Designing 1U/2U/3U/4U rackmount server chassis - these will be going to production - looking for input, ideas, and feedback!

[SligerCases]

Hello!

I am looking for feedback on some rack mount case designs I am working on, and had a few people recommend I post here!

Would like to know general idea of what people are looking for. I was really targeting the DIY server builder, but at same time trying to make these really appeal to the low noise crowd, and possibly even gaming PC / workstation crowds as well.

Have a lot of designs done, but am looking for more ideas - hope to hear what everyone here has to say!

Here's a few cases I have drawn up so far to give an idea what I am working on:

2U x 12" deep, with ATX/MicroATX motherboard, and an SFX or SFX-L power supply. These PSUs are cheap, abundant, and silent - unlike 1U and FlexATX. Cooled by 3x 80mm fans, in red. Motherboard in green. Power supply in Blue.



3U x 15" deep with 240mm liquid cooler support, ATX motherboard, SFX or SFX-L power supply, and a configurable HDD/SSD bracket for a mix of anything 3x 3.5" HDD and 1x 2.5" SSD, or can be 2x 3.5" HDD / 4x 2.5" SSD, etc. Cooled by 2x 120mm fans. HDDs and SSDs are in yellow. (One SSD is accidentally purple.) Radiator in red.


Same layout can use a PCIe 4.0 riser to fit a giant 3-slot GPU such as a 3090FE. This surprisingly still leaves one PCIe slot available for a HBA or GbE card. (I should have highlighted this card another color, but you can see it and its slot cutout in green.)


or if you want a 360mm liquid cooler or just 3x 120mm fans for a HEDT type build, that's possible too.


4U


4U also will be avilable in 15", 17", or 20" deep for all the EEB type boards, down to short ATX or MicroATX. These almost exclusively use ATX and ATX form factor redundant PSU derivatives. Shown is the 20" deep version with 1x 5.25" bay, a 360mm AIO, 3x 120mm x 25mm fans, 3x 3.5" HDDs, a 225mm long ATX PSU, EEB motherboard, and a 3090 FE GPU.

Questions for here:

Does a "silent" rack case appeal to you / anyone?

Planned on SFX and ATX power supplies for this product line to start, since they are available. Anything else you'd like to see on power supply side?

What do you normally pay for rack rails for your cases? Seems most rack rails are $100+ per set. I was hoping to get that way down, to like $25 a set.

Complaints on cable management in other cases you've used. (ex: sharp edges, running wires through small holes in the fan wall.)

Storage - U.3? SATA? I can't really do back planes or SAS expanders with the semiconductor shortage.
Alternatively, what about barely any storage at all, lots of systems do not need anything but a single M.2 drive.

Smaller and shorter cases?

Liquid cooling support? (360mm radiator in a 3U anyone)

PCIe bifurcation and trifurcation support. Wokring on PCIe 4.0 and 5.0 solutions. (IMO, this is critical for 1U and 2U cases.)

Not sure anyone needs 5U or larger.

Any other complaints about existing AIC, Chenbro, iStar, inWin, Rosewill cases.

If you have any feedback, ideas to add, please post! I am happy to create some new renders, layouts, etc. around ideas or anything else that the market seems to be missing. (Particularly for the 1U and 2U cases.)

 

[Patriot]

Approved because of my knowledge of sliger cases, but need to get a vendor tag on you and approval from Patrick before you list any items for sale.
Having worked with FE 3090s... they would probably overheat in those chassis scenarios.

I would like to see proper airflow baffles in these types of server configs, or as optional adds.

I do like the radiator support and sfx psus.

 

[bitbckt]

Seconded on the airflow situation - the boards I would use in such a case have little to no active cooling. Baffles would help focus all that flow where it matters.

On that note, most (all?) SFX PSUs I’ve used would put the fan either against the floor or lid of the 2U case. What’s your thinking on airflow there?

