News item: Chassis manufacturers and distributors from North America to Taipei can not keep up with demand for 1U rack mount enclosures. Any quantity orders made today will ship in late March.
The rush on thin rack mount chassis servers with a Linux operating system seems remarkable. The engineers at Cobalt Networks (NASDAQ:COBT) pointed the world to a computer that could stack 42 systems high on a standard rack. Now, people have made this the latest computer craze. First, ISPs and people with limited rack space created the basis for a market. Soon, people began to see the advantage of the smaller form factor in everyday computer life.
This article should take the mystery out of the 1U rack mount computer and allow you to build your own. Of course, you have to decide if buying a pre-built model serves your
needs. Many Linux users prefer to build their own systems and those who don't have many manufacturers from whom to chose.
You might discover that finding a supplier of the small chassis as the most difficult part of your project. So, we can make this much easier for you. The people at
General Technics (www.gtweb.net) sell their IPC Case 3 Bay 1U ATX 150W [Beige] chasis for $268. This may seem a bit pricy compared to the $79 conventional case. Considering supply, demand and what other distributors charge, General Technics (GT) provides a high quality case with a single riser card for the lowest price we have found.
GT calls their case the CS 440. The dimensions make this chassis a tight fit and you'll soon discover you'll need a special motherboard and accessories. The height is only 1.75
inches while the CS440 case itself is about 17 wide and 22.5 inches deep. The distributor pegs the weight at 21 pounds.
The most popular motherboard for the 1U rack belongs to Intel. A standard Intel Brand CA 810
board will provide you with ample resources. Fry's sells the Celeron only version for $119. Many people buy the Intel Pentium III board which Fry's sells for $149. I like the lower priced motherboard because I don't see much performace difference between the Celeron and the Pentium III for my server needs. Staying with the Celeron also saves you money.
The stock CA810 doesn't come with a Network Interface Card. Intel offers an optional 10-100BaseT ethernet card on board in the CA810LA. You may want to pass on that option in
favor of the Intel® PRO/100+ Dual Port Server Adapter (PILA8472 DPA).
The 1U case has room for one riser card which fits a standard PCI slot. The card makes a right angle which allows for one peripheral device. Using Intel's PILA8472 DPA allows you to have two adapters in the same space. The cost of the DPA
can run between $200 and $300 depending on how and where you buy. If you only need a single ethernet port, 10/100 cards support by Linux can run as low as $20.
Once you decide on your ethernet card, you'll need a processor, memory and a hard
drive. One popular choice is the Celeron 500MHZ 128K L2-cache PGA-370 which comes
with a 3 year warranty. The PGA-370 has a flat form factor similar to the original Pentiums which fit into a Ziff socket. The Celeron and Pentium III processors both
come in PGA-370 form. The current price for the Celeron 500 runs approximately $135 with a cooling fan. You'll need a low profile fan for two reasons. First, a standard fan would
exceed the 1.75 inch height of the 1U case. Secondly, even if one modified an existing fan, it might clear the 1.75 inch height but without clearance. This would cause the fan
to pull air and speed up similarly to when you put your hand over a vacuum cleaner hose.
The heat generated from the air suction on the processor fan would cause the processor and
components to fail. Make sure your cooling fan has enough clearance to turn freely and
circulate air normally.
Memory prices seem to change every day. The Intel CA810 board has two 168 pin dimm
slots. You can run up to 512 MB of RAM. Even so, you need to buy low profile memory since
a standard 168 pin dimm mounted on the motherboard exceeds the 1.75 inch height of the
case. Expect to spend about $160 for the 128 MB of memory and $80 for 64 MB.
The price of hard drives has come down rapidly over the past two years. Recently, I
bought a new 13 GB Maxtor 5400 rpms ultra dma hard drive for $125 at a local
computer mega store. You will find that prices vary on hard drives and if you take your
time, you'll find a high performance drive in the $100 -200 price range.
The 1U rack mount server described above uses a standard ATX form factor, mounting
hardware and power supply. The motherboard installs easily as will the other components.
