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LackRack

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148 pointstete40 comments

Most people here are completely missing the point. It's a $4.99 coffee table, available at every Ikea worldwide. You're telling me you shouldn't put your "high-value hardware" inside a four dollar and ninety nine cent coffee table? Wow, I'm super surprised!

It is helpful for a lot of people though. I know a handful of people myself who have no rack whatsoever, just putting the unit on the floor or on a desk. For them, this is a massive upgrade that costs less than a sandwich, looks nice, and boosts airflow.

Is it marginally more dangerous than spending a ridiculous amount of money on a rack? Sure. Did Ikea specifically design these as server racks? Obviously not. It's a hack. We're on Hacker News.

This reminds me of another wood rack.

When we first setup the college's server room, we really couldn't afford proper server racks. The carpentry program decided they weren't really that tough to build. They took all the measurements and specs for size and where the holes had to be and went off and said they would get the job done.

So, I showed up to install the new servers and gazed upon beautiful oak server racks.

It was quite functional, but did bring up and issue that LackRack owners might take into consideration: "don't forget to do proper grounding". Fortunately, the school's electrician knew his business and did his part.

I do admit it looked better and was easier to use than the current dull, commercially bought one in the building we later moved to. After all these years, I sometimes miss the old one, but I would have probably gone steampunk on it and that can be bad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFCuE5rHbPA

I'd love to see photos of oak server racks if you have any!

I wished I'd taken them. I know one of the other people did (I will ask them), but it was 97ish and I didn't carry a camera phone with me. It was quite nice and properly stained with bits of metal for securing the servers with slide out shelves. The did leave decent area for air flow.

I built one back in college: https://63towuxu569fy07zrhhj.mnutt.sandcats.io/2006-07-23%20... , https://63towuxu569fy07zrhhj.mnutt.sandcats.io/IMG_3628.jpg

I didn't do a whole lot of planning for airflow, but it seemed to work ok. The back was more open than the front. I built out a metal frame that was inserted into the box, but afterwards realized that I probably could have just bolted the rack mount rails to the wood and called it a day.

Unfortunately, it was kind of big and unwieldy for keeping in an NYC apartment. I wouldn't be surprised if it's still sitting in the Brooklyn apartment where I abandoned it during a move.

Wouldn't almost everything in a rack be grounded via the grounding pin on the NEMA outlet already?

Opinions vary. We went with a separate ground to the service panel (I think). I remember the electrician was a bit insistent that the outlet wasn't enough. He did hide the wiring quite nicely.

I built my own rack for my apartment homelab as well. It's just unfinished pine, but it's a horizontal rack instead of the typical vertical rack to make better use of my limited space. Here's the album on imgur: https://imgur.com/a/D0lXM

Hopefully this isn't a silly question, but do you have a concern about the exhaust/heat hitting the floor instead of having enough room for it to escape?

I thought the same thing. I would also be really concerned about people shaking it when steadying themselves remove or putting on shoes.

Beatiful workmanship though, I wish I could fabricate things like that.

I'm not really concerned about the exhaust heat. There's a decent amount of clearance, and the fans are gonna be way stronger than convective currents. Since it's also at the bottom of the stairs, it also sits in what is usually the coolest part of my apartment.

If I need more support while handling shoes, I just sit on the stairs or lean against the wall or hold on to the railing. In other words, there are an abundance of anchor points that aren't free standing.

And thanks for the kind words. This is the first thing I've fabricated out of wood in years. It was very satisfying to finally finish it - metaphorically, as it's not actually stained or sealed.

Thanks for the info! I guess you don't live in a very humid/hot area like Australia then!

OpenSCAD seems to be a great tool, are there any reference guides or tutorials you recommend to use it?

Servers usually have pretty good fans, as long as you're not doing anything extremely intense you're probably fine with just air cooling at room temp like any desktop PC, we've run them on shelves in a non-ventilated lab for years without issue.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the impression that the main reason DCs need special ventilation is due to sheer number of servers producing a lot more heat combined.

Yes, there is a lot of heat that must be removed quickly.

