How to Turn an IKEA Coffee Table into a DIY Server Rack

Also don't forget there are more IKEA things that can host computers. I used a Kallax shelf for a beautiful home server.

https://blog.haschek.at/2014/07/ikea-server-rack-nope-not-th...

LACK tables are also popular in the 3D printing community as well for enclosures:

https://all3dp.com/2/ikea-3d-printer-enclosure-tutorial/

but does ICT stand for "information and communications technology" or "Ikea coffee table"?

I have a 14U rack next to my desk.

It's doable, but you need to spend time to optimize the noise factor:

- If you need many cores but can live with lower clock speeds, you can underclock.

- 1U servers will be noisy no matter what. 2U is already more manageable. 4Us are the best.

- GPUs will be noisy, no real solution around that. High heat production, and they hinder the air flow, so the front fans will have to spin faster. I physically remove GPUs from chassis when I'm not actively using them.

- There are small-size soundproof server cabinets that can easily solve this problem. They're very expensive though.

- Depending on the server, you can directly control fan speed at the firmware level. This needs careful control if you don't want to destroy your hardware and/or burn down your place.

- The pandemic makes all this much harder. I used to keep things running lightly during the night and full blast during the day when everyone was out of the house. I saved tons of money, compared to what I would have paid on any cloud platform. Now that we're home 24/7 it's not so worth it anymore.

Also this is all worth it if you actually enjoy playing with the hardware, in that case the money you put into this brings you both fun and cheap compute. If the setup is a chore for you, don't do it, it probably won't be worth your hourly rate.

Fun fact: the noise/space/aesthetics factors are referred to in the community as the "WAF" - Wife Acceptance Factor ;-)

I had a colleague back in the very late 90s that lived in a typical British semi-detached house. Under the stairs was a cupboard against the external wall. He decided to make that his server room with a rack and "cheap" second hand kit.

To cool it, he drilled through the external brick wall several times and fitted exhaust fans.

His hall sounded like standing behind a 747.

If it rained, he often ended up tripping the fuses.

</end of anecdote>

I had a roommate who did this. He did computational neuroscience back before gpus were a thing. It was great for heating the house. Terrible for actually being in the house.

To my surprise, All the Dell servers we have try to keep the noise at a minimum unless they're pushed to their max.

I'm not aware of the any other servers, switches or actively cooled equipment tried to do that.

IBM BladeCenter H is the worst offender: "Is acoustic management enabled? No? OK, everything is at full speed, then".

With the likes of AMD Threadripper around now, I guess there is even less reason now to have a home rack - a single Threadripper in a standard tower case likely has more compute capability than most home racks from just a few years ago.

About 10 years ago I tried to built my own rack in the basement so noise was not the issue but power consumption was the issue. After connecting a few Cisco switches on my UPS I realized that each one was consuming at least 60-80W being idle which would sum up to a considerable amount of money running 24/7 together with the rest of my planned to be equipment. As I was only going to run this setup for the fun of it, after a couple of months I decided to give the majority of the network hardware away and use gns3 for the limited work I wanted to do

In the late ‘90s I had an internship at IBM. Sometimes you’d need to go into the server room to do your work and I remember the white noise from all the fans in there being perfect for falling asleep to. Granted, that wasn’t the goal, but if you went in there in the afternoon to get work done, it took all of your willpower to not fall asleep at a terminal.

I did something similar with an old server a friend of mine acquired from a internet company that had gone out of business.

I remember taking out ALL of the fans AND trying to put it under an arm chair and it was still the loudest thing in my apartment. Needless to say, I got rid of it not long after that.

what about upgrading fans to silent fans? Has anyone tried noctua fans?

Servers are optimized for small size. If the rental space cost is not the biggest cost you can build a quiet server that also performs better! eg. something like a noctua nh on the cpu.

Old hardware yes, newer generations are quite quiet when not under high load. But people buy old hardware and then find out the hard way...