(see How-to Build a Low Cost Linux
PC). Your only other choices involve whether or not to install a floppy and a CD Rom
drive.
The CS 440 rack mount chassis accomodates a single standard ATAPI CD Rom and a single
floppy disk drive. The cost of devices should run approximately $20 for the floppy and $50
for the CD Rom. The convenience of having either or both of these devices is well worth
the cost.
Let's compare the cost of our 1U Rack Server to several name brand systems
configured in the $1200 to $1500 range. We'll use a Celeron 466 MHZ processor to make the
systems compataible. You can see the costs summarized in the table below.
CS 440 1U Rack Mount Chasis
$268
Intel CA810 Motherboard
119
Intel Celeron 466 MHZ processor
85
Single Port Adapter
20
64 MB DIMM
80
13 MB Hard Drive
125
CD Rom and Floppy add $75 (Optional)
-0-
Total
$697
Since this is a Linux system, we can obtain almost any Linux distribution for free. If
you feel comfortable with remote administration via OpenSSH, then you're done. If
you don't worry about security, you can use telnet and ftp which are standard UNIX tools
for administration.
In the event you plan to co-locate your server at an ISP or in another remote
location, you may want to consider pre-configured software from NetMax. For approximately $80, you can buy off-the-shelf
Linux server packages at most retail computer stores. Web enabled software such as
NetMax's Web Server gives you the advantage of remote administration through a web
browser. So, for less than $800, you can build something similar to a RaQ2 running Intel
packages. This gives you greater flexibility in configuring your server for about 40% of
the cost of a comparable system.
The mystery of the 1U Rack Mount Server lies in its height restrictions. Use low
profile memory, the CA810 Intel or comparable motherboard, and PGA 370 Ziff socket
(Celeron or Pentium III) processors with low profile fans. If you understand the height
restriction, the IU server configures like most any other generic PC.
Tom Adelstein, CPA, is the
CIO/CFO of Bynari, Inc. He's the
author of several books and articles on business and technology and has
management, consulting and hands-on experience in the Information
Technology field.
For your information, our European Distributor, INCO industrial computer GmbH, has the same identical 1U chassis to serve the whole European countries.
Would you please be kind to add this new supply information to your reader who may be from Europe. Contact person Mr. Christian Viereck and INCO Web site at http://www.inco.de
Thank you in advance.
We are The 1U chassis contracted manufacturer for General Technics and INCO Should there be any question concerning to this message, please contact me at gt100@ms39.hinet.net or direct e-mail to cv@inco.de or to lou@gtweb.net
Re: 13 MB HDD? if you read he actually said 13GB somewhere else so it was obv just a typo. and linux can fit on a floppy so no, not "minux" or whatever other "witty" thing you said. g33k.
Re: Dual CPU? Well I think there is ways to fit a dual cpu mother board into 1 U case. The DIMM sockets is angled 25°. They have alot of "rackmount ready" boards as they say. The card Im looking at it's called "TYAN THUNDER LE S2518GN DUAL S-370, TULATIN, ATX" and costs around 450$ in sweden.
Other motherboards Has anyone tried a standard ATX motherboard in the CS440 1U case. The recommendation is for the Intel CA810, which is Micro ATX. But I'm interested in pairing it with an ATX motherboard if possible.
Gee - Is it really that easy I am amazed by the cavalier way in which vendors talk about bolting together computer hardware like it's really that easy. If you are building a mission critical communications server of any type, and any level of quality computing platform with any type of support is required, then building your own 1U box out of the components listed is NOT the way to go. Computer manufacturers that specialize in robust platforms for communications applications provide so much expertise and additional value to the "roll-your-own" path that I can't begin to list them all here - but it would do all the readers good to research it on their own. Check out our web page for a start "www.crystalpc.com". Based upon a traditional market segmentation acceptance cycle, it occurs to me that we are moving toward users wanting to do less of the hardware construction, NOT MORE!If your in the service business, be in the service business and trust your hardware and integration needs to qualified vendors - you will have a more robust network and you will make more money!
