2 standard AC voltages that was worth more than 9.95$... so Powersupplies can practically be tossed from your Requirement list...
Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
You might consider the via epia boards and mini-itx boards for your test system. They can easily be built up in 8"x8"x12" cases, use under 20W power, and have only one fan (optional).
Not as space efficient as rack mounts, but much better on power and they're cheap. Very inexpensive.
I use them for my various servers around the area.
Normal VGA cables won't be too good. The horizontal and vertical sync signals are no big deal - TTL levels, digital logic, low-frequency. The problem is in the video; you may like to try three higher-quality 75-ohm coax cables (I believe the VGA outputs/inputs are matched to 75 ohm). If that won't be enough, you may try to use converters from asymmetrical to symmetrical signal and back and use CAT5 cable instead of coax (the solution described in an earlier answer, you can buy them commercially or make from parts - Maxim makes MAX435 and MAX436 chips specifically for this purpose, though I am not sure if they would cope with the bandwidth of 1600x1200 in some sane refresh rate).
Up to 4 pcs in a *single* 1U rack for a sensible price. Yes, you read right. And they're a UK outfit which should help. Linitx.com
Well, racks of PCs are heavy, and noisy, and it's going to cost you a packet to ship them to the states (make sure you take the HDs out first, and package them up properly).
If you can get away with it, you should consider using something like these:
http://linitx.com/index.php?cPath=14
If not, then the only rack-mount machines that are worth purchasing IMHO are these:
http://www.rackable.com
I've deployed about 35 of these, and they do nearly everything right - price, performance, remote management, footprint, service. I've used Dell, HP, IBM, Gigabyte and others, but only Rackable seem to really know what they are doing at a decent price. Highly recomended.
Don't under estimate the power of wood!
Yeah.. shiny metal racks are nice and all, but once I filled mine up I didnt feel like sacrificing the space for another one.
So my dad and I sat down with a six pack and built a 20-odd unit rack out of scrap timber. Essentially its nothing more than a box with reinfornced cornes (for stability), and a couple of wooden strips down the front. Thus you can mount your gear using self-tapping wood screws.
I also managed to pick up (dumpster diving) some angle bracket with threaded holes at the Rack Unit spacing... obviously something taken out of a once working rack. This we turned into rack using 3/4 inch square-X-section steel tubing. (Angle grinders rock. Use safety googles.)
Total cost. I reckon less than US$50.. and half of that was for beer.
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
If you need a cluster, grab a few mATX boards with all the trimmings, add as much RAM as you can cram on em and you're set.
get some wood/aluminum/steel and a dremel and make your own case, or just grab some cheap matx boxes (matx'ers are a pain in the ass to work on.)
I bought a 48" 12U rack (4 poster, used), 2U case (new) and 4U case (with fully loaded PII 350) for ~$250 on E-bay.
My intention now is to use the rack for audio gear (i have a rackmountable preamp and the rest of the gear is 19" standard (needs rails or shelves) 2U (Amp and VTR) or 3 (Stereo reciever unit).
I have three systems now that are classifiable as 'Server'
I plan on a few conversions once i get more money.
Logistical Chaos Officer http://www.slagg.org - LAN Gaming in Sarasota FL,USA
I have done this, and enjoy it. I bought a rack mount router from Imagestream and from there started down the road. I found 20U (36") racks at woodwind and brasswind music store (wwbw.com) for $99 and bought cases from Ebay for $75 each, some had backplanes (used) others didn't but had adapters for ATX motherboards. I spent the extra money (~$200) for quad segragated backplanes and can run 4 Computers in a 4U case with drives and all. I went quad cause most SBC'es now have everything you need on them, (my AA server need a sound card but every other device needed was on it) for gaming just dig up a PCI video card that has some good spec's. I now have 2 30U's and am looking for a few more to continue with (1 rack does dual duty as both my HAM radio rack, and holds a computer for the new software control programs) the 4U cases use standard power supplies (ATX) hold standard drives (5 1/4 and 3.5" bays) and most have an adapter allowing a standard motherboard or the backplane/SBC combo that is common in industrial setups (I have both types in my network) My gaming machine is a 4U with a standard biostar motherboard in fact the only thing different about it is the case being rack mounted and having 5 fans. so go for it!