Personal aside: I just built an EPYC machine in a Cerberus. It’s awesome to have the opportunity to buy a quality case made in my hometown!

 

[SligerCases]

Approved because of my knowledge of sliger cases, but need to get a vendor tag on you and approval from Patrick before you list any items for sale.
Having worked with FE 3090s... they would probably overheat in those chassis scenarios.

I would like to see proper airflow baffles in these types of server configs, or as optional adds.

I do like the radiator support and sfx psus.

Thank you! Sorry it got flagged as spam / looks so much like spam.

Please have him shoot me whatever I need to do that / get setup.

The 3U case with the 3x 120mm fans in the front and a 3090FE in actually topped out the 3090FE at 70C in our prototype unit.
Have a post on my Instagram about it. I will do a more formal thermal test and detail it here when I get time.

Fan baffles are a solid idea. Will try and come up with something there. Any recommendations on CPU coolers to design these baffles around? I would assume just anything Dynatron?

Seconded on the airflow situation - the boards I would use in such a case have little to no active cooling. Baffles would help focus all that flow where it matters.

On that note, most (all?) SFX PSUs I’ve used would put the fan either against the floor or lid of the 2U case. What’s your thinking on airflow there?

Personal aside: I just built an EPYC machine in a Cerberus. It’s awesome to have the opportunity to buy a quality case made in my hometown!

What boards you looking at? Assuming these are pretty high end CPUs.

The SFX PSU is actually almost ideal for a 2U since 2U is ~94mm on inside, and SFX PSUs are 63mm OD on height. Leaves exactly enough clearance to put the PSU over the motherboard a little bit, or just lay it in the case with ~30mm of extra space for airflow.

775 gang! Would love to see that build if you have it posted anywhere.

 

[Patriot]

I would say thermalright silver soul 110 and noctua nh-d9L on the 3u
Comperable 92mm dual heatpipe towers.

Dynatron maybe on the 2us

 

[i386]

So...
Where do the 24x hdds go?

 

[Rand__]

I too wonder about the airflow, especially on the watercooled ones.
I am sure you dant want to pull cold air in through the radiator inside the chassis, so you're going to push out hot air to the front where the user is... thats of course possible but uncommon.
While none of these chassis will end in a cold/warm aisle setup I am not sure I'd get one that pushes all the hot air in the room or potentially right at me if its under my desk...

 

[Switchback028]

Okay a premium workstation case that I don't have to hack and slash at would be amazing! I've looked at custom cases in the past but having someone fab a singular case would have been prohibitively expensive.

To answer your questions:
Does a "silent" rack case appeal to you / anyone?
Not really for my usecase, but with the smaller cases you may run into Static pressure requirements, and most high SP fans are loud.
Planned on SFX and ATX power supplies for this product line to start, since they are available. Anything else you'd like to see on power supply side?
Might be a bit niche, but redundant power supplies would be awesome. A few atx compatible dual-redundant PSUs exist on the market.
What do you normally pay for rack rails for your cases? Seems most rack rails are $100+ per set. I was hoping to get that way down, to like $25 a set.
Some nicer sets are spendy, but if you want something that rolls out on bearings is going to cost money. Plus if you add stuff like cable management arms that raises the cost. I'd love to see CMAs used more often honestly.

Storage - U.3? SATA? I can't really do back planes or SAS expanders with the semiconductor shortage.
Alternatively, what about barely any storage at all, lots of systems do not need anything but a single M.2 drive.
While a backplane would be awesome, as you said the semiconductor shortage will hurt. Maybe a relationship with a known mfg of 5.25 drive bays would be ideal?
Smaller and shorter cases?
I'd actually love to see more "reverse" cases that leave your IO on the front of the chassis. Especially in a short 1u config for firewall type builds would be awesome! Also, might be worth looking at the industrial "rugged" systems, I'm certain you would get orders for ruggedized/rugged capable chassis. (Think bracing for heatsinks, hard drives etc)
Liquid cooling support? (360mm radiator in a 3U anyone)
I love watercooling, but you need more than just radiator support. Something with a mount for a pump/res would be ideal

 

[SligerCases]

So...
Where do the 24x hdds go?