Unfortunately true. I stuck a water cooling system in my home lab machines. Not plug and play as many components expect airflow anyway...

On decommissioned servers, if there is no variable speed control you can solder resistors to the fans and just monitor temps.

Fans are a solvable problem: just put a few walls and/or ceilings between you and them. What is not solvable is the power consumption. I got a secondhand server about 10 years ago, placed it in a cellar, played with it for a few months - and then I realized my electricity bill had gone up by 30%.

The hardware is probably much better now, if one pays attention, but still, it's a big gotcha.

This. You don't want to keep that stuff around you. It should be locked up in a server room or at least a closet.

That's cool! I'm using a cheesegrater Mac Pro as a night stand:

https://i.imgur.com/qZW9nkN.jpg

Using drive trays as drawers shows class, but putting a computer in a glass box is too easy.

On the other hand, there are computers with a form factor that allows direct reuse as a table or sideboard, like the Connection Machine CM2 (smaller than it looks in most photographs) or the less curvy SGI Onyx and Onyx2 models (the perfect size for bedside use).

I run a custom 4U server with consumer hardware (older Ryzen) and 2 network switches, ATT Fiber Box, 1U Mikrotik Router and various accessories at ~100Wh, so ~$9/month. I am surprised how energy efficient this stuff has gotten - I do recall running a much smaller setup not too long ago that cost me a whole lot more.

Years ago I turned a decommissioned server into my desktop (when 4gb was a lot of memory). Worked fine, but when I switched to a laptop as primary and turned it off I think my power bill dropped by $20-30/month.

If I'd checked the draw earlier I'd have killed it far sooner.

The best idea is to turn it upside down, put casters on the bottom through the "top of the table" and then you can load it upwards. You have about 9U of space available but you can line up one table on top of each and connect them.

They are also perfect for making an enclosure for the Ender 3 series of 3D printers. I think you need two of them stacked but the price is right and it is a popular solution for when you need to shield your prints from drafts.

http://www.tmproductions.com/projects-blog/2019/11/24/buildi...

You'd miss out on the great writing in the article though :)

Which begs the question: did Ikea name it "Lack" because they knew this, or even designed it on purpose? To me it looks like word play.

> It’s a nice DIY project but why?

Because it's extremely cheap and easily discardable if not required anymore or something more permanent comes around. It's an alternative to having a switch/machine sit on the floor, not "nobody needs to buy racks anymore". (And at least around here, "racks for scrap value" isn't exactly common, or if it is it's full-height ones with pickup only (or understandably expensive shipping))

> It’s a nice DIY project but why?

I think you answered your own question.

I was lucky enough to grab two RASTs coincidentally the week they were discontinued. The RAST rack is extremely sturdy and inexpensive. I really wish I could get more. I used mending straps to mount them atop each other so I have a nice desk height rack for my studio equipment.

You're talking about half the height and width? That would be pretty useful, you're right. Maybe be able to put 4 of these halfracks in a normal rack.

Apple used to sell (or recommend, I forget) a half-height rack for academic use of XServes. I know one faculty who got one and didn't realize it would turn his office into a noisy datacentre. He had it moved to a spare office.

Possibly something along the lines of Eurocards (as people who make synthesizers call them), which is based around Eurocards -- still used in industry.

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

(Unless you just meant a less-than-42U 19" rack, which is easily available. You can buy 19" racks as small as 6U.)

I really wish 10 inch racks and equipment were more common. I installed a 10 inch rack in my house (only with a switch and a few patch panels), but it the choice for components was really limited. Anyways, I am glad smaller size racks exist at all.

Now that you mention I do have some half width server boards kicking around on steel trays. I always assumed they went in some two-up side by side, but the trays are a little odd for that.

While I wouldn't choose to use particleboard for a piece of furniture myself (that's my inner woodworker rebelling at the thought), the bigger concern is how it's used. For the LACK side tables, the legs are attached with a single double-ended dowel stud that sits the middle of the leg. I suppose you could add some glue during assembly, but you're really just gluing exposed particleboard to a veneer, with very little--if any--added strength. It's truly ridiculous example of joinery, even by cheap knock-down furniture standards. Amusingly, the server mounts will do more to help stabilize the legs they're attached to.

