[HN Gopher] Moving my PC into my rack in a 2U case
___________________________________________________________________
Moving my PC into my rack in a 2U case
Author : ingve
Score : 136 points
Date : 2023-02-16 17:54 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.jeffgeerling.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.jeffgeerling.com)
| omgtehlion wrote:
| I moved my PC/NAS to a similar 2U box. With onboard GPU, but
| instead 7 ssds and 10GbE network card.
|
| Though, I did it in a 2U optical cross box. I paid $30 for it,
| and replaced some panels with fans and grilles. Not 200 euros,
| holy moly!
| OJFord wrote:
| Standard tower cases can easily cost that (or more), perhaps
| partly driven by it increasingly only being gamers buying them
| (so you can charge more for RGB, funky angles, or also
| minimalism, etc.), but server stuff is often more expensive
| than a desktop counterpart would be, different market but also
| more specialised I suppose.
|
| I paid almost PS260 iirc for a 4U case with 16x3.5" hot swap
| bays, a few years ago, and that seemed like a great deal
| (without waiting for something used on eBay anyway). Now, I
| still haven't really made use of it... but that's on me.
| marpstar wrote:
| I spent a lot of time playing in bands and doing the home
| recording thing 10-15 years ago. Had a bunch of rack mount gear
| and dreamt of building out a mobile recording rig using a DJ
| case[1] like my dad had (for DJing weddings).
|
| Eventually found someone selling an old 4U (which is about as
| tall as a standard desktop is wide) ATX server case, locking
| front panel and all, on craigslist for cheap.
|
| It was super heavy (as was all of the other audio equipment), but
| having all of my stuff in one case (and only needing to set up a
| display, keyboard, and mouse) was pretty great. Never had much
| issue with heat/noise, but wasn't overly concerned at the time
| either.
|
| [1]: https://www.pssl.com/products/gator-console-
| rack-10-top-6-bo...
| amelius wrote:
| One important thing that server racks don't address is noise.
| imiric wrote:
| There are a few manufacturers that make silent racks[1].
| They're hard to come by, and are much more expensive than
| regular racks, but there's a small market for them.
|
| Otherwise, manual soundproofing is an option, but then you have
| heat to deal with.
|
| Most servers aren't very loud unless you're stressing the
| hardware, and fan settings can usually be tweaked, or fans
| replaced with silent alternatives.
|
| Still, you wouldn't want this kind of equipment humming next to
| you in the same room, so it's best to dedicate a small server
| closet, room, or garage, if you have the space.
|
| That said, a custom server build in a rack mounted enclosure is
| not the same as using enterprise servers. My gaming PC is in a
| 4U enclosure and is as quiet as any tower PC.
|
| [1]: http://quiet-rack.com/ranges.php
| m463 wrote:
| I think it's because out-of-sight, out-of-hearing-range...
|
| and the smaller the fan, the more RPMs (noise) needed to move
| the same quantity of air.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| Very much this.
|
| One interesting thing about going the rack route is that most
| of the hardware optimizes for considerations a data
| center/large corporation might have.
|
| That can be nice in a lot of ways (hardware is fairly robust,
| layouts are usually friendly for quick access/maintenance,
| overall density of machines is pretty good).
|
| But it means almost no one is paying attention to how much
| noise these things make, because for most of the target
| audience that's _WAY_ down the list of things they care about.
|
| I have a couple of - not elderly but not new - 1u and 2u
| machines, and they are LOUD AS FUCK. I used to run my server
| farm in my office when it was just spare personal computers
| (under the table I use for hobby projects), but I quickly ended
| up moving it down the basement when running the rack machines.
|
| They're just too loud for comfort on a semi-regular basis.
| reilly3000 wrote:
| Yep! I really got into a lot of trouble with my family for my
| HP G8 boxes. It was like the sonic equivalent of that episode
| of Seinfeld, where the Kenny Rogers Roaster sign was outside
| of Kramer's apartment.
|
| There are fans mods and firmware updates, but in the end it's
| probably the best use of one's time to buy G9+ as they are
| far quieter. /r/homelab has some great data about these
| issues.
