Rack mounted workstation, anybody doing this?
 

I?d like to move my desktop computing to a rack mounted solution. Anybody doing this?

If so, any recommendations on nice looking cabinet solutions?

Also, any other tips or thoughts would be appreciated.

Should be easy to setup. Just choose your hardware solution right?

Bump for you.

do you want to run more than one PC or something, like for a render farm or something like that? If not why would you need a rack mount seems like it would take up too much space.

rack mount cases don't give a shit about noise :2 cents:

this is something to consider for sure, with decent cooling it could make more noise than a desktop

The noise factor, good one!

Why rack mounted solution? Well, it would be much "cleaner" setup (as per look, cables, etc.). Also, the idea of having a more standardized look and format is appealing. Buy, slide in, close cabin, and nothing looks out of place.

My desktops are currently sitting in my closet (a big closet; BIG), but right now they are really file servers. I work on my notebook, would like to move away from that, where I can have a workstation sitting with the other computers and just have mouse, monitor and keyboard out. Meh!

ive thought about doing the same thing but then if u get a low profile case 1u/2u you have to deal with cpu fans that fit, low rise cards, etc. decided to buy breadracks and stack pc/s - you could use a kvm and a console extender (IOGEAR GCE250 KVM Console Extender for example)

There are three drawbacks as I see it:

1) Noise - having built a ton of servers, I can tell you from first hand experience that the well built cases use fans that sound like shop vac's. Not a regular vacuum cleaner but an industrial shop vac. I wear ear plugs regularly when building servers.

2) Cost - a good rackmount case costs several hundred more then a desktop case. Rackmount ready motherboards are server grade, thus more expensive. Plus you need a special blower for 1U case CPU cooling, and then most rackmount ready mobo's require ram w/ECC which is quite pricey. Add an enclosure to it and you could get an extra desktop PC for all that money spent.

3) Expansion - most rackmountable cases (excluding 4U which is essentially a tower on its side) only have 1 or 2 expansion slots. So if you need more then video and sound, you are done. And you are stuck with regular pci, pci-x or pci-e but not a mix of them due to the way the riser card works.

Good luck man

I have 2 2U rackmount servers in my office and it sounds like I'm sitting beside a jet engine when they are on.

Well, I suppose if somebody calls, you can tell them you are in your jet at the moment? no?

Okay, noise will most likely stop my plan on moving to rack mounted machines for home/home office.