Born again unRaider / Ghetto Rack

[Squid]

Well, after starting with unRaid, then experimenting with other solutions, and I am now finally back on unRaid for good.  (Mostly because its the best solution out there, but partially because another user (who is no longer amongst us here) that was extremely critical of unRaid is nothing but a BS artist and is full of Sh*t, and only has his own self interests in mind)

 

So, rather than the majority of posts out here that show this is my case, these are my guts, etc etc etc without really showing anything unique (unRadio being a recent exception), I'd thought I'd go through my rack build project.

 

Since my original unRaid build, (http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=23796.msg209556#msg209556) things have come a long way.  Originally I grabbed a Norco 470 and managed to jam 17 drives into it (non hotswap).  Now, I'm on a pair of Rosewill RSV-L4411 cases packed with a total of 22 drives right now.  Yada Yada Yada.  Nothing special or different about the servers that really hasn't been reiterated here time and time again.

 

However, since version 6B6, I have been optimizing the hardware between the 2 servers and a HTPC thats in the same area to make the best use of Docker, VMs, etc.  Unfortunately, the servers and HTPC were all stacked onto each other which made it a real PITA to work on one without tearing apart all of them.  Hence the need for a rack solution.

 

However, as we all know, racks are very expensive, rails are expensive, and shipping is expensive.  While I'm not cheap, and would love nothing more than to throw all my money at the servers, reality (and wife) just won't let me.  So my compromise was to build my own rack.  Not the greatest, and it definately has some trade-offs, but hopefully it may give other people some ideas.

 

So, after weeks of research and thinking about how to go about this and searching the internet, about the best that I could find was this: http://blog.deadlycomputer.com/2006/09/17/458/  .  While their basic premise is valid, they also really don't have a clue about how server racks work or rack mount cases work (they seem to think the mounting ears on servers are structural!?!?)  But, it is a starting point.

 

So I went about building my own 6' high rack.  It can hold approximately 32U of servers as built (could be more as if I was going to do it again I would change some things around) for less than $300

 

This is where I was sitting at before beginning this project:

 

(As you can tell from the poster in the background, this is the only room which my wife has allowed me free reign to decorate)

 

 

 

Constructed completely out of materials available at Lowes / Home Depot, using tools which most households should have.

 

Parts List:

 

12x 6' 12 Guage  Crown Bolt Angle Iron...  Should have used slotted angle instead... Would have given me a few more options.

3/8" 1/2" Bolts

3/8" Nuts

3/8" Lock Nuts

4 x Rust-Oleum Metallic Gloss Paint

2 x Rust-Oleum Gloss Clear Coat

2x 6' 1x2 wood as a fascia for front of rack.

Miscellaneous wood.

 

Total price before tax was $274 cdn before tax (mainly thanks to Lowes only charging me for 16 gauge iron instead of 12 gauge.  Other wise would have been about $60 higher

 

Parts Arrive

 

 

End Pieces Built

 

 

Coming Together

 

 

Test Fit

 

 

"Rail System" Built - Rather than use something like Norco RL-26 Rails (@ almost $50 each), I chose to use stationary rails that would allow the servers to slide in and out

 

 

Painted Up - Three coats of metallic paint, 2 coats of clear coat.  You can't really tell in any picture, but it is very sexy looking.

 

 

* Note to self - measure to make sure that it will not only fit in the location you want (I did this), but that you can get it build from point A-B (garage to basement) in one piece.  In my case, I had to tear it all apart and rebuild it and then do some touch up painting.

 

UPS Shelves attached

 

 

Assembled in my MIS room  (most people call it the furnace room)  You can't really tell, but that 24 port switch is only 100M, so there is a separate 8 port 1G switch sitting on top of it for the computers which require the higher speed.

 

 

Guess that I have to clean up a bit 

 

 

Close up of the UPS shelf.  A whole lot neater to put each UPS with the corresponding server than to have its own area, and I'm not about to buy a rackmount UPS to handle the whole thing just yet.  I ran out of paint, so the shelves themselves are not painted yet.  My wife didn't want the entire system down any longer on a long weekend, so I had to go with what I had.

 

[demonmaestro]

Nicely done good sir! 

[j5428]

Awesome!