|
| Also watch out for network gear. A 48 port POE brocade switch
| was as loud if not louder than the servers.
|
| Pro-tip: if you can spare more rack units, get a bigger
| server case. 1U is usually far louder than 2+
| deepspace wrote:
| Yes! I went down the rackmount rathole about 20 years ago, and
| for 10 years all my computing equipment was installed in a 44u
| cabinet.
|
| The problem is that rack mount plus low noise equals very high
| cost, if it is even achievable. Eventually I could not stand
| the noise anymore, and got rid of the rack. So did every single
| one of my colleagues who tried rackmount.
|
| As others have mentioned rackmount equipment is also expesive,
| often ridiculously so. I am very happy to leave racks in the
| data center where they belong.
| layoric wrote:
| This is what turned me off as well. I ended up getting older
| Dell 2011-3 dual socket workstation for cheap. Still heaps of
| power, room for upgrades but whisper quiet when idle and under
| load.
| leetrout wrote:
| > I still run on a boring old 60 Hz 1080p monitor
|
| This is surprising to me. I really enjoy 4k for the better text
| readability.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| I should've been more specific -- I do that on my
| gaming/secondary PC. My main Mac Studio setup is run through a
| 27" 4K LG display (which is also at 60 Hz, though).
| bravetraveler wrote:
| For someone that reads as many logs as you/I do - I strongly
| suggest looking into high refresh rates!
|
| They seem very gaming oriented, because well, they are - but
| being able to read things as they fly by is a huge help. I'm
| always the person in calls at work going: "you missed it!"
| geerlingguy wrote:
| Haha that sounds like it could be its own gaming
| competition--competitive log streaming.
|
| I have done that though, where you just let loose the
| firehose, and scan for patterns during some nasty event.
| mbreese wrote:
| I've been unknowingly training for this competition for
| years.
| sophacles wrote:
| I worked at an ISP for a while where we set up a
| projector display and just had the log firehose on the
| wall at all times. I never really paid direct attention
| to it, and it had terrible resolution and a lowish
| refresh rate. Even still, the human brain is an amazing
| pattern matching machine and the feed gave us a lot of
| useful insight. Regularly someone on the team, even non-
| technical folks, would walk by and say "oh looks like
| $customer is having problems" just because their brain
| had divined a pattern from exposure and correlation.
| Sometimes we could turn those moments into automated
| alarms, sometimes we couldn't figure out how our brains
| made the determination.
|
| To this day I still try to keep a log feed visible along
| with the grafanas or whatever - it is shockingly useful
| even if I don't ever read those logs on the display.
| bravetraveler wrote:
| Even creating sub-communities; log sanitation at-scale!
| I'm game :)
| dijit wrote:
| I have yet to find a decent 16:10 4k monitor. :(
|
| So for now I'll keep my ancient dell 1080p displays.
| ziml77 wrote:
| It's been so many years since 16:10 monitors were abandoned
| by manufacturers and I'm still sad about it.
|
| Though ultrawide does lift my spirits a bit. Doesn't improve
| the feel of the desktop for productivity, but gaming is
| excellent (first person games become more immersive and in
| WoW my screen is so much less cluttered with less important
| elements pushed way out to the side).
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Don't think it exists. There are 2560x1600, but they're 30"
| so the DPI isn't particularly high.
|
| If you have 1080p though you're already on 16:9, did you mean
| 1920x1200?
| dijit wrote:
| Yes, but "1200p" isn't universal parlance :/
| noncoml wrote:
| I'm very particular about my monitors. Which models do you
| recommend?
| dijit wrote:
| I have Dell U2412M's.
|
| there is a new "USB-C Hub" monitor which is 16:10, but also
| 1920px across from dell: U2421E
|
| https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-ultrasharp-usb-c-hub-
| mo...
| E39M5S62 wrote:
| I've always called those '1200p' monitors, to
| differentiate them from other similar screens. I have a
| pair of Dell U2415's (and U2715H's) on my desk and
| they're fantastic screens.