I'm told you are what you eat, does that mean I can be you by tomorrow with some A1?
I had to upgrade a server from three 9 GB SCSI drives to whatever the boss could afford (which turned out to be a 160 GB IDE and a DVD±RW), and this case had five 80 MM fans inside, one of them inside a standard ATX power supply, which fit neatly into the case. Everything but the PCI card riser is stock off the shelf parts. When I reduced the clutter (rounded cables, two fewer drives), I was able to remove the two fans behind the drive cage and significantly reduce the noise of the machine without any sort of heat problem. That office has wonky air conditioning, but even on bad days it won't get above 85 degrees or so.
The machine itself is kinda sad by today's standards, just a dual P3-500 and 512 MB of RAM, and there's no particular reason for it to be in a 2U server case at all, except that the mini-fridge sits on top of it quite neatly. The only compromises forced by the case are:
1. Oddly placed power supply. In this one it's near the front, on the right side, and therefore blows its warm air directly across the motherboard. This also creates some rather odd cable clutter problems, but nothing too terrible.
2. PCI card riser required. The board has six PCI slots and in this case you can only use two, and those two have to be "bent" 90 degrees to accommodate the low profile case. If you're using low-rise PCI cards and can find an inventive way to secure them, you may be able to do without the riser, but the case probably isn't designed that way. I believe this server case came with the PCI riser, it certainly looks like it would have to be.
3. Limited choice in video cards. Basically you HAVE to go low-profile here, since there is no way to squeeze both an AGP and PCI riser into the same case (unless the AGP riser goes the other direction, again something the case is not designed for). But there are low-end DirectX 9 compliant parts that do meet this size requirement. Again you're going to have to be inventive with the mounting.
4. A single 5.25" optical drive bay, and generally a single 3.5" floppy bay (though you may well use it another way). This is hardly insurmountable, since you can put various different types of drives in each of the stacked computers.
Also note that rackmount cases are generally THICK, and that means HEAVY. Don't expect getting a full-size rack full of computers up and down a flight of stairs to be easy. It may well end up weighing more than a fridge, and those are bad enough to move around. Of course the rack would be somewhat more maneuverable, but that doesn't reduce the sheer grunt work needed to get the damn thing up the stairs. Once you get it up there, you may well move it around the house with ease (they usually have casters), but you won't be taking it LANning any time soon.
All of the above are valid worries. Worrying about small, noisy fans isn't really one of them though. There are LOTS of 80 mm fan choices (some would say too many), and lots of places to mount them in the case.
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
Build your own rails, pick up a drill/tap set at Home Depot (or wherever) for about $5... then just drill/tap the holes as you need them. Plastic garbage bag taped around the rail and a good vacuum cleaner to pick up the filings, and you don't even have to unmount all your hardware to do it. The rails themselves can be basic steel bar stock, or if cost/weight is a concern, use thick aluminum.
Then you can either buy premade rackmounts or build your own. I'm an audio guy, and audio rackmount equipment is usually 10" between rails, as opposed to 19" for computer equipment. Though some of the high-end stuff is 19" between rails.
Everyone I've seen that builds their own uses perspex or aluminum. Personally, were I to do this, I would get mini-ITX boards, with the Morex DC-DC power supplies. Run the whole rack on a big DC rectifier, and just patch in the 12V to each power supply. The units themselves are just six pieces of perspex; the top is on a hinge, the front (and possibly the back) is wider than the rest, to provide places to screw into the rails. Depending on your needs, you can PXE-boot them, and then you just need one computer for the whole thing with a big hard drive / RAID to hold the images on. Or you can just put a read-only operating system on a compact flash and put that in the mini-ITX. One version of the board even has the CF slot on it, so you don't need a converter to IDE.
You can get most of the hardware from mini-itx.com, though I've had better luck with idot.com in terms of pricing. The 12V rectifier can be gotten from industrial surplus, or if you're handy with a soldering iron, you can build your own from a heavy duty transformer and a few power rectifier diodes. As far as software, any Linux Live CD (ala Knoppix) can PXE boot or boot off CF. If you want Windows, search for Windows PE on google, and it'll come up with a list of companies that make read-only Windows distros. If none of those meet your needs, BartPE makes a utility to roll your own... just install it on a hard drive, configure it, then run the utility.