Are you thinking like an equivalent to the 45 Drives case, ex: 4U and top loading? I could make that.

Only thing I really can't do is front trays with PCB backplanes. (Chinese can make a whole case cheaper than I can buy a single SAS microcontroller for.)

I did make a 3U case that is 15" deep, and holds 10x 3.5" HDDs via thumb screws slid into capture slots. Uses direct wiring to pass through SATA adapters that are secured to a highly ventilated steel mid-panel. Functions as a back plane, you do not have to go in and manually plug the drive cable in to the drive, but does not require a backplane or tray. Hotswap depends on PSU and HBA card, Mini-TX + SFX + 2x 120mm fans. Also holds 4x 2.5" SSD.





But if you are thinking something like the Storinator cases I would have to get some passive backplanes or overmolded cables made. Very possible, but leadtimes / price might be kind of high. (I can see why Protocase sells the 45 drive case for ~$1500.)

I too wonder about the airflow, especially on the watercooled ones.
I am sure you dant want to pull cold air in through the radiator inside the chassis, so you're going to push out hot air to the front where the user is... thats of course possible but uncommon.
While none of these chassis will end in a cold/warm aisle setup I am not sure I'd get one that pushes all the hot air in the room or potentially right at me if its under my desk...

Sticking with strictly the traditional airflow model of front to back on these. Might get some heatsoak back into the parts with a radiator in front, but not sure it's significant compared to how much more airflow 3x 120mm fans provides compared to most 3U cases out there that have just a few 92mm/80mm/60mm fans.

Okay a premium workstation case that I don't have to hack and slash at would be amazing! I've looked at custom cases in the past but having someone fab a singular case would have been prohibitively expensive.

To answer your questions:
Does a "silent" rack case appeal to you / anyone?
Not really for my usecase, but with the smaller cases you may run into Static pressure requirements, and most high SP fans are loud.
Planned on SFX and ATX power supplies for this product line to start, since they are available. Anything else you'd like to see on power supply side?
Might be a bit niche, but redundant power supplies would be awesome. A few atx compatible dual-redundant PSUs exist on the market.
What do you normally pay for rack rails for your cases? Seems most rack rails are $100+ per set. I was hoping to get that way down, to like $25 a set.
Some nicer sets are spendy, but if you want something that rolls out on bearings is going to cost money. Plus if you add stuff like cable management arms that raises the cost. I'd love to see CMAs used more often honestly.

Storage - U.3? SATA? I can't really do back planes or SAS expanders with the semiconductor shortage.
Alternatively, what about barely any storage at all, lots of systems do not need anything but a single M.2 drive.
While a backplane would be awesome, as you said the semiconductor shortage will hurt. Maybe a relationship with a known mfg of 5.25 drive bays would be ideal?
Smaller and shorter cases?
I'd actually love to see more "reverse" cases that leave your IO on the front of the chassis. Especially in a short 1u config for firewall type builds would be awesome! Also, might be worth looking at the industrial "rugged" systems, I'm certain you would get orders for ruggedized/rugged capable chassis. (Think bracing for heatsinks, hard drives etc)
Liquid cooling support? (360mm radiator in a 3U anyone)
I love watercooling, but you need more than just radiator support. Something with a mount for a pump/res would be ideal

Do you have any examples of the CMAs you're talking about?

On the reverse layout - what would you be looking at for PCIe cards? I would be down to make a few reverse layouts.

Layouts I can think of:

1U with ATX motherboard, no slots/no PCIe cards

1U with ITX + 2x full height PCIe slots via bifurcation

2U with ATX motherboard, SFX PSU out back, for 7x full height PCIe slot cutouts in front

2U with ITX + 3x full height PCIe slots via trifurcation (or bifurcation for 2-slot GPU + 1x other card?)