[garycase]

Very nice.  Without rails ["... I chose to use stationary rails that would allow the servers to slide in and out ..."], how do you pull out the server to work on it?    It seems you're limited to no further out than the center of gravity, or lifting the entire box out -- is that right?

 

It's neat to have the UPS shelves behind the individual units, but sure does make it a deep rack.  What's the overall depth?

 

 

 

[Squid]

Yeah, you're right...  I am limited to how far I can pull it out before it drops...  But, my issue before was that no matter how I arranged which order I stacked the computers in, I would always need to get into the bottom one.  So now I can just pull it out without disturbing the ones above.  Overall length is 3'

 

I just added a 1U server to the rack, and because of that have also removed the UPS shelves from the back and made another shelf at the bottom to house all of them (5).  Wish I could justify the cost of a 2U 2500VA UPS to the wife, but I don't think she'd go for it.

 

All in all, while its not a perfect situation, it wound up looking as close to a "real" rack as possible for 1/4 of the cost.  Eventually, I'll wind up adding removable sides, etc to it to complete the look.

[garycase]

I assumed as much.  Nevertheless, it looks very nice and is a lot better than having to "unstack" a bunch of gear.    As $$ permits, I'd add the slides, however -- at least for the computers, if not the ancillary gear.

 

[Squid]

Ultimately I will add the rails.  Been looking at a set of kitchen rails from home depot http://www.homedepot.ca/product/full-extension-slide-22-in-zinc/902000 which can support the weight but are still half the price of Norco RL-26. 

[garycase]

I've actually used those exact rails on some slideout drawers in my kitchen.  They have a LOT of heavy pots & pans in the drawers, and work just fine.

 

Not sure how you'd attach them to a server chassis, however, as they're designed for wood shelves.

 

[Squid]

I've actually used those exact rails on some slideout drawers in my kitchen.  They have a LOT of heavy pots & pans in the drawers, and work just fine.

 

Not sure how you'd attach them to a server chassis, however, as they're designed for wood shelves.

That's the fun part

[mr-hexen]

you could attach them using the angle iron / bars. see attached img.

[Squid]

Looking at those ones from Home Depot, it appears that they actually mount onto the side.  Just have to see how many holes I have to drill.  Only 22" which is a hair short, but I've got to get some time to hit a cabinet maker and see what I can order and for how much.

[garycase]

As I noted, I've used those and they work very well, but I'm not at all convinced they'll be good for use in your racks.  Although they cost about twice as much, I'd give serious thought to simply using actual rack slides, such as Norco units.    The savings in "hassle factor" is likely worth the modest extra cost.

 

The RL-26's are available for $40 here:  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811997301&cm_re=RL-26-_-11-997-301-_-Product

[Squid]

The RL-26's are available for $40 here:  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811997301&cm_re=RL-26-_-11-997-301-_-Product

 

In my case (Canada), from Newegg for 3 rails, it works out to $149.97 + $42.18 Shipping = $  $192.15  The Ghetto rails work out to $68.94...  1/3 the cost.  And, to incorporate real rails I'd also have to order the square hole vertical pieces, and incorporate them. 

 

Will probably have time next weekend to work on modifications for the kitchen rails.

[garycase]

Ouch ... that's a significant price jump from the US cost.    I understand why you want to use the kitchen rails.  Definitely worth a bit of "DIY" mods to make them work.  As I already noted, they ARE very nice, and I don't think there's any doubt about their weight capacity.  When I first mounted a slideout drawer to one of them, I was a bit skeptical, but my wife loaded the drawer to capacity [& then some  ] with heavy Corningware pots & pans and it easily handles that.    I was still skeptical at first -- kept wondering when it was all going to go crashing down to the floor -- but it's now been several years and they clearly work just fine.    We have them on all of our lower cabinets now (a DIY project from a few years ago) ... and most are very heavily loaded.

 

Your only issue is the mounting -- and actually that's probably not all that difficult ... you'll probably just have to drill a few small holes in the rails and the sides of the server case [Obviously be VERY careful you don't drill into anything electronic  ]

 

[Amerzel]

Nice work! Thanks for the write up and pictures. I'm planning out something similar but only about half the height, nice to see that it works out pretty well.