Re: Gee - Is it really that easy Having seen the website, Mr. Nelson has some cool stuff - much of it unrelated to a typical webserving/routing/etc linux box that would be useful when looking for a good 1U setup. Remember, the article is targeted at finding a product likeness for a RaQ2 or similar product, not building a bulletproof network with the highest quality of materials tested by a fleet of engineers. For what the article is, it couldn't be more on target. And this is the first of Mr. Adelstein's articles I've ever seen (rest assured, it won't be the last.
I've been searching for a good 1U setup for awhile - and a good case is what has always been tough to find. As far as the following statement: "building your own 1U box out of the components listed is NOT the way to go", such talk is absolute crap. There is a good balance of components here, at a decent price, for the applications mentioned. Similar components would be found in a RAQ2 system or whatnot. Certainly, an Intel branded motherboard finds its way into many of these types of machines, and they are rarely different than the part listing found here. Would I use it to power NASA? Probably not. But I'd sure use it for a low-profile webserver. And the "bolting together computer hardware" part really is that easy. Most places pay high school graduates $7 an hour to do the oh-so-tough bolting.
As far as his comments being self-serving, you bet they are. But the guy is the President of his company, and obviously a salesman. There's nothing wrong with trying to drum up new business.
Curtis Nelson and other stuff Regarding Curtis Nelson's comments - after much consideration I believe his feedback has elements of deliberate self interest and appear unreliable.
Perhaps he underestimates the quality of readership at Linux Today and the fact that the Linux community has a tradition of openly sharing most any discovery. The fact that it took a momumental effort on my part to find a source for 1U rack chassis and then the other components is relevant. I didn't cavalierly share my findings. I did it with purposiveness so other Linux users with the ability to build their own computers could do so with less effort.
I feel that if one takes from the community, one should give back. Linux has enriched the quality of my life so any contribution I might make is only a token in comparison to what I've received.
Also, Mr. Nelson should understand that many of us, myself included, have tenure with major equipment manufacturers and know the end to end processes involved in designing, building and certifying equipment. So, this "it's not that easy" routine is laughable.
Regarding the typo in the article that says 13MB - it should say 13GB.
Re:Curtis Nelson I have to agree with Tom, most Linux users(or anyone) looking to build their own 1U server has a fairly specific need that requires a certain level of expertise. Afterall, how many people have a need for a seven foot rack with 40 servers in it at home? And I would be willing to venture that any Linux user in need of 1U's would have a considerable amount more experience at putting together systems(because they have had to until recently), than their Windows and Mac counterparts. Maybe, Mr. Nelson has forgotten that until this year not a single major computer manufacturer sold Linux boxes, and still it(along w/ FreeBSD and Apache) managed to penetrate, no, dominate most of the webservers in service. And I'd bet that a lot of those early systems were culled together because upper management wouldn't spend money on an OS they've never heard of. If fact, it's a safe assumption that anyone that can compile, debug, or even configure a fairly complex and rapidly growing operating system, has the ability to assemble a server. If they don't already have the knowledge, they are used to doing the research to gain it.
That is the point of the Open Source Movement! Provide open access to the information that allows people to develop their own solutions. Does Mr. Nelson think that the same person who builds their own server wouldn't fully test it in a non-critical environment before being placed in production? Does he assume that if problems arise that same person wouldn't know how to ask for help on the hundreds of newsgroups that are the backbone of the Open Source Movement?
I have been trying to find all the components to build 1U's for the last six months without luck until this article. And I can assure you that I know how to assemble a server and have been doing so for years.
I was surprised to see that comment I was surprised to see that comment regarding building your own system. I think in this times were more people have knowledge about setting up of rack-mounted systems, it shouldn't be that so hard at all. I've been building similar systems like that and I think there is nothing hard about it except the sweat part.
This article clearly tells that the barrier to enter in this business has been lowered significantly, that any person who has years of experience can setup his own shop now.
1U issues... I have been experimenting with 1U cases, in particular the one from calpc.com.