3U with ATX motherboard, SFX PSU, for 8x full height PCIe slot cutouts out the front

4U with.... EEB/EATX motherboard facing out the front?

Would reverse layout with storage options be useful? Could squeeze some 3.5" to 2.5" adapters in next to the motherboard IO.

Or... combine with above, do a reverse layout / 45 drive esque 4U mass-storage case?

 

[Rand__]

Only thing I really can't do is front trays with PCB backplanes. (Chinese can make a whole case cheaper than I can buy a single SAS microcontroller for.)

You could design around existing, obtainable Backplanes (like Supermicro), a short depth (16 3.5 drives + 120 fan wall + small board) might be intresting for a lot of people

Sticking with strictly the traditional airflow model of front to back on these. Might get some heatsoak back into the parts with a radiator in front, but not sure it's significant compared to how much more airflow 3x 120mm fans provides compared to most 3U cases out there that have just a few 92mm/80mm/60mm fans.

The difference is that those 80mm fans have significant higher RPMs and thus higher air pressure (but more noise). With your goal of a (more) silent system you'll have relatively little static pressure.
Now thats not an issue if you don't have anything heat sensitive in there, but if you add a GPU, SAS controllers or high performance NICs that will be different.

 

[lliora]

Questions for here:

Does a "silent" rack case appeal to you / anyone?

Planned on SFX and ATX power supplies for this product line to start, since they are available. Anything else you'd like to see on power supply side?

What do you normally pay for rack rails for your cases? Seems most rack rails are $100+ per set. I was hoping to get that way down, to like $25 a set.

Complaints on cable management in other cases you've used. (ex: sharp edges, running wires through small holes in the fan wall.)

Storage - U.3? SATA? I can't really do back planes or SAS expanders with the semiconductor shortage.
Alternatively, what about barely any storage at all, lots of systems do not need anything but a single M.2 drive.

Smaller and shorter cases?

Liquid cooling support? (360mm radiator in a 3U anyone)

PCIe bifurcation and trifurcation support. Wokring on PCIe 4.0 and 5.0 solutions. (IMO, this is critical for 1U and 2U cases.)

Not sure anyone needs 5U or larger.

Any other complaints about existing AIC, Chenbro, iStar, inWin, Rosewill cases.

If you have any feedback, ideas to add, please post! I am happy to create some new renders, layouts, etc. around ideas or anything else that the market seems to be missing. (Particularly for the 1U and 2U cases.)

As a matter of fact, I have been spending the past two months trying to figure out how can I get my two servers into my A/V rack and make them silent. Now, one of the workstations is probably pretty common, i.e. Ryzen 5950x w/ mini-itx motherboard and a powerful graphics card, i.e., RTX 3090. I do not care about disks or anything, just how much radiator space I can get there and the air flow. Another problem comes with the A/V rack, which allows me only to put a max 400mm chassis (with some extra space in front for handles etc). Most of the cases are not very good at airflow, or do have enough space for radiators without having to gut them down and replace the front-panel with some custom one, which is the route that I as resigned to go until I happened to come across this post. Another option would be to get protocase (or some vendor in China) to create the case for me, but that would be costly as my CAD skills are not that great. So all I care about really is aesthetics as it will be in full display in my A/V rack, it should not look dumb, and air flow (i.e. as much holes as possible, and places for radiators/fans). 2u, 3u or 4u is fine for my use case as long as I can figure out enough radiator space.

My other server is though probably a outlier, which I still would want to get to the same A/V rack (i.e. 400mm depth limit on the chassis). It is a Threadripper 3970x with 3 gpus (RTX 3080 and equivalent) with full ATX motherboard. Again, all disks are SSDs directly on motherboard, so no need for those. But this will put out some serious heat, so probably 4u case is the minimum, but even then may need to design an external chassis with few extra radiators. Luckily though, not all of the graphics cards are at full speed same time, so its not as bad as I make it sound. But in any case, your 4u design (with all disks removed, and the front-panel clean with as many holes as possible, all I really need is power button and a dim(!) power led. 1 usb port is nice to have) is good. Just need to add a couple holes to the back panel to allow quick fittings for external liquid cooling (if I need it).