| kentonv wrote:
| So I'm the guy who rack-mounted a bunch of game machines for
| https://kentonshouse.com -- and am currently nearing completion
| of a new house with even more machines. Here's some of the
| challenges I've personally encountered in this.
|
| *Fitting the GPU*
|
| A normal GPU, mounted in the normal way (perpendicular to the
| motherboard), will not fit in a 2U case.
|
| It looks like Jeff's solution was to buy a half-height GPU. Neat!
| I didn't actually realize those exist. But it looks like NVidia's
| regular consumer-oriented GPUs don't come in this form factor;
| Jeff instead went with an RTX A2000, which is part of NVidia's
| "professional" GPU line. The problem with this is that it's way
| more expensive to achieve the same gaming performance.
|
| In my previous house I solved the problem by using 3U chassis.
| This provides _just_ enough space to mount the GPU perpendicular.
| However, it still had problems. Modern GPUs require supplementary
| power direct from the PSU. The socket for this usually points
| outward, away from the motherboard. In a 3U chassis, this socket
| is right up against the top plate so there is no room to plug in
| the power. Sometimes you can find a GPU that has the power socket
| pointing in a different direction, but they have become rare. I
| actually had to physically mod ten GTX 1060 's by hand, cutting
| away the plastic socket housing and directly attaching each power
| wire to the corresponding pin. Big PITA but it worked.
|
| In the new house I'm going with 2U, but using a riser card. So,
| the GPU is mounted parallel to the motherboard. This seems to
| work OK. The big problem is ensuring the chassis and the
| motherboard both have their expansion slots aligned right for
| this. Most 2U chassis are designed for perpendicular, half-height
| expansion cards. A smaller fraction support full-height parallel
| cards on a riser. The motherboard also has to have a PCIe slot in
| the correct place for the riser. This is usually the "top" slot,
| closest to the CPU, and I've noticed a lot of motherboards these
| days are opting to omit that slot to make more space around the
| CPU.
|
| The chassis I'll probably go with is the iStarUSA D-200:
| https://www.istarusa.com/en/istarusa/products.php?model=D-20...
|
| (I'm not too excited about it though, and would be happy for
| other recommendations.)
|
| At least one motherboard that worked when I tried it was the ASUS
| PRIME B660-PLUS, but I haven't made a final motherborad selection
| yet.
|
| A further problem which might be specific to this chasis is that
| the total horizontal space between the riser card and the power
| supply is tight. Some GPUs are excessively "tall" and won't fit.
| (The same problem probably applies to 3U chassis with
| perpendicular mounting.) I was just barely able to fit the EVGA
| GeForce RTX 3070 Ti 08G-P5-3785-K into the space.
|
| *RAM orientation*
|
| Servers orient their RAM modules parallel to the direction of air
| current, that is, perpendicular to the back of the chasis. For
| reasons I don't understand, consumer / gaming motherboards almost
| never do this, they orient the RAM parallel to the back. Maybe
| this is because desktop chassis are not usually optimized for
| efficient airflow anyway so it doesn't matter? And there's more
| space on the board if the RAM can be mounted this way? I dunno.
|
| Anyway, in my experiments so far this has just not caused a
| problem. Yeah, the RAM has non-ideal orientation, but there
| haven't been any issues with overheating. ::shrug::
|
| *PSU*
|
| Servers use a different form factor of PSU. This is infuriating
| because all the server PSUs available retail seem to be terrible
| compared to desktop PSUs! They tend not to support higher-end
| wattage (needed for power-hungry GPUs) and they are never
| "modular" (you get a bundle of cords sticking out of the PSU and
| there's no way to remove the ones you don't need except with
| scissors).
|
| There are some 2U chassis that actually allow you to mount a
| desktop PSU. However, in practice they are not actually
| compatible with any modern desktop PSU, because all such PSUs
| these days are designed with their intake fan on the top or
| bottom, not on the front/back. In a 2U chassis, that intake will
| be totally blocked by the top/bottom of the chassis.
|
| I am going to have to live with crappy server PSUs I guess.
