Rack / Cab mounts

[stussy]

Hi all

Hope this is OK to ask in here, but I figured you lot would have an answer!

We're going to need some rack/cabinet mount capability soon. At the moment we have 5 Dell tower servers, but space is becoming an issue and rack mounted servers make more sense.

I presume some of you at least look after these things? What I need to know is

a. anything in particular I should know? Pitfalls?
b. can I mount existing switches and patch panels in them?
c. If I have Dell kit should / do I need to buy Dell racks?

TIA

Mike

 

[LawnBoy]

a) Figure out what you're going to do with all those power cords. OSHA frowns on dangling them out the back of the cabinet and stretching them across what is now a walkway. You will need 30 inches clearance in front and back of that rack.

b) The Dell rack-mounts fit in a standard 4-post 19 inch rack. If your switches are 19 inch rack mountable they will fit in the same rack.

c) Dell has a mounting kit called VersaRails that will fit most generic racks.


"We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." - Sherlock Holmes

 

[LawnBoy]

One other thing, if you order the VersaRails make sure you are ordering the specific rails for the specific server. The VersaRails that fit on a PE2650 will not fit on a PE2850 (two mounting posts are off by about 1/8 inch, looks intentional to me).

They all fit the same rack, but hold different boxes.



"We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." - Sherlock Holmes

 

[NickFerrar]

Yeah cabling is the biggest pain with racks IME (especially KVM switches). We've stopped using the Dell cable management arms as they make it too awkward to get to the back of servers.

One other thing is you can buy tower-to-rack conversion kits from Dell if you want to turn your tower servers to proper rack servers, but just buying rack shelves would be a lot cheaper...

 

[stussy]

Thanks for the info. Nick - I've just had a quote through, and their guy suggested rack shelves for our towers anyway. The cab will go against a wall ultimately, so the cables issue will hopefully be a non-issue!

Lawnboy - thanks for the tip re specific servers - I let them know what we were putting in, so I'm hoping they spec the right rails!

Cheers

Mike