 

[Cantello]

Would love to see a (improved) rack version of the Silverstone CS381, short depth (my rack only has 16") and room for 6+ HDDs. Height is not a problem, only depth.

 

[SligerCases]

Would love to see a (improved) rack version of the Silverstone CS381, short depth (my rack only has 16") and room for 6+ HDDs. Height is not a problem, only depth.

I did not know that case existed, it's pretty compact, but looks extremely difficult to work in and reviews are not great. Price also seems pretty steep.

You using MicroATX? System have a GPU?

Height not being a problem opens up some ideas.

As a matter of fact, I have been spending the past two months trying to figure out how can I get my two servers into my A/V rack and make them silent. Now, one of the workstations is probably pretty common, i.e. Ryzen 5950x w/ mini-itx motherboard and a powerful graphics card, i.e., RTX 3090. I do not care about disks or anything, just how much radiator space I can get there and the air flow. Another problem comes with the A/V rack, which allows me only to put a max 400mm chassis (with some extra space in front for handles etc). Most of the cases are not very good at airflow, or do have enough space for radiators without having to gut them down and replace the front-panel with some custom one, which is the route that I as resigned to go until I happened to come across this post. Another option would be to get protocase (or some vendor in China) to create the case for me, but that would be costly as my CAD skills are not that great. So all I care about really is aesthetics as it will be in full display in my A/V rack, it should not look dumb, and air flow (i.e. as much holes as possible, and places for radiators/fans). 2u, 3u or 4u is fine for my use case as long as I can figure out enough radiator space.

My other server is though probably a outlier, which I still would want to get to the same A/V rack (i.e. 400mm depth limit on the chassis). It is a Threadripper 3970x with 3 gpus (RTX 3080 and equivalent) with full ATX motherboard. Again, all disks are SSDs directly on motherboard, so no need for those. But this will put out some serious heat, so probably 4u case is the minimum, but even then may need to design an external chassis with few extra radiators. Luckily though, not all of the graphics cards are at full speed same time, so its not as bad as I make it sound. But in any case, your 4u design (with all disks removed, and the front-panel clean with as many holes as possible, all I really need is power button and a dim(!) power led. 1 usb port is nice to have) is good. Just need to add a couple holes to the back panel to allow quick fittings for external liquid cooling (if I need it).

What cases are you currently using for all of this?

External cooling / a dedicated radiator case is an interesting idea.

Alphacool had an interesting take on a liquid cooled rack, they got everything internal.

High density server liquid cooling? Alphacool has it at CES 2020

Alphacool had a render server in their suite at CES 2020, which was pushing thermal density to a new realm with a toasty 2990WX and quad 2080 Ti's.

www.tweaktown.com

You could design around existing, obtainable Backplanes (like Supermicro), a short depth (16 3.5 drives + 120 fan wall + small board) might be intresting for a lot of people


The difference is that those 80mm fans have significant higher RPMs and thus higher air pressure (but more noise). With your goal of a (more) silent system you'll have relatively little static pressure.
Now thats not an issue if you don't have anything heat sensitive in there, but if you add a GPU, SAS controllers or high performance NICs that will be different.

Small board = ITX, Flex ATX, MicroATX?

I'll see what I can do for that many drives in a short case without making it too loud or too large.

 

[WilliamArmstrong]

Keep in mind, most of these solutions are for home use with at most a single rack for solutions that are racked.

Have you thought about a model dedicated to being mounted on the wall? (Look, we all do it, no one is judging anyone.)

By side mounting the motherboard, you would enable the cords not to be hanging from the bottom or have to be snaked behind the case. You could have a glass panel option to show off your design.

