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I have a lot of gear in a colocation facility right now. Some of it is going to come home with me now.

I do not know anything about the "rack mount" side of the industry. I lease a rack, and I put my stuff in it.

I have a few 1U boxes, a few 2U boxes, and a few 4U boxes. 1U switch. One is a new Xserve, which means it is deep.

I think I can get by with around 12U to 18U. I want to keep it as small as possible, since I do not have a lot of spare space at my home. I will not be able to bolt to the wall, floor etc, so it should not be tall. This is something I would love to more or less just be a box that sits on the floor but gives me the ability to mount nicely, do nice cable management etc.

Are the "post" style racks junk? I am liking the open space, and the no limitations on depth of something like this:

enter image description here

However, that thing is way too tall, and probably way too expensive. I am looking to be around $300.00 or less. More if I have to, though I would prefer not to.

These look near perfect: (See comment for this link, the system will not let me post a second url) but I am worried the Xserve will not fit in it.

If anyone has any good links, or website recommendations of good past experience, I would appreciate it.

I am almost considering that I may be able to build something with random scraps of stuff at Home Depot as well.

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Here is the link to the image I mentioned above: cabletiesandmore.com/images/racks/soho_front.jpg – user17245 Mar 12 '10 at 23:15
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Just a suggestion since you mention DIY, Lifehacker ran this article about using an Ikea table. link text

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That is pretty cute. I wonder how hard it is to find that table, it is exactly 19" wide from inner leg to inner leg. Lucky find. – user17245 Mar 14 '10 at 1:27
Google Ikea. I did and the tables are in stock. Hopefully there is a store near you. You have to be careful though, one of the colors is a different size. – Blackbeagle Mar 15 '10 at 17:17
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I would say that that a 'post' style rack is a bad idea for any servers, they tend to be better for your networking hardware. The servers should end up in an enclosed rack. I personally use an old PDP rack, it is half height, and has wheels.

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Do you happen to have a link, or model number, sound exactly like what I want; 1/2 height, wheels, etc, perfect. – user17245 Mar 14 '10 at 1:25
Sadly no I don't have a link, its old, like 70's old when computer manuals came with schematics. It came from a DEC PDP 11 I believe. You may find some luck on ebay, or keep your eyes open on places near you that are junking stuff that may have ended up in storage (that's how I got mine). – spowers Mar 14 '10 at 1:46
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