|
| *Retail server market is awkward*
|
| More generally, I get the general feeling that the server-
| oriented components which are available via normal retail
| channels like NewEgg are... not what big server farms actually
| use. Everything seems kinda crappy? Maybe I just feel this way
| because they don't candy-coat everything the way the consumer
| market does. But I have the funny feeling that people building
| out datacenters generally order mass quantities of chassis, PSUs,
| and even motherboards tailored specifically to their needs, and
| as a result the retail market for server components may be
| surprisingly small and poorly served. But that's just my
| suspicion based on my experiences here.
| systems_glitch wrote:
| I went through this in the early 2000s when I was a) exposed to
| rack stuff in CCNA class in high school/votech and b) dot-com
| surplus started showing up really cheap on eBay.
|
| Nowadays my desktops are either SFF or mid-tower CAD
| workstations. We've got some control computers racked with test
| equipment/tools but they're not really general purpose
| workstations.
| abudabi123 wrote:
| Is there science to support the vertical arrangement of server-
| pizza-boxes as books on a bookshelf as being passively cooler?
| The horizontal orientation makes sense for servicing which would
| be possible by a hinge mechanism like those hidden tables in the
| arm rest of a fancy design chair.
| noncoml wrote:
| Recently I found myself with a mini ITX motherboard and got a
| Ghost S1 case for it. The space saved and convenience of such a
| small factor is life changing. I'm never going back to ATX and
| big towers.
| ncrmro wrote:
| I got a Raw S1 which I love form factor wise.
|
| My Ryzen 5800X3D I think has issues with c states which caused
| reboots from low to high power states.
|
| Thought it was the 3800RTX and 600w PSU. Upgrade SFX-l which
| has you loose the rear 120mm fan.
|
| Whole thing really started to cook itself till I disabled the c
| state and switched back to the 600w
| ct0 wrote:
| Did the same thing, harder to build but the space savings is
| fantastic.
| noncoml wrote:
| Yeah, you need to plan your build order a bit. Can't just
| shove everything in and then find out you didn't connect the
| cpu power
| heelix wrote:
| In the early 90's, my Bride considered the pile of computers
| around my desk. "Why not just get one big one?" Fast forward a
| couple weeks where I was shopping at the Lockheed outlet store -
| and found a Sun 3/280s and 19" wide, 8' tall rack for $25. She
| was not amused to have a 'big one' the size of a fridge in our
| tiny apartment.
|
| That old server has gone through many, many incarnations of
| hardware.
| kvandy wrote:
| What did you run on it?
| toast0 wrote:
| I had a proliant 7000 (quad pentium II xeon) for a while, it
| was 16U and as loud as three vacuum cleaners. The spouse was
| very happy when that disappeared.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| Haha you were _technically_ correct, the best kind!
| rexreed wrote:
| Is there a website or link for more details on that Lockheed
| store?
| heelix wrote:
| I think it closed down when they shut down the factories here
| in the Minneapolis area (Eagan). It was a neat place, at the
| time.
| systems_glitch wrote:
| Still have the Sun3? :P
| heelix wrote:
| Just the shell, but it is loved. :) Will be housing a new
| threadripper next, when AMD gets around to the zen 4
| releases.
|
| https://i.imgur.com/S5F31qW.jpg
| https://i.imgur.com/SpMMPXQ.jpg
|
| The magic had already left the old Sun hardware, when we
| tried it.
| systems_glitch wrote:
| Probably why it was surplussed. Pretty much all of that era
| stuff requires hacking to go, nowadays.
| metadat wrote:
| Nerd heaven, beautiful.
| dmd wrote:
| My wife came into our relationship with not just one, not just
| two, but THREE NeXTcubes. I negotiated her down to one
| actually-working one and one decorative one, and gave away the
| third.
| suprjami wrote:
| And she still married you. Lucky guy.
| dmd wrote:
| Well, I came with a Sun 4/110 that I'd been dragging around
| for decades, so it wasn't that one-sided.
| ziml77 wrote:
| A few years ago I bought a switch that could rack mount and ended
| up looking at getting a rack to put most of my stuff in. I
| quickly abandoned that idea when I saw that rack mount makes
| things cost significantly more. I remember that the UPS pricing
| was especially nasty. Felt like they were just charging what they
| could get away with considering that it's really only businesses
| buying rack mount equipment.
