Why Are Commercial Rackmounted Servers So Long?

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jmroberts70

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I'm trying to rehab a real estate office in my town. I'm building an all-new patch panel, switches, and router lineup in their network room using wall-mounted rack cabinets. The deepest ones I can find are just 23" deep (which is still pretty deep considering).

I want to replace their aging Dell PowerEdge 1900 tower with a newer model that I can rackmount and keep secure but it seems like all the rackmounted commercial server systems out there are around 3' long!! Am I looking in the wrong places? Does anyone know of a good general fleserver formfactor that isn't so deep? I really don't want to "roll my own"...
 
I don't know if they are still around, but there was a company named "Rackable Systems" that made 2U, half-depth servers.

You can also get vertical rack mounts like these:
VRack_1916-3-000-04.jpg
 
Hell, I'd even be happy with a 4U server if it wasn't so deep. I need them in a cabinet so they can be locked and protected...

Rackable Systems is now a part of SGI but it looks like they're still at it. Great suggestion!! Thanks wizdum.
 
Depending on your needs, you might look at a Dell R210 or R220. I have a buddy that has installed them as file servers, and I've also seen them installed as bandwidth testing servers w/ 10gb interfaces. They are only 16 inches, so they might work out pretty well.

I also know that SuperMicro makes some rackmount servers in a short form factor, although the ones I have seen are normally running an Atom.
 
Yeah, I considered the R210 but I'd prefer redundant power supplies and more than one full-size hard drive (I'd prefer 4-5 for a decent RAID).
 
The wall mounted rack cabinets get way to hot with servers of any kind in them.
They are designed for networking only and if you have something that runs hot in them they can be problematic unless they have a noisy fan.

They are best with office type switches.
They work fine with the hp 1800 series.
Anything hotter I would not use them.
 
You can get a case to match that rack, but if you need any real horsepower you'll need a real rack.
 
The 2-post / 4-post rack concept actually makes sense. Thanks Grentz for the explanation.

Horsepower wise, the server requirements are pretty basic. There's a very simple piece of software running on their current Windows Server 2003 system (that's getting upgraded to 2013 in the move).

I was thinking that I may go with an SGI Rackmountable Systems 3U half-depth server with some strong ventilation fans in the case for cooling. However, the next problem is a heavy-duty UPS... Most of the ones above 1500VA are ALSO super deep and probably are intended to sit in a 4-post cabinet as well. I guess I have no choice here but to install a deep rack cabinet in the room...
 
Better off getting a proper depth rack. You never know what kind of equipment you may want to put in it later down the line so better to future proof.
 
if it doesn't have much data and limited use, the r210 series is good and you can use a cyberpower rackmount the 750va would power that thing and isn't deep.

raid 1 should be plenty for a simple program. or even use SSD since the R210 are cheap.
 
I cannot imagine a real estate office will want the noise of a rack server, or the need for a rack. Why not keep it simple and get a tower? Dell has towers with dual PSU, and you can fit your disks in there.
 
sc0tty8 said:
I cannot imagine a real estate office will want the noise of a rack server, or the need for a rack. Why not keep it simple and get a tower? Dell has towers with dual PSU, and you can fit your disks in there.
Click to expand...

pretty much this, no need for a rack mount server in that situation
 
I have a separated network room that all this equipment is running in. Noise is not a problem. We are already running a tower server, sitting on a shelf, inside a 8' rack cabinet... On wheels. I'm trying to secure our network equipment to wall-mounted rack cabinets that won't topple over in an earthquake (an issue where we are). and not take up so much floor space.
 
I would also go with a tower-type server, but if you have to have it secured to the wall, go with the mount that wizdum recommended.
 
Even the "quiet" rackmount servers, with fans that actively spin-down when temps are low, are still orders of magnitude louder than "typical" tower servers. It's just a function of the size fans they get to use. Big tower case, big slow RPM fans. Tiny rackmount-heihgt case, tiny high RPM fans.

Keep the networking gear in the wall rack, keep the server separate.
 
Yeah, the problem is that my network room is also the only "storage" room in the office. I'm putting in shelving on the other walls all the way to the ceiling just to keep things more tidy but I fully expect people to be walking in and out of this room frequently. I'd like to keep all my networking and server equipment secured and safe inside of a lockable cabinet but I'm running into problems with both the server and UPS.

I recently installed the equipment you see below in a smaller office for the same company (no server and just about a dozen clients). I was able to fit a 1500VA UPS in the cabinet but anything larger is just not going to fit in a wall-mounted cabinet.
bad-network-17.jpg


I suppose I could just get a half-height 4-post server cabinet and anchor it to the floor near the corner with room to reach around it for cabling our servicing needs. Like this...
bad-network-18.jpg
 
supermicro sells shallow servers that are great for small uses... but you have to be more specific about what you need... as far as storage, cpu, mem...

you could easily build a quad core xeon, 16GB ram 2x 2.5" 1TB drive server in a 9" deep 1U form factor...
 
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