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
Good friend of mine (Also British) is looking to save the same problem. He's looking at http://www.littlepc.com . His only issue is embedding a switch and KVM into the same box. They should consider offering something like that prefabbed so he doesn't have to fab his own.
Jonathan
This is my world and I am...
It's not expensive if you know where to look - companies such as StudioSpares (in the UK) sell pro audio equipment racks dead cheap. The companies that you might first go to (in the UK, Canford, Stage Electrics etc) are very expensive, but it's still very much a misconception to say all pro audio equipment costs a lot.
For example, I picked up a pro audio rack mounted Tascam CD player for theatre use for around 100 - cheaper than domestic players with the same features, and this model came with an industrial warrenty (as opposed to the domestic models, which come with a "home only" warrenty). The same applies to audio PCs - companies like Carillion sell rack mounted PCs without pro audio software for about the same as a brand name PC. Still more expensive than building your own, but not the 500% markup you describe.
He doesn't mention the need for performance testing... or the need for high-availabilty.
Your arguments are spurious given the problem space provided.
BlackNova Traders
I got a few of these colomachine.com machines, they work great, not a lot of horsepower, but for development they do the job.
So, I built a nice oak cabinet. It looks much like a tall hutch. The hutch doors look like standard flat-panel doors, but the center panel is acually a large air-filter (black foam pressed between wood lattice on the front and a screen in back). The back is mostly open for ventillation.
The final cabinet ended up costing about $250 in materials, and looks lovely in my office. My only complaint is that, when the machines are on, it's not as quiet as I would like -- too many tiny fans spinning at high rpm. I'm not sure how to do sound deadening that won't interfere with the ventillation.
You could do something like this.
Or just use mini-itx pc's, they're much more silent, and use less power...
www.supermicro.com
I bought a 1U/P4/256MB/40GB for $650 a year ago. It works perfectly, was cheap, and looks great in my rack.
IT'S NOISY AS HELL, THOUGH.
hell.. stay where you are... even if you ARE a US citizen.... take THEIR jobs...
Don't use UPS! I shipped a few computers from the UK to US when I moved to California. They arrived in a right state - basically one of the very heavy-duty steel cases was buckled - actually looked like it had been jumped on (footprint!) A SCSI HD was trashed (magnetic problems, or jolts?) a CD-ROM was smashed, a plastic case was smashed.... An try getting money out of them (my stupid office admin didn't get insurance!) I actually brough a computer and laptop with me on the plane after that! But back to the rack issue - have you thought of a Shuttle Mini-ATX - they have 200W PSU's that are auto-switching. Also, any decent PSU should be 115/220 switchable.
#include <sig.h>
Try this it seems to be a slimmer version of vmware for $120. The number of virtual machines you run is limited by the amount of ram you have, but you can assign the amount of ram each one gets. Anyway, it is possible to run all kinds of OSes under each virtual pc. There is a free 45 day trial in case you don't think it will work for you.
I keep reading this assertion that geeks have terrible personal hygene here on slashdot. Usually it's in a troll post. Of the hundred or so geeks in the upper level computer science progrm at my university I know of one who could be described as having a hygene problem.
Observations do not back up the assertion that geeks have poor hygene.
Oh, now that is nice! (Especially given the price difference between serial cables and KVM cables. :-) Thanks for pointing that out. Convenient timing, too -- I just started looking at components for putting together another computer.
A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.
You could, or you could spend $10 more in the first place and save yourself an hour or more of disassembling your PC to get the supply out, disassembling the supply itself and the horror of seeing just how badly those things are built, then the time-wasting exercise with the ohmmeter. I don't know about you, but my time is worth $10/hr. Even to those who pay my salary!
Go really deluxe, spend $20 extra and you'll get a supply that handles 100-240V, 50-60Hz, without switching! Now there's value.
I usually have to solve problems when the shops are either closed or far away (and when you add the time lost by going to the shop and back, the cost equations often start looking somehow different). Besides, this is not a hour or more, but maybe 5 minutes or less, at least if you can recognize the right end of the screwdriver.
a cluster of xboxes running *nix would be a cost affective alternative to rack mounting as well.
An old office of mine had 3 1-U servers sitting on top of each other. Some rack-mount stuff stacks nicely without the racks. Don't know how hot they were inside, but they sure had loud fans.