If you want to have a wall covered in these, then you probably don't want to design the airflow to be either front to back or the reverse. Having the air go either left or right makes more sense.

This could also allow you to hang the case under a desk, or on the back of one.

The desk is interesting, because you could design a desk made to have the chassis mounted this way. If on this chassis, you place the motherboard in reverse, so the outputs are facing up, you can have that peeking through the desk. This would give easy access to the most used components when building the desk.

This would essentially be a rackmount desk, so you might as well set it up were you could mix and match. Want a disk shelf in your desk? Go for it.

Having it in this form factor means you could take it and hang it in a mobile home or tiny house.

Speaking of airflow, have you thought of designs the take the fans out of the chassis? If you made a design where you placed large low RPM fans on the side, and designed the heat flow accordingly, it could be quite useful for 1U and 2U machines. You could have a NFT or proximity alarm on the computer that will alert the user if they turn the unit on when not near a working fan solution. (Must be able to turn off in the bios.)

You wouldn't need to pick a side, you could engineer a solution that works on both sides, and can route both sides, with ducting the air out the back, so all units would be better cooled, with less noise. The fan would need to be smart, as it would be cooling multiple units. This solution can be agnostic, of course, but you can put some special sauce in your own solution to have preset defaults.

There was a good idea up there before, about making parts that would fit common backplane. I think you can do a little better. You can create an interposer standard for yourselves, that has your standard on one side, and on the other side, it might match the SuperMicro backplane or one of the others that is common on eBay. I am betting if you publish your spec, there would be designs for the boards you don't want to deal with for whatever reason. The community has this way of surprising you.

Toolless installs. AT this point, we have toolless HDD enclosures, surely, we can make it to where the parts that connect to the case don't need tools. Obviously, this wouldn't apply to motherboard components, but most of the case components don't need those tight tolerances.

All of the designs look good, obviously you have actual skills while all I have are ideas, but maybe one of these will jog something for you? : )

 

[Cantello]

I did not know that case existed, it's pretty compact, but looks extremely difficult to work in and reviews are not great. Price also seems pretty steep.

You using MicroATX? System have a GPU?

Height not being a problem opens up some ideas.

MicroATX or Mini-ITX does not really matter, I was just looking for something rack-like to put 5+ disks in comfortably. Similar case to e.g. the new QNAP TS-873AeU. No GPU used here but might be an issue for some, especially heavy transcoding users of Plex.

 

[nabsltd]

I am looking for feedback on some rack mount case designs I am working on, and had a few people recommend I post here!

One of the things I have noticed is that tiered storage support is available on just about every OS. For budget setups, this means 3.5" spinning rust for capacity, and 2.5" or M.2 flash for cache. M.2 doesn't really require chassis support, so lets ignore it for now.
But, try to find a chassis with 8x or so 3.5" drive bays (hot swap or not) and enough 2.5" bays to support SATA/SAS or U.2 NVME to cache it. They really don't exist. Sure, you can put 1-2 2.5" in the back of a few chassis, but why not a 2U with 9x 3.5" hot swap and 6x 2.5" hot swap? The 2.5" could be SAS/SATA or NVME, depending on the SKU.
This would give you space for 90-180TB raw disk and not have to splurge for a couple of 6TB flash drives to cache it. Instead, you could use more affordable 2TB drives, and have lots of room to grow the cache later on.

 

[wifiholic]

But, try to find a chassis with 8x or so 3.5" drive bays (hot swap or not) and enough 2.5" bays to support SATA/SAS or U.2 NVME to cache it. They really don't exist.

The closest chassis that's sadly not so relevant any more is the Dell R730xd variant with 8 3.5" bays and 18 1.8" bays for mini SSDs.

For my part, an ideal server would be a 3U chassis with 12 3.5" bays in the bottom 2U and 8 2.5" SATA/SAS/NVMