Every couple months I get the urge to organize my lab/home office equipment into a rack/cabinet, but never follow through on it. I ocassionally look on craigslist for deals, but everything is either too far away or too big. I’d rather pay more for a smaller rack that doesn’t go all the way to the ceiling and will just show up on my doorstep. A 6U would fulfil my current requirements, 12U is probably more than enough in reality but as an engineer I find myself eyeing 15-18U to be conservative.

This iteration of the search has me eying these options:

  • sysracks 18U server rack - slightly bigger than I want, but still reasonable. Some questionable reviews on manufacturing/shipping quality, but this seems like a solid cost/value ratio: fully enclosed, room to grow, wheels, accessories like shelves and such I’d want anyway. Feels like maybe overkill, but for the price…
  • NavePoint 15U Portable Rolling Network Rack - closer to the size I want (12/15U options), cheaper but no accessories, like shelves, I’d need bringing it closer in price to the sysrack. Similar manufacturing/shipping concern reviews. I like this one, but hard to feel like it’s not a worse deal than the sysrack.
  • some startech variant - these seem generally higher build quality (sturdier) but higher cost and more “bare bones” looking. also often adjustable depth making it potentially more future proof. but I’m not sure either of these make up for the increased cost.

What do you think? Any advice or wisdom you can share? I’m feeling like finally following through this time because my office is a tiny mess. Leaning toward the NavePoint currently.

  • TrenchcoatFullOfBats@belfry.rip
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    1 year ago

    I’m a proponent of the “get a 'lil more than you need right now” philosophy, but I also don’t want to spend a fortune.

    I also didn’t really see the point of an enclosure - my stuff wasn’t enclosed before, and the open framed racks are cheaper, so I settled on a Tedgetal 20U open frame rack and it’s actually quite excellent for $200.

    Nothing was bent, everything was packed well, no missing parts. I had enough of my budget left over for some slightly fancier screws and a few Navepoint 1U shelves, because I have some heavier equipment that isn’t rackable.

    The included shelves are ok for lighter things - I have several SFF machines I use in a Proxmox cluster that live on those.