"Go with 4U rack mount cases. They are cheap, and easy. They will fit all your standard hardware out there."
Go with desktop PCs -- you can get shelves for the rack.
We've just installed about 15 PCs (standard dell desktops) in racks at work, and it's certainly more convenient than having to unbolt stuff every time you want to get a computer out (for changing graphics/soundcards etc.)
First of all, my rack is Mountain Dew green, which is awesome. I got this cool rack off eBay (which later got painted ;-), and actually just built the components straight into the rack. Yeah, it does sound crazy, but not only does it keep my components healthy, it makes hot-swapping things a joy. As long as you can design a good support structure like I did, it'll work.
Good luck.
Im working on finishing my basement right now and their are no shortage of little places to fit a couple of gigs of data. But here is my thought. I bet you could fit a gumstix into a standard outlet box. Get the bluetooth version and an SD card, then just put a dummy ethernet jack or phone line into the box and viola. Easy to get to should you need the access and the last place I would ever look for a machine.
BTW, love the name, that was a great book.
www.linux-skunkworks.com
And no, I don't work for them. Just a happy customer.
I was pretty tied up for space to build my sandbox, so I opted for 4u rack systems to alleviate cost in the beginning. After I got started with that I found Cubix systems on eBay relatively inexpensive. I now have 2 1210 systems and 6 ERS FT II systems. They are 6u cases with 8 single board computers. They save me space, are redundant, have a built in KVM system, and are realtively easy to manage. I now house over 48 machines in a single 42u rack, and still have room to spare. Now I've expanded to another rack to house my SCSI and Fibre Channel storage systems. It's been a great experience using Cubix systems. All of the rest of my systems are either Compaq, Dell, or beige boxes.
B L A D E S.
I would buy several itx style computers like this one http://www.directron.com/ideq200ab.html, and stack them up in some unused corner of a closet.
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(Make sure it does not get to hot.)
Then you can control them with a kvm like
http://www.kvm-switches-online.com/f1ds104t
to connect all the computers together.
It seems to me that you might find that the noise
and heat put out by a large number of computers is more than you expect.
Michael, I read through the other recommendations -- not sure if 19" is a requirement but wire bread racks can be had at Lowe's or Home Depot for about 65 dollars and can be put on wheels for access to the rear. You can rack and stack machines as densely as you like.
Real 19" form-factored equipment will cost you a bundle, The Blade Servers idea is very compact if you're buying new equipment all around.
If you are on "no budget" you can scrounge old PCs and rev them up at less cost; That's the route I'm on at the moment. Old gear can do a lot if you remove the gorilla resource hog from its back (MS Products). Obviously old is not as fast as new gear and you have to deal with obsolescene problems.
Mytwocents worth, FutureExpressionist
I am a developer also and had a similar need but I went a different direction. In that I was going to have to simulate traffic I decided to short change the hardware on purpose so that the resources available were easier to saturate. The code thus written is more efficient when ramped up to stronger machines. I used micro-itx based systems which are in some cases smaller than the reference books on my shelf they are fleshed out by used laptop parts and have external (read replaceable) power bricks. A possibly even better system for development are the old hp-epcs that can be found on ebay as they have quickly swappable hard drives so a developer could quickly recreate any setup and then keep it separate for the cost of an inexpensive 3.5 inch hard drive.
I've been looking at inexpensive rack equipment as well. Here's a company you might find useful. http://www.rackframe.com
I do not work for this company. Just passing along info.
Go to Tigerdirect.com CyberTron and Vision Manufacture Rack Mount servers starting at $490. I have two Visions (pretty old though.. PIII), one for a SQL server and another for a web server. Does a great job. Use the servers link on http://www.eafx.com/ and do me a favor!
You time yourself sometime - start with a running PC, end with a running PC. It's easily an hour.
Seems your machines tend to shutdown/boot extremely slowly. In addition, for a basic check you don't need to disconnect all the cables, they may be still connected when you mess with the PS's internals (and even if not, that shouldn't take more than additional 5 minutes, unless you are somehow butterfingered. You can assemble an entire machine from scratch in under 15 minutes, practically tested couple years ago in order to win a bet - you need some practice though.
check out www.mini-box.com
from the cheap n chearful brigage