I finally got around to working on racking my Norco servers inside an IBM 22U server rack that I picked up a couple months ago. I have a 4U and a 2U. The first server I went to rack is the 2U server using the Norco RL-20 rails. Wow, what a PITA. I know they are only $35 bucks, but dam yikes. So the issues I ran are that the small pre-drilled plates that are used to connect the rails to the rack just don't line up correctly. They end up pushing the rails towards the inside of the rack not leaving enough room to slide the chassis. I had to flip the plates around, essentially avoiding the raised square edges that are supposed to fit inside the square holes so that I had some wiggle room to push the rails out and squeeze the chassis in. I emailed Norco support to review my experience and give me some feedback. Maybe they have other rails or different mounting brackets.

 

Does anyone know of any other 3rd party rails that I could use instead? Preferably rails that you know definitely work.

 

Thanks,

Adrian

Which cases are you trying to rack?  That would help

Whoops, sry, was running up and down to the basement/homedepot trying to get these servers racked. I was missing some screws, but luckily found some matching ones at HD.

 

The 2U is an RPC-270 with RL-20 rails.

The 4U us an older RPC-4220, with RL-26 rails (about 2 years old)

 

The older 4U rails mounted perfectly. No real issues. I can see that the manufacturing between them is very different. The older RL-26 rails look more precise. The right angles bends are clean. Also when I pull out the server it comes out further than the RL-20. The newer RL-20 rails (< 6 months) don't seem as precise. The metal is much thicker and the right angle bends are rounder. I know that the rails are not supposed to be the same, but I would expect their characteristics to be similar with the difference being one engineered to handle more weight.

 

Sorry for my crude descriptions, but hopefully it makes sense hehe.

It does, I believe I've read posts similar to yours about the RL-20's.  I have the RL-26's personally on my 4224 and they are great.. perfectly line up etc.

 

From what I understand, the 26's should work with your 2U case as well - have you tried racking your 2U unit with the 26's?  If that works, just grab another set of those.

 

Issues with the 20 rails seem to be fairly common.