The biggest issue I have had to deal with is HD pullouts. I'm a big fan of being able to pull out and replace the hard disk without removing the machine from the rack, unscrewing 10 screws, removing the 3.5 floppy for clearance, and then removing the hard disk. Unfortunately, most the 1U cases I have seen have all sorts of obstructions that keep you from being able to pull the drive bay out when the case is fully assembled. It seems most companies designed the 5.25 bay to be used for a CD Rom, however I seriously wonder how many people going for this type of density really put a CD rom in each machine. I tend to do my installions of the network. The calpc case is also about 3-4 inches shorter than most the cases I've seen which causes a collision of the pullout power plug with the CA810e board corner. Im trying to come up with a work around for these issues because I believe the case is very affordable.
Re: 1U issues... I agree with you on the need for hot-swap drives so we don't have to power down or dis-assemble the server.Take a look at www.trusolutions.com , they have a 1U server that has 2 front loading, hot swap drives. I think they are behind the vented panel on the the left fron of the unit. Now, if we could only find out who their chassis supplier was.....
i810 video. If you are looking at this board for use with Linux be aware of a few problems.
1. The 810 video is only supported by an XFCom server. 2. The 810 chipset is a "cheap" chipset. Many computer that I have seen with boards based on this chipset are pretty weird. (e.g. random reboots, little hardware support.) 3. The sound may or maynot work.
I wanted to make everyone aware of theses issues before you run out and drop some money on these.
Re: i810 video Methinks that given most of these are going to be used in rack-mount server applications, X seems extraneous, if not downright ridiculous. Very few will have a monitor plugged in long enough to even warrant an X installation, I'd bet. The same goes for sound.
Not to sound pyromaniacal or anything, but if I wanted sound and a GUI on my server, I would've used NT.
The choice of hard drive could really affect the amount of heat inside the case...how do you feel about the cooling provided by this case, and are there any options for additional cooling?
Re: Tom, heat issues? Heat is a problem with Intel based 1U racks. Reports of heat dissipation problems come from users and commmercial manufacturers. Cobalt switched to the Intel platform from the MIPS with the RaQ3 and I undertsand they were having some problems with heat, also. They evidently solved the problem.
In this article, I didn't address the heat problem since we had enough clearance using the recommended components for the air to circulate.
In our lab, we went with a different fan and discovered significant heat problems. To fix the problem, Les Connally drilled holes in the case above the area where the processor lives. He used a wire mesh off of a different rack cooling cover to create the pattern. With the opening in the case, we discovered that a Celeron 466 for a 370 ziff socket and a standard fan ran at slightly lower temperature than the case. We attributed that to increased circulation and the excess cooling of the hard drive by two front mounted fans between the panel and the drive bay.
We also tried using a fast wide SCSI hard drive and found the existing cooling fans inadequate to lower overall internal heating. By adding two additional fans, the dispersion worked.
I'm very fond of SCSI devices in server environments. However, for a 1U Rack mount system, I'm using an EIDE drive - a 13.x GB Maxtor. Cobalt also uses EIDE drives and apparently hasn't had any problems with device failure - yet.
Only time will tell if the EIDE drives will prove to last longer than 40,000 hours which I expect from the IDE interface. Meanwhile, backing up the system is a priority. We've deployed a number of 1U's and so far we've had no failures. Of course, none of these are getting 500,000 pages views a day.
CPUs? Low profile? huh? confused... I've spent the morning trying to configure one of these suckers for myself, and I'm a tad bit confused. The Intel spec. sheets indicate that the "out of the box" FC-PGA Celeron and Pentium III are too tall to fit in a 1U case.
Soo, what do you do?
Get a low profile Celeron/Pentium III ?
If so, where?
Or, do you buy a low-profile fan/heatsink and do some surgery?
This is a lot more work than what it sounds like I have put together several of these systems for our office. I've gotten my hands cut on these damn cases too often trying to squeeze all the connectors together without slicing my hands. I have also had no luck in finding a low-profile memory DIMM -- any help would be appreciated.
