• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

Project: Rackmount Overkill

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.
I just sent an email to the company that has the rack I want to see if the configuration I need will be in stock soon. Once they get back to me, I'll order it. Assuming that they do get this back in stock, it will be 24u tall, but I could go taller for a very small amount (24u -> 30u is $10 more, 24u -> 36u is $30 more).

Ordering a bigger rack isn't terrible because it unbolts into the core components, unlike my HP one.

I think we all do. A big rack never goes out of style.
I know that people go extreme lengths to get smaller racks. Depends how bad the issue is. Some do surgery, but I'm just flat out selling mine. heysexy.001.gif
 
lol I'm well versed in "bare network installations" :cool:

I like my 13U rack. Just need some more hardware so I can start the baby rack thread. Doesn't look like it's enough U for you though.
 
I know that people go extreme lengths to get smaller racks. Depends how bad the issue is. Some do surgery, but I'm just flat out selling mine. View attachment 129731

ive been thinking of this personally. cut it down to like 12ufree a ton of space. could just slide it under my desk or hide it somewhere else. 42u is over kill for me. it was very cheap though. lol
 
I finally got my M1015 card passing through using XCP. My file server is now virtualized. That was a huge pain to get going. XCP is awesome, except for the part where nothing is documented and all the information to get stuff working is found by searching for hours which ends you up on non-official forums where someone goes "oh hey I fixed it by doing x". They also fail to document really important notices or limitations, or fail to tell you that setting that option doesn't work. It just silently sets the option, pretends it is working, and does nothing.

For example, passing through devices to a paravirtualized VM doesn't work. It has to be fully virtualized (HVM).
 
Drives survived the move and everything data wise seems to be OK. ZFS is reporting that everything looks good.

Code:
[root@vm-fileserver samba]# zpool status
  pool: StoragePool
 state: ONLINE
  scan: scrub repaired 0 in 2h48m with 0 errors on Sat Jul  6 19:25:00 2013
errors: No known data errors
Now just the long road of getting everything configured and moved over to the new virtual machine. Trying to decide if I want to run CrashPlan in the file server virtual machine or in a different one.

rubyserverxcp.png
 
Someone knocked on my door today.

racksolutions_1.JPG
 
One side (front or back) assembled.
racksolutions_5.JPG



Whole unit assembled. I couldn't get pictures of it partially put together as it wasn't meant to be done by one person, so it would have been interesting.
racksolutions_6.JPG



Back of the rack with the power strip attached and the cable organizer.
racksolutions_7.JPG



All the equipment installed.
racksolutions_assembled_1.JPG


racksolutions_assembled_2.JPG



Yes, the Uniden is bolted to the rack. The rack has square holes on the side and has perfect spacing for the mounting bracket, so I put it there.
racksolutions_assembled_3.JPG



Wiring is far from final, but I wanted to get everything back up and running today.
racksolutions_assembled_4.JPG


racksolutions_assembled_5.JPG


racksolutions_assembled_6.JPG
 
The rack is incredibly well thought out and built well for the price. It isn't easy to build for one person, but pieces lock together nicely to make sure that it can't be slightly off to mess everything up. They include the square nuts and the matching bolts. For the top that I ordered, they include covers for holes you don't use, and protective lining for the ones you do; I was impressed by this. Once assembled, I would say it is structurally equivalent or better than my HP rack.

The only problem I hit wasn't their fault and there isn't really anything they could have done to prevent it: my Norco rails don't fit. Norco seemed like a good deal at the beginning as they were cheap, but the more I use their stuff, the more I dislike it. Their new rails are total garbage, and even the older "better" ones that I have are pretty terrible. I'm seriously considering replacing Ruby's chassis with something a lot better, but I'm not sure where to start. This also allows me to get redundant power supplies.

Option one is to un-for-sale my R510 and the SAS expander, then just use that. Since I figured out how to pass the M1015 into a virtual machine, this isn't a terrible idea. I still have all the parts left over for the server, so I'd just hook it up.

Option two is to get a totally new chassis for Ruby, such as a Supermicro case. I haven't looked to see if this is even an viable option or what is available.

Option three is to see what is "commercially" available, for example what is available from Dell. I'm guess this will be expensive.

Option four, ???

Is noise going to be an issue now that you are in a smaller living space?
Honestly? Yeah, they are a bit loud, but it isn't too bad. It only affects me, and I can sleep through a tornado hitting my home. In the winter we will not have to run any of the heaters.
 
After looking at my options, ordering a fixed shelf for Ruby is going to be the cheapest and least headache inducing option, by far. The Supermicro cases that will fit the number of drives I need are way more expensive than I thought they were. I thought they were going to be ~500-550 and they are in the range of 900+. Then I would also need to buy a motherboard to fit the processors, which is another 500. Dropping $1500 on a case/PSU/rail/motherboard is not attractive.

Using the R510 and the SAS expander is still an option, but that expander only holds 16 drives. While that would still work with the number of drives I'm currently using (16), I have no room for expansion, except for getting larger drives. However, this isn't a terrible option. I would still need to get a RAID controller that works with the server, as the LSI card that was in it did not work correctly with the drives up front. I'd also need to get disks for that system to use as a base in XCP. I could sell the HP SAS expander if I could find an internal SAS to external SAS PCI converter, which I know has to exist. This would give me the option of running two external SAS bays, which is 32 drives; more than I need.

The cheapest option is getting a shelf, which is $75 shipped. However, I'm seriously considering the R510 and SAS expander option. I just need to crunch some numbers to see how much the parts I have would sell for and what I would need to buy.
 
Thid, let me look at what rails I use on my 4020, see if I have "extras" and let you know. My rack uses the same (standard) square nuts and other than the lack of speed mounting it, I have little issue.

Also PM me, with the info on what you "want" to do with the shelf, I have a ton of "extra" hardware including shelves.
 
I already ordered the shelf, but I appreciate the offer. I don't think any of the Norco rails are going to fit, simply because they are designed poorly.
 
Back