Ask Slashdot: Building A Server Rack Into a New Home? 402
jawtheshark writes "I'm building a house, and obviously I want a modest network built-in. Nothing fancy, two RJ-45 per room, four in the living room, and that's basically it. I already got myself a rack mountable Cisco Small Business switch and I have a self-built 4U server (low-power, won't make much heat) which can be rack mounted (505mm deep). Now, the construction company suggests a wall mounted rack (6U: 340mm x 600mm x 480mm — 6U definitely won't be enough, but a 12U model exists). It's not expensive, but I have never worked on a rack where the backside is unreachable. (For work, I get to work in a data center with huge racks that are accessible from both sides). Now obviously, I don't need a data center-grade rack, but these wall-mounted racks scream 'switch-only' racks to me. What are your experiences? Is it possible to put servers in racks like these, or should I find a 'both-side-accessible' rack instead?"
Simply Put: Hell No (Score:4, Informative)
At work we have 1U servers mounted on a two post rack. Every time I have to do any kind of work on the rack I basically have to do yoga to get at the back of the rack.
As nice as it is to get a full body workout every time something needs to be added to or removed from the rack, I would strongly suggest you avoid racks that can't be accessed from the back like the plague.
On the upside I have discovered unique ways to string together curse words while fumbling behind the rack.
Avoid the wall-mount, and here's how I did it. (Score:5, Informative)
I have seen wall-mount racks that side-mount to the wall, leaving the front and back of equipment accessible. That said, I'm not wild about any of the wall mount racks, at some point they will all be a pain.
If you have the floor space a small, 4 post cabinet is the way to go. You can often find used ones around for cheap. 4 post is preferred if you're going to have any quantity of systems in them. If the system count is low, and you won't do any 1RU or 2RU systems, a 2-post telco rack is super cheap and might take up less space. I put one in a basement a few years back. 4RU's mount fine with just front rails (screwed in, not on slides of course), and switches, routers, patch panels all work fine in a 2 post setup. Run a 20A dedicated run to it with a computer grade power strip down the side and you're set for life.
FWIW, having done a few houses, my recommendation is that each jack position get 5 cables, 3xCat5e and 2xRG6. These get terminated on a 6 position keystone, 2xRJ45 Network on top, 2x2-line RJ-11 (4C) in the middle, sharing the third Cat5 (blue/orange first jack, green/brown second), and then two RG6's get Coax jacks on the bottom.
The wire cost is low, additional pull cost is low. You pay a small amount to terminate all of that. However, you now have more than you'll ever need everywhere. That Sat system down the road, 2xCoax, check. Desktop and VoIP phone, 2 jacks, check. Home and business land lines, check. Buy keystone rack panels for your new rack, a row of network, next to the switch, row of telephone next to some splitters and/or DSL filters (if necessary), row of cable next to splitters and amps for whatever system type you have. Below that machines as necessary.
Far easier to pull up front than to be frustrated and without later.
Lack Rack (Score:4, Informative)
Re:two RJ-45 per room (Score:4, Informative)
So... Redundant everything isn't enough, but you call him out for extravagances like Ethernet?
What a tool.
Re:42U - Go Big or Go Home (Score:5, Informative)
What the OP is doing sounds like what I'm doing. I already bought the rack [newegg.com] and found a nice spot to put it: Under the basement stairs. It comes ready to assemble and I just didn't install the wheels. The rack is 3 feet deep and the stairs are 3 feet wide. It's the perfect place. All I have to do is re-frame the area under my stairs (there is already a roughed in wall of 2x4s) to add in a mounting location for the 12U rack. It just so happens that the stairs are in a centralized location in the house so wiring is going to be much easier. I got a 25 port switch (probably overkill) and a 25 port patch panel to accept all the wire I'll be pulling to it (and a few to spare.)
I realize that not everyone has a basement stairway with both exposed sides, but maybe the OP didn't think about it.
Don't build it in, just build for it (Score:4, Informative)
As to your comment about two cat5 jacks per room and four in the living room - as someone who did exactly that four years ago when I build my house I can tell you that you're boxing yourself in. If you're going to have a home office, you probably want to put at least four jacks in there. For your living room, just think about all the stuff you may someday have that will want cat5. I have an Apple TV, Samsung TV, Xbox, Bluray, and a PC. I ended up putting a 5 port switch in my entertainment center, and it may well be more cost effective to only run one network jack to a small switch at locations where you need higher port density. Most home stuff doesn't have really high throughput requirements, so losing the single highspeed backplane of a centralized switch isn't a huge issue. The only issue here would be (as in my case) if you need PoE on some of those ports.
Here are a few other things I'd do differently if I was building again and had a budget for this sort of thing:
1) Run a min 20A (30A is even better) dedicated circuit with a twist lock connector to the rack's location. If you want to get a rackmount UPS in the 2000-3000VA range, it will probably require this.
2) Install sound deadening around the rack - network equipment is typically pretty noisy
3) Plan for cooling - if you can run an A/C duct to the rack's location that's good, but plan for how you're going to keep stuff cool when the rest of the house has reached your target temperature and the central A/C turns off for 30 minutes. You may want to look at one of the smaller portable A/C units that you can duct either into the crawlspace (check local codes about this, you may run into problems with mold if you duct moist air up there), or outside.
4) Run CONDUIT - this is probably the biggest tip I can give you. If you're able to install wall boxes and such before drywall goes up, spend $100 on a roll of blue flex conduit and run that from your wall boxes up into the attic/crawlspace. Make sure to stub the conduit up high enough so that any blown-in insulation doesn't cover the top of it. You'll be so glad you did this in a few years when you want to upgrade or add more wiring.
5) Cable management - don't overlook it. Patch panels and wire management to and at the rack make life so much nicer. You can get by without it but if you do a really nice job you'll find yourself wanting to show it off to your friends to impress them (unfortunately, it usually just draws a blank stare). 6) K.I.S.S. - since I'm a network engineer, I built my home network with a cisco router, AP and switch, created VLANs and public/private WiFi networks, then realized that most consumer level tech isn't designed to be compatible with that in the least. Take Apple TV for instance - it relies on network broadcasts. If you have an iPad or iPhone with airplay and want to send a stream to your Apple TV, the two devices have to be on the same network. There's no way to manually enter device IP addresses to get two devices on separate subnets to talk to each other. Naturally, if your PCs are on a private network with the Apple TV, that's well and good, but what if a friend comes over and connects to your public WiFi and you want him to be able to use airplay from his iPhone? I've had similar problems with Slingbox, etc. That kind of stuff just isn't designed to work on a network any more complicated than what you get with your standard Linksys router.
Hopefully some of this is helpful to you.
Re:42U - Go Big or Go Home (Score:5, Informative)
Leave a service loop to allow the rack to swing open properly.
I strongly recommend Cat6a with appropriate connectors. I also recommend considering running innerduct and adding pullstrings so you can later add. You might also consider pulling some OM3 or OM4 patch cables to use as horizontal fiber cable. Also pull the phone wiring to the same location, and RG6. There are modular patch panels that use keystones instead of fixed 110 blocks on the back, so one could put any of the four types of connectors into the patch panel. You would want angled faceplates in the rooms so that if you ever did use the fiber it wouldn't be at as much rich of being broken off.
Re:Go with fiber optic (Score:5, Informative)
Conduits, even in new houses are expensive and difficult to install to every jack, and quite frankly, overkill.
As a telco field installer here is my recommendation to everyone who asks about construction or renovation:
- 2 cat5 and 2 coax to every place you could possibly ever want a TV or computer (and a minimum of one set to every room in the house)
- drop ceiling in the basement. (if you finish the basement at all, and there better be one, at least a crawl space)
- actual conduit, with as few bends as possible, as short as possible, and at least 1" diameter between the outside of the house where the telco connects, and the main panel in the basement where everything terminates
- clear access and several square feet of free backboard where everything terminates. (and a power outlet, for the love of all things holy, let us have a power outlet!)
my reasoning:
- Too many existing houses have only coax and cat5, any new technology that is wide spread WILL find a way to use it, or will go wireless, If they don't, they'll never get the market share.
- It's amazing how much wiring you can do, even on the top floor of a multi-story house, as long as the basement ceiling is accessible, if I need to run new wires to somewhere I cringe when i see a drywalled basement ceiling.
- This is the one place where it is absolutely critical to run conduit, luckily when done right this conduit is only 1' long. (and if you're one of those builders that puts the service entrance on the opposite side of the house from where you put the main panel... I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!)
- This is where the changes in technology will be, and whatever the future brings, people will need to get at it and work on it. (You wouldn't believe how many people drywall over the termination block with the large sign that says "WARNING: leave free access to this connection point at all times")
As for racking, if you have the space, put whatever you want in it, but generally for the amount of equipment likely to be in your home, a shelf somewhere near the main panel is probably sufficient, even for a rack mount server and switch. I don't recommend doing anything that denies you access to the back of a rack, but often you can get them on swingouts of one form or other. We actually have a place in our city where our company has built what they call a WIC (Walk In Cabinet) which is really somewhat of a concrete bunker. It houses the telco end ADSL equipment, as well as other telco gear and such. The racks are all against the wall as the place is only about 6' - 8' wide with 2 rows of racks and a hall down the middle. all the racks have a hinge on one side and a wheel on the other so you can swing them open to get at the back (thereby blocking the aisle completely) (all cables properly dressed to the hinge side) these work well for the tight space (though I have some choice words for the person who thought this whole structure was a good idea... it has a ladder to get in to it for goodness sake, and the door at the top is only 3 feet tall! (not to mention that the punchdown blocks for the telcom circuits use a different punch tool than any other place in the city...))