Re: This is a lot more work than what it sounds li Jim, the gtweb people have their chassis box finished off. In many situations, the Chinese manufacturers simply stamp the steel and then don't grind the edges. For once, I didn't cut my hands and neither did any of our techs. I bought my low profile memory from IMS ( http://www.imscomp.com). You need to ask for Soussan. She got us memory as needed. Also, the gtweb box is just a little longer and you'll have sufficient room to put the case jumpers, etc. on the front of the board.
1U High Rack Mounts Solutions This is all very interesting. We manufacture 1U high servers and custom design server products for some very large companies. They truly can be "very" complicated and they can be very easy - even a guy like me in marketing development can assemble them and "design" them. It get's down to how much do you want to do yourself and can do for yourself. You can buy the chassis for about $250 - $300 from a good vendor and most of the real computer parts that are included have long warranties associated with them. If you know what you are doing you should build your own. If you are a business customer the cost to build and manage these units is very difficult to justify when you can purchase them from a vendor like us who, depending on the quantity, will be very aggressive on pricing and give you complete service, support and provide a 1-3 year warranty. Our approach is let us take the headaches and take care of you.
Re: Re: This is a lot more work than what it sound I tried to find IMS's website at www.imscomp.com , but no such page exists. Could you please send me a phone number? Or possibly the company's full name so I can track them down?
EIDE vs SCSI in 1U Cases In an earlier comment, Tom Adelstein mentioned that cooling is a challenge for
the 1U cases due to air circulation concerns (and I agree). He also mentioned
using an EIDE drive (which Cobalt uses) in place of SCSI. However, that raised
a concern of reliability (MTBF) for the drives, especially on a busy system.
I've been running EIDE ATA/66 drives (both 5400 and 7200 RPM) in my systems for
several years now, and have nothing but good news to report. The latest series
of Western Digial 7200 RPM EIDE drives are OEM'd for IBM, and are rock-solid.
Maxtor's EIDE drives are also great nowadays. Our server cluster (2) for one
of our sites receives in excess of 550,000 visitors/day, all on IDE drives,
with no failure after several years. Our news feeder (feeder.via.net), built
with all-IDE (7200 RPM, ATA/66, DMA) drive arrays, pumps out tens of gigs of
news daily, was #84 on the Usenet Top 1000, and is living proof that IDE drive
technology has advanced to the point of challenging SCSI head-on.
GTWEB's Motherboard Price up $60 Seems GT-web liked the free advertising so much they upped the price of the motherboard by $60. I thought technology usually went DOWN in price!
IBM, Compaq, Dell The big names also realized that 1U rack mount server could mean some serious business. They are normally more expensive and powerful than the solutions from
gtweb.net:
WOW!! my own 1u project -- Thanks Glancing over information on various web sites, I seen the proce of a 1u system to be high and difficult to find. With the information provided I'll have an easier time building a 1u system.
Motherboard selection for Linux-based product I have decided to venture out of my normal realm and into the world of the penguin... I have purchased a copy of Netmax's Firewall ProSuite, based (i believe) on the 2.2.15 kernel. Question is, with all the feedback I have gained from Intel's developer site, and the conversations from this site, I still cannot settle on a P3 motherboard to integrate into an existing desktop chassis. My question is simple (hopefully, the answer will be simple also)... what Intel-branded P3/600 (or greater) motherboard (ie. CA810, D820, etc) will require the least amount of "special drivers and workarounds". My desire is to integrate this firewall computer in the least amount of time with the least amount of headache. I've always been in MicroSoft's pool... thought I would try the water where the penguin swims.
13 MB HD ? A 13 mb HD ? if you were going to use someting that small why did you not go with SSD or use a distrbution like LRP to load that into ram ( a faster server any way as in refrence to Apache small databases etc ? )any thing larger i could see using the larger HD
Re: What about video? If you click on the link to Intel's website (in the article) you will find a description of the motherboard. It already includes video... ethernet isa optional. Neat mobo!