You can also use threaded inserts epoxied when attaching the racks to the legs, which will have still have significant holding power in particleboard. Just make sure to use inserts with coarser threads (depending on where you buy them, they may be labeled as softwood inserts), which will have greater holding power in particleboard. Just remember to drill a very slightly oversized hole (both in terms of depth and diameter, so it's just a hair wider than the exterior threads so the epoxy can fully surround the insert) for your inserts.

To make install easier, cut a piece of tape around the end of the insert to keep the epoxy from covering the internal threads.[0] And if you have a file, file a groove vertically across the insert from the top to the bottom. The epoxy will get pushed up through those grooves, locking the insert down so it can't twist. Scrape off the squeeze-out, let the epoxy set, and you're good to go. There are also tapping inserts you can use without having to break out a file.[1]

0. https://www.woodmagazine.com/materials-guide/fasteners/tips-...

1. https://www.mcmaster.com/threaded-inserts/tapping-inserts-fo...

For "real" servers and anything containing HDDs, definitely. But for a switch, some 1U el cheapo half-depth server and a power rail, the particleboard is sufficient. But one-time use only, the holes you drill into it wear out when reused.

You can use molly bolts to mount stuff into the hollow legs with reasonable stability (the article calls them 'cavity plugs' which isn't a term I recognized, might be a regional thing)

TBF it is not the best coffee table, I think it’s such a popular product for all the other uses.

The use cases for us was to shove 10cm off the feet and use it as a ground table (e.g. a kid can do homework on it while sitting on the floor), it’s also light enough to be easily moved from one room to the other. The other one supports the printer with the paper stock under it.

For that price, you can get a custom version on Reverb covered in your choice of tolex.

Nowadays you'd be able to shove a couple of raspberry pi 4s and a bunch of big HDDs on a rack shelf and get something similar with far less noise.

My guess would be shipping costs from the manufacturers to stores. I'd hazard a guess they have their man production in Scandinavia/western Europe rather than Russia.

check labgopher -> https://labgopher.com/

If you put 4U stuff in it you'll have way better noise levels. You can also shove it in an out of the way corner like the garage or basement if you have those.

If it's connected to the tv, sure, but otherwise.. what's the benefit?

Wireless APs/routers are not great there, the TV will block signal.

Everything else I can think of (home server, switches, smart hubs, etc) is IMHO better in a hidden but more accessible spot. I say this as someone with a lot of this type of gear in my house and an obsession with neat/hidden cables and just generally making things like this as invisible as possible.

If I ever have a house and it’s large enough and I have enough time and money to do house projects, I plan on making a wiring closet behind the media center.

It's mostly your motherboard form factor -- ATX, ITX, etc etc. Check what the rack mount case supports, same as any other case. Some very giant desktop motherboards are ~impossible to find rack mount cases for. (Eg, old EVGA motherboards that were some sort of mega-ATX.)

A 4U case should fit desktop cards and cooling components, but you should probably double check that too.

I do the same with my Lack! But with two tower PC:s (wfh/private) and a USB switch on top and a switch and surge protector mounted underneath.

One tidy braid of network/power from the wall and one thick but tidy braid of usb/power/dp/hdmi to dual screens and USB hub on the desk.

The page is incorrect (or out of date), it's 39 DKK (€5.23), and 24PLN (€5.27).

Still cheaper, but only just. It might be to try and attract people to the Ikea shops in Denmark, which are generally significantly less conveniently located than their closest competitor here, Jysk.

No. Heat isn't expelled out of the top of a server because there's usually another server in the way. Heat comes out of the back.

How? Nothing in a server should get up to or near the auto-ignition temperature of wood.

Yeah, just don't do it. It's hilarious. But that's about it.