|
| Though if I ever buy I house I might end up going Linus level
| crazy and put a rack in the basement or a utlity room with fiber
| optic cabling back to my desk for peripherals to attach.
| deeesstoronto wrote:
| I've had a bunch of APC SmartUPS 1500 in both tower and rack
| formats.
|
| I found the batteries in the rack version, where batteries lay
| on their sides, reach end of life much sooner than the tower
| version, where batteries are upright.
|
| It's likely poorer heat dissipation/ventilation in the rack
| version, but may have to do with battery orientation. The rack
| version also seems to suffer corrosion damage from battery off-
| gasing if batteries reach critical failure and overheat. I
| haven't seen the same damage on the tower units. Again some
| combination of orientation and ventilation.
| yardie wrote:
| The batteries are sealed lead acid AGMs. Where orientation
| isn't a concern because the electrolyte is gelified in
| fiberglass. Also, they shouldn't be off-gassing at all.
| That's the sealed part. I've had SLA batteries puff up. And
| if you are getting corrosion in and around the AP chassis you
| may have a leak.
|
| Typically, what determines the life of these batteries is #
| of cycles and # of deep discharges. The more extreme the
| environment the shorter the life time. I have network
| equipment sit outdoors in a cabinet. The batteries typically
| last 24-36 months instead of the 48-60 months I see from
| indoor UPSes.
| metadat wrote:
| Wow, outside?
|
| I recently had a Supermicro board die because it became
| infested with moths out in the garage, it was disgusting
| and the board was borked even after extensive cleaning.
|
| How do you keep wildlife at bay? (insects and rodents are
| attracted to heat and shelter).
|
| Maybe some kind of solid metal cabinet enclosure like the
| public utility boxes along some roadsides?
| toast0 wrote:
| orientation isn't supposed to be a concerned with SLA
| batteries, but it's probably nicer for them to be upright
| than not... when the seals do fail, it's better to have the
| electrolyte seep out and stay on top than seep out and drip
| onto something else.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| I could believe the consumer models are actually built to a
| higher standard. A rack mount unit is likely going to be
| climate controlled, minimal vibration, actively monitored,
| etc. The consumer units will be subjected to all manners of
| hell: pet hair, zero ventilation, installed and forgotten.
| Nobody wants the UPS to burn down the house.
| Lammy wrote:
| > I saw that rack mount makes things cost significantly more
|
| Double-edged sword. Higher prices brand new, but vastly cheaper
| used if you chase companies' deprecation cycles.
| icelancer wrote:
| Absolutely. Many small businesses are powered by two-
| generations-ago rack mounted appliances and blades.
|
| It's often the most cost effective way to get redundant and
| A+A power supplies in servers that you need to protect beyond
| simple UPS methods.
|
| Source: Loving the 2U and 4U blades with 2017-2020 era EPYC
| and Xeon processors with dirt-cheap Tesla P40 24GB VRAM GPUs
| in them for inference and all sorts of compute loads.
| mindslight wrote:
| In my personal computing experience, the main value of a rack
| is still the density, as it is in the datacenter. Moving one or
| two ATX PCs, a UPS, and switch into a half height rack isn't
| that much of a win (compared to the floor and/or basic
| shelving). But double that much into a full height rack is.
|
| You don't need strictly rackmount hardware either. I just have
| a pair of non-rack SUA1500's sitting next to one another on the
| solid bottom built into the rack (not even a movable shelf).
| The battery type is much more common than the rackmount
| versions.
|
| Case wise I'd just recommend 4U all the way for full size
| cards, coolers, and fans. Smaller fans make more noise.
|
| Also just spend the money on cases with hot swap disk bays for
| any machine you plan to have more than a few drives. You'll end
| up wanting them sooner or later, and it's nicer to run the SATA
| cabling once with how cramped rack cases can get in places.