As well, savings can be had by running separate hot/cold aisles - cold air goes into the front of the racks, and the hot air is of course found on the other side of the racks, so that hot air is the focus of the chiller.

Hey, thanks for the tip on OpenSCAD!

It's a handy tool, that's for sure! Funny story about it though - when I took it to the maker space where I could use some tools, the two older guys who help run it scoffed at me for using OpenSCAD - they're used to graphical - and admittedly easier to use - tools. They pointed me at another tool they liked called On Shape, but I haven't done much with it. I feel more at home with OpenSCAD for now.

Clever setup. Very space-efficient. Do you find you get much utility as a standup in the entry way? Or is it used more as a server and you just have the monitor and keyboard there in case you need to log in quickly?

The monitor and keyboard were just for initial set up. I soon got an iDRAC and now control the system entirely over the network, so the monitor and keyboard have been relegated back to emergency diagnostic status - that is, they're sitting in my closet for the time being.

Instead, the top surface now holds my daily carry gear and anything I need to take with me in the near future, such as gifts for family.

I used to work IT for a somewhat large fan convention. For all the servers and switches we had to roll in for our needs (registration, store, etc), I build a wooden rack [0] [1] that rolled on casters. We could prep everything before loading in, and then we got there it was literally roll it in and start everything up.

Couple years ago I built another one for a friend [2] that we mounted on a wall in his basement.

[0] http://www.robpeck.com/2008/01/diy-19-rolling-rack/

[1] https://www.flickr.com/photos/codelemur/albums/7215760380481...

[2] https://twitter.com/codelemur/status/576766147342655488

Also works very well as a 3D printer enclosure

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1843235

Thanks for the link!

Used this for my audiointerface. Works great and is super cheap. I wonder if the fit is pure coincidence or if there is a useful norm behind this.

Question: how much like a kotatsu is the end result?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotatsu

Knowing what 1U hardware's heat dissipation is like, probably a lot. Noisy as hell, too, what with all those small, fast fans.

I'm voting on coincidence; the dimensions of the coffee table are whole numbers when measured in centimeters: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/20011408/

Probably coincidence. I first learned of this from Frankie Bones probably at least 5 years ago.

Here it is, "over 12 years ago": https://www.discogs.com/group/thread/457859#4448801

My favourite (2010):

- http://helmer.sfe.se/ - http://www.helmer-air.com/

I liked the design of Render Pockets a lot (custom laser-cut shelves for Helmer, holding Mini-ITX boards and hardware): https://www.facebook.com/renderpockets

Nice, but how do you deal with the noise?

In your living space? You just tune it out eventually.

Sounds really weird when you turn everything off though...

That is cool, but personally, I would just buy a rack.

I purchased 3 new 42U (for the unfamiliar, that's roughly 6'6") 4-post racks locally last week at a cost of $450 CAD each plus another $100 CAD for delivery (dude with a truck, not a big courier). Fully enclosed, fans on the top, 1 movable shelf, castors and a (albeit terrible) PDU. I bet I could find something similar in the realm of $100-250 CAD at a smaller size with similar features. They're not the greatest but they're definitely better than an Ikea coffee table.

There are decent cheap racks out there, it's not like you're forced to buy either a APC NetShelter or a coffee table.

Anyone know of some reports on how well the hollow-legged models actually work? The page has a tiny section about this and suggests using some type of anchor (it says "cavity plug", but the example link redirects to the vendor's homepage and searches suggest "cavity plug" to be a hydraulic component, so I suspect a translation issue), but I'd be worried that it would tear out with so little surface area to spread the load over.

It's probably talking about a molly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNFv65-QTPI

Lekker Lack Rack

I just bought a few of these for my servers, but they don't fit. I suspect that Ikea may have changed the dimensions of the product since this page first went up.

I believe there are different sizes of this table.

Okay, is it bad that from the blurry photo I still instantly knew the switch is a BayStack 350?

19" telco racks are pretty cheap in Silicon Valley.

This is what I use for the weird collection of rack mount stuff I keep at home. Works well.

I wouldn't put any high value hardware in this. Also a fire hazard.

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