Re: What about video? Hey, I've been selling a few Mandrake-based firewall/router/gateway systems locally here as of late, and seems to me the best option for a truly headless install would be to go w/ the Kickstart installation feature of RedHat/Mandrake after you've go a preconfigured list of all required packages. Now what I'm wondering about is a web-based administration GUI, something like Linuxconf or Webmin, but customized just to allow for the configuration of the specific services installed, and I hear this is what RedHat does w/ Linuxconf with the Python programming language. Now this is a truly affordable solution. Set it up, then check its logs regularly.
On the suggested mother board video is built in. The 15 pin video connector is where one of the 9pin serial ports would normally be. The following link will show you the rear view. http://gtweb.net/images/cs440_rear.jpg The blue connector is for video.
I was wandering if you have any tables or charts that show the torque requirements for fastners in chassis assembly. In particular, the fastners that attach sheetmetal to sheetmetal and PCB to sheetmetal. The fastner sizes I was looking for are the #2-56, 4-40, 6-32, 8-32, and 10-32 screws. Thank you for your time and I hope to hear from you soon.
Sincerely,
Tatek Getachew
Mechanical Engineer
Appro International Inc.
446 South Abbot Ave.
Milpitas, CA 95035
(408) 941-8100 (phone)
(408) 957-6540 (fax)
tgetachew@appro.com
Raid 5 on 3 SCSIs equal 2U or more? My question is on raid 5 pending on 2 SCSI disks with backup (SLT1i at 80GB)systems on U-based teknolegy - what is the best hardconfiguration/solution and how do i make it as compact as possible with out amputing the performance og cooling ability?
You never mentioned where one can by the cheapest cabinet hosting the U-system and also if the mentioned system is optmized to run window2000server also?
cincearly
Danny Hacker
I had a best thermal solution for 1U Ask me about the sample for testing. DC1206BM-R New Copper Cooler w/60 Fins For 1U, The Best Thermal Resistance Model #: DC1206BM-R
My comments The article is pretty good and very informative. I hope articles like this come out very often.
Also, if they can publish where to buy/get those components then it would be very good for those who are do-it-yourselfers.
Also, if they can come up with a way of setting up a catalog type of system where do-it-yourselfers can browse the components and buy straight from it. Components like racks, mobos, chips, chipsets, memories, cases, keyboards, mice, etc.
One more article! http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/editorials /article/1549/ Designing and building a web server is something that needs the utmost care and attention, simply because an internet based business needs a server thats reliable and is able to run 24/7 for months without requiring any servicing. This reliability is something which needs to be factored into the design from the start, and is of the utmost importance. Picking reliable components is just as important here as making sure you pick components that fit the purpose your web server is set to fulfill. Only with a thorough analysis of what content youll be serving to your clients, and on what scale, youll be able to properly define where possible bottlenecks might arise and pick the right components for the web server without either falling short or building a system thats overpowered. We need to make sure these bottlenecks are well understood, both in scale and frequency of occurrence and proper measures are in place to limit the effects on the performance of the server and more importantly the experience of the client. And thats the primary objective here; we need to make sure the website feels as responsive to the client whether there are one or one-hundred people simultaneously accessing the same content. All that counts is that the website keeps on running regardless of how many clients are being served. To accomplish that well need to dig deeper than just go online, buy a couple of web servers, install the operating system, upload the content and startup the website. In the next few pages well walk you through our design process for the new Hardware Analysis web server, a server designed to serve daily changing content with lots of images, movies, active forums and millions of page views every month. http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/editorials /article/1549/
1u Rackmount chassis guys, I am looking for very compact 1U chassis. I found one at a company called RackmountMart.com. The chassis is 14" depth (see url below) http://www.rackmountmart.com/rm1u/rm1011.htm it is good, but i wanna a smaller one. can anyone give me suggestions? jason
Mail Server Hi I would like to set up a linux mail/intranet server box but can't find a mail package that can provide the functionality of my current windows mail server mdaemon or one that I can configure. Thanks
Re: what does 1U,2U,4U,6U ...mean? A "U" is a unit of height in a standard equipment rack. The rack is about 42-44 units high. Rack-mountable equipment is measured in these units. 1U is two screw-holes high, and modern network switches are often this high. Nowadays small net-servers are being sold in this size.
Re: what does 1U,2U,4U,6U ...mean? Here's a quick equipment rack tutorial... RU stands for Rack Units, and is a standard unit of measurement when dealing with 19-IN rack enclosures. These enclosures have a pair of parallel rails, pre-drilled and tapped with holes, 19-in apart. A Rack Unit is 1.75". Accessories, such as enclosures, shelves, drawers, and blank panels, designed to mount between these rails include their vertical height called out in Rack Units. Most off the shelf enclosures are between 1 and 4RU in height. you might find some 6RUs.
Re: what does 1U,2U,4U,6U ...mean? this is server hight. and as for the size, how big can you make your case ;-) I beleve it is about 4cm in height per U
Re: what does 1U,2U,4U,6U ...mean? The xU number refers to the height of the physical component, to fit on a rack. For example, a 1U server is 1.25" in height. All rack-mountable equipment is a standard 19" wide (unless it has a special mounting kit), and can vary in length. So just as you'd expect the numbers to work, 1U = 1.25", 2U = 2.5", and so on. If you're planning on designing a whole racks'-worth of equipment, tally up the amount of xU space you'll need, and then find a rack that fits this amount of equipment. I found a great site that sells high-avaliablity racks, but also standard (what non-corporate people would buy) racks. Their site is: http://www.rackmountsolutions.net/ ...And they should be able to help you out. They also have some great accessories, like sideplates, front doors, cable trays, xU shelves etc etc. Hope this answers your question! =-) -= FUUXION =-
About 20 years ago I was responsible for a PDP-11/40 (old even then) which was mounted in a 12U chassis (21"). The RAM was in an adjacent rack, and 256 *Kb* FILLED another 12U chassis. The RAM alone generated ~3800 BTUs/hr, but that's another story ;-).
Re: Re: Re: what does 1U,2U,4U,6U ...mean? Dear Doc - "old even then"? I am responsible for a PDP-11/93. We bought it in 1987 as a refurbished 11/23 and have upgraded the processor a couple times and the disk subsystem from removeable 120 mb platters to 4 gb SCSI. We have had one hardware failure (power supply after 1 year)in over 12 years. It runs 24/7/365 and we vacuum it out and do some cleanup about every 2 years. We are actually set to replace it shortly, but it has been a difficult decision, because we know that no current system, X86 or other, will provide its level of dependability. -dan
On the cheap.... A sexy commercial 1U case is nice, but keep your eyes open for old hardware in 2U cases that can be 'hacked' into a rack mount PC. I managed to score an old X25 PAD with sexy LCD display and 5 push buttons on the front for $20 - and - it was working. I gutted this, and had room for a 3 1/2 HDD, an 'all in one' motherboard K6-2 , network, sound, video on board, and powersupply in the box. Of course there was some fiddling drilling mounting points for the motherboard so some hardware skill is required. The advantage of the 2U case is that I can fit in IDE/PCI cards that arn't full height, like most modernish network cards. Once again you need to do some hacking, removing the normal steel mounting plate and figuring some other mounting method, but hey for a couple of hundred bucks (all I actually bought for this project was the MB processor & memory) I have a rackmount machine with groovy LCD display displaying uptime and processor load to impress visitors.
(What doesn't every one have a floor to ceiling 19" rack in their house ? How to you manage?)
but if you have the hardware skills ( I'm talking drills and hacksaws here) and can dig up a used 2U case (lots of older ger used this size, if your scrounging skills are good youyou can probaly build do at least a 2U box reasonably easily. Of course the time it takes probably makes this uneconomic but the completed article can look pretty spiffy.
My project was along these lines. First the hardest part - the case. I managed to pick up an old 2U case that was an X25 PAD ( probably 15 years old & copletely obsolete) for $20 at a metal recycler. Then I puchased an 'all in one ' mother board - sound network video etc from some