| aftbit wrote:
| On the other hand, surplus rack mount servers are very cheap on
| eBay. You can certainly stick non-rack UPSes into a rack. I did
| this for about a year (two APCs sitting at the bottom of the
| rack) before I got a great deal on some surplus rackmount
| UPSes.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| Yeah; buying new is extremely expensive. Many cities have an
| e-waste recycler from whom you can get great deals (otherwise
| browse Craigslist and Marketplace, there are good deals
| (sometimes free) on older equipment.
|
| For UPSes, a reputable brand (like APC) will still function
| fine but might need new batteries, which are a lot cheaper
| than a whole UPS.
| Brybry wrote:
| Where do you get new UPS batteries for cheap?
|
| I haven't shopped rackmount UPS before but for lower end
| consumer APC UPS the official batteries from Amazon or the
| APC website are often the same price or more expensive than
| a whole new APC UPS from a slickdeals-spotted sale.
| radus wrote:
| https://excessups.com/ sells batteries and UPS units. The
| downside is they can be quite slow to ship.
| runjake wrote:
| https://www.batteriesplus.com/battery/ups
| ziml77 wrote:
| That's a great point about a second-hand UPS. My mind has
| been tainted by all the non-removable batteries inside
| consumer products so I completely forgot that a worn-out
| battery on an old UPS is easy to replace.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >I saw that rack mount makes things cost significantly more.
|
| there's a logical reason for this though. it's a pretty safe
| assumption that you're in a larger facility if you're rack
| mounting. a lot of rack mount chasis come with features like
| dual PSUs and other redundant features. redundancy does cost.
|
| >put a rack in the basement or a utlity room
|
| They make enclosures[0] that are smaller than a full rack, but
| allow for rack mounting equipment. you can then just shove this
| enclosure on a shelf or wherever. much more convenient than a
| full on server rack.
|
| [0] https://www.amazon.com/Wall-Mount-Server-Rack-
| Cabinet/dp/B07...
| ziml77 wrote:
| In most cases I do agree the extra price is there for a
| reason. It was specifically the UPSes that seemed absurd.
|
| And the reason I would put the equipment in another room
| would be to keep the heat away from the living space. A
| basement would be especially good for that since it's
| natually a cooler area.
|
| Still good to know about the smaller racks though. My bank
| account is much healthier than the last time I looked into
| rack mounting so I might actually get one that size for my
| apartment now. It would really neaten things up.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I bought one (probably not the exact one i linked) for
| mounting a UPS and a home security camera DVR unit (I don't
| buy into the security as a service from all of those
| options), but it never got installed. So the DVR/UPS just
| sit stacked on a shelf unprotected, but that's what the
| missus wanted. So now it's that thing that just sits there
| taking up space that is hard to sell at a garage sale, and
| I can't be bothered to create an ebay account to sell it.
|
| Also, even if you don't have rack mount equipment, they
| make the shelves you can attach to the rack mounts and set
| other gear on them. So yeah, you can really clean some
| stuff up with these.
| amelius wrote:
| Another reason is that it's targeted at businesses, not
| consumers.
| kobalsky wrote:
| > when I saw that rack mount makes things cost significantly
| more
|
| no way, are you telling me that a $180 rackable shelf is a
| scam?
|
| https://www.rackmountsolutions.net/fixed-writing-shelf/
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| or even the Ikea "lack rack" -- 2 x $10 ikea tables. just so
| happen to be the right width for servers.
| deviantbit wrote:
| I moved my two workstations into two 4U cases. Not going back.
| chao- wrote:
| I moved my desktop into a 4U case* about six years ago and never
| looked back. Then I wanted to build my own NAS and--oh look at
| that I already have one rackmount chassis... I guess I'll get
| another and some posts? I did and it was also a great call.
|
| *Larger fans running slower for less noise
| Lammy wrote:
| I have a similar build but using this 2U case that puts all the
| ports/cards in the front:
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LX0SO53/
| geerlingguy wrote:
| That's a nice looking case! Seems like it would be especially
| good for a router or networking box. In the course of my build
| I found out about PlinkUSA and Sliger, who both have a few
| decent 2U options for those of us who don't want screaming
| server fans.
| binaryanomaly wrote:
| I have this as well https://www.yakkaroo.de/19-zoll-2he-server-
| gehaeuse-ipc-c236... with Noctua fans installed.
