I’ve been trying to declutter my apartment for a while now, but I keep running into problems with servers and cables. I can’t exactly stack them on top of eachother to make them take up less space, right?
Queue the server rack.
I was really holding off, trying to find a server cabinet under $1000, but it just wasn’t happening. A cabinet was going to be ideal so I wouldn’t have to hear as many fans. Well, it turns out you can just use higher quality fans, and buy switches that are passively cooled. So.. that’s what I’ve done.
I ended up finding an 18U rack for around $250 on Amazon from a company named Sysracks. Reviews seemed fine, so I picked one up.
https://amzn.to/30A33Ij
The whole thing was about 50 pounds of steel, but assembly only took about an hour. I set the posts around 28″ deep so it could accomodate my NAS, then proceeded to rack everything else I picked up.
Surge Protector
Totally unnecessary, but I wanted to get a rackmountable surge protector with switches on the front. It’s not a game changer, but if I’m spending the money, I’d rather get the thing I’ve been wanting for a while.
https://amzn.to/3FVOj6P
One Rack Shelf
The eventual purpose is to hold my modem, but for the time being it’s pretty inconvenient to move my modem to the rack, so for the time being it just holds a few tools, cables, etc. Decided to go for a 14″ deep shelf. It’s a little more than I need currently, but it wasn’t too much more expensive, so I opted for the extra couple inches.
Patch Panel
Patch panels aren’t exactly… necessary. I decided to pick one up to keep the clutter to a minimum, but went with passthrough keystones instead of your standard patch keystones. The idea being that I can use any ethernet at any time, and if I decide to change things up, I don’t need to crimp an RJ-45 connector on the end later. More time now, less time later. Only requirement was CAT6 compatibility – we’re trying to keep this relatively easy to upgrade in the future.
https://amzn.to/3vkXk4v
Unmanaged Switch
My home router has 4 ethernet ports, and one WAN. This is a problem. I have 8 devices that I want to have a wired connection to. Wifi is great in some areas, but apartments get a ton of noise on all channels. If I want everything wired, the next logical step is an 8 port switch 24 PORT SWITCH BABY! I know there’s a good chance I’ll never use all the ports, but the price difference is insignificant between 16 and the 24 port switches. I’m going to be rackmounting everything, so an 8 port switch was out of the question. $50 difference between the 16 and the 24, so here we are. I ended up going with a gigabit switch over a 10 gig to save some money, and because I don’t have a single 10 gig NIC. I’m assuming prices will come down by the time I’m ready to build a house, so this will do until then.
Another benefit of gigabit over 10? Passive cooling! One of the major issues I have is fan noise. Since I cheaped out by getting the rack over a cabinet, I have no way to isolate any noise. The less fans (or the higher quality fans) the better.
I chose an unmanaged switch because I don’t have a whole lot of use for a managed one.. I’m really just using it for the extra ports – there’s not a whole lot in terms of security that I need to worry about for my use case.
Lastly, I ended up going with Netgear’s ProSafe switch because it was the cheapest one with good reviews across multiple sites.
https://amzn.to/3p9MSvt
Rail Kits
My god these are expensive. Who’d have thought that two peices of metal could cost so much. I opted for some universal rails to save money, and for reusability. They work more like shelves than rails, but they get the job done.
https://amzn.to/3n4N10J
2U Server Chassis
I spent a pretty long time digging for one of these. I needed to find something that can fit an ATX power supply, not be over $200 CAD, and be rackmountable. I tracked down a relatively cheap ($140 CAD) 2U chassis that fit my criteria, and although it was impossible to find reviews for it, it turned out to be pretty great. It’s clearly a cheaper product than my Rosewill 4U, but not by a whole lot. I ultimately have no complaints about it. iStarUSA… Good work. Keep making good, but cheap products!
https://amzn.to/3AOca4o