|
| I run proxmox, opnsense (virtualized) and other workloads on
| it. It's really good and runs almost completely silent because
| of the Noctua fans.
|
| The build quality of the case is lower end though with sharp
| edges!
| cptskippy wrote:
| I'm confused why you'd choose ITX and a chassis that requires
| half height cards. There are plenty of 2U chassis that accept ITX
| and allow full height cards rotated 90 degrees using a riser.
| buildbot wrote:
| Tangential - does anyone know of a good smallish rack that has
| some sound deadening but also can mount say, a c4140 that is 36in
| long? Would be nice to rack all my computer gear in one place,
| but if so, I would want to put everything in it.
| alexjplant wrote:
| No idea about sound deadening capabilities but the live sound
| industry also uses the 19" rack standard so there are a bunch
| to choose from [1] if you want something non-traditional from a
| computing perspective. The roto-molded Gators were my personal
| favorite when I was trafficking a lot in rack systems... even
| more tangentially I really wish I'd help onto my ADA rig (MP-1,
| Quadraverb, Microtube 200) as now they're going for stupid
| amounts of money.
|
| [1] https://www.sweetwater.com/c459--Rackmount_Cases
| buildbot wrote:
| I need almost 40in of rackable depth :/
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| Pelican makes a 30" rack depth portable case. Not quite 40"
| but almost there.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| I remember TechnoTim (on YouTube/Twitch) installed a fully
| enclosed rack that had temperature-controlled fans at the top
| for extra ventilation. It seemed like he liked how it muted the
| noise a bit, but I'm not sure how much.
| vluft wrote:
| tripplite has an 18u (SRQ18U) than can do 37" deep; I've had
| one for a few years and it works well. You'll still here 40mm
| screamers running at full speed, but it cuts down on noise a
| lot.
| suprjami wrote:
| I have a coworker whose entire family PCs are rack mounted in the
| garage. He has HDMI and USB extensions through the house, so the
| only thing on desks is a monitor and powered USB hub. Perfectly
| silent. It seems very comfy.
| rektide wrote:
| Was super easy & fun when we were on 1080p60!
|
| But that became kind of limiting for my preferences. For a
| while it wasnt really practical, unless you could accept this
| pretty low bandwidth stream.
|
| But now fiber-optic display cables are readily available. My
| first purchase was a 100ft/30m 32Gbps DisplayPort cable, for
| $55! To be honest, I couldnt believe it worked; I assumed it
| was a scam.
|
| It's indeed excessively long... too long! I can make it out my
| room & up to the roof & compute from there with less than half
| the cable. It's way harder to unroll & reroll than any cable
| I've ever had before, but also way longer. I have since gone
| back and bought shorter cables.
|
| Thankfully active extension cables are pretty good & tend to
| just work. Newer models have an inline 1-port usb-hub every
| 25ft/7.5 (used to be every 5m), and then a wall-wart at the end
| to power the hubs (to honest that feels like it should be
| unnecessary; a dc-dc booster mid-span & bus power should be
| fine, albeit leaving nearly no power available at the end).
|
| Also beware, there's a 7 tier limit from root-hub to device, so
| 5 hubs maximum * 7.5m, if you only plug in a single thing (a
| wireless keyboard/mouse dongle).
| KaiserPro wrote:
| You can also rack mount "workstations" from HP and Dell.
|
| The downside is that they are 4/5u. But they are a fucktonne
| quieter than server hardware.
|
| The difficult part is getting the HDMI/DP extenders to work
| reliably or low latency enough without spending $2k.
|
| Having said all that, Jeff's approach is most likley cheaper, if
| more fiddly. its certainly neater and more compact.
| vluft wrote:
| fiber optic DP cables are maybe $70 or $80 and work pretty well
| in my experience.
|
| on the pricier side if you have something with TB support, you
| can do display and USB over that to a fiber optic TB cable
| (about $400); this is my current setup for my racked PC in
| another room to my office, with a TB hub (caldigit TS4) that
| splits out display and USB.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| I should have looked again before I posted that last part.
|
| when I last did this it was for a VFX house. They used a
| fibre "sender" and for really long distance they used a
| teradici system.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| That sounds similar to the setup Linus (from LTT) is using at
| his house: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy312cUHumk
| LeSaucy wrote:
| Any idea if those are thunderbolt 4? Its hard to find any
| vendor that will state support for 4K144hz through a dock
| over any sort of extension, right now I am limited to "only"
| 4K60.
| kentonv wrote:
| I have a 50ft Monoprice SlimRun DisplayPort cable on my 4k
| 144hz gaming monitor and it works great. However, it's just
| a DisplayPort cable, not thunderbolt, direct from PC to
| monitor, no dock. And it cost $170. :/
| shmoogy wrote:
| I run a fiber optic display port and can do 4K 120 from 50
| feet away. Thunderbolt cables are incredibly expensive I
| just ran the DisplayPort, an Ethernet, and usb cable - not
| sure I've seen any TB4 optical cables that are long lengths
| yet, just the Apple one that's like 6 feet for $200. You
| can buy Tb3 ones for 400 or so.
| vluft wrote:
| the only available fiber optic thunderbolt cables I'm aware
| of right now are from corning, and they are thunderbolt 3.
| I'm running 5120x1440@120hz through it (and a variety of
| USB); 4k144hz would be about 35% more bandwidth. Corning
| lists the cable as supporting 2x4k or 1x5k (presumably both
| at 60hz); 5k is the same bandwidth as mine, and 2x4k is
| some what more but less than 4k144hz. Total bandwidth on
| the cable is 40g and bandwidth needed for 4k144hz is about
| 32g I believe. can't guarantee it'd work, but 4k120hz
| probably does?
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| Dell T7810/5810/5820s can be had second hand for practically
| nothing and they have fairly modern build specs. They're sized
| to fit in racks with some basic L shaped rails. They also make
| great under desk systems as they're whisper quiet.
| avsteele wrote:
| A 3U case can support full height cards. Anyone have a favorite
| 3U rackmount PC case?
|
| The only I've used and like goes out of stock regularly though.
| neilv wrote:
| When I built my most recent home GPU server, it seemed like 3U
| wasn't tall enough to fit a big GPU upright, given the PCIe
| power connectors on top of the card, so I went 4U.
|
| Though I think you could get a double-wide GPU into a 2U with a
| PCIe riser cable/card.
| vluft wrote:
| heck, you'll have difficulty fitting a 4090 in a 4U without
| special right-angle pcie power connectors
| vluft wrote:
| I have a 4u, not a 3u, but sliger has one now that should be
| pretty good.
| https://www.sliger.com/products/rackmount/3u/cx3151a/ has a
| riser for doing a modern (heh) sized graphics card.
| Lammy wrote:
| For 3U/4U I like iStarUSA cases. I went for 4U for the quieter
| 120mm fans and so it can fit half-hight bays sideways on the
| front panel. Here's my video encoding workstation in an
| iStarUSA D-400L-7SE: https://imgur.com/a/YLjDX0e
| withinrafael wrote:
| I'm slowly migrating some homelab equipment to a StarTech 24U but
| am stuck at cable management. Are there any resources on how you
| manage cables, particularly at the sides/rear of the rack? Are
| those cable management arms still a go-to?
| pbronez wrote:
| Zipties. So. Many. Zipties.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| I use zipties when I have a more permanent install (like this
| one), but will use velcro ties (you can get a huge pack on
| Amazon for under ten bucks) when I know I'll be swapping
| things out here and there.
| yboris wrote:
| Are there any rack mount cases with 6-8 (3.5") hard drive slots
| that are under $100?
| denimnerd42 wrote:
| not in 2023. Under 200 yes.
| yboris wrote:
| Where is a good place to shop? NewEgg? Are there better
| prices elsewhere?
| kube-system wrote:
| You can get close if that's all you're looking for:
|
| https://www.ebay.com/itm/124039115388
|
| With adapters for the 5.25 bays, this meets the criteria:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/RackChoice-Compact-Rackmount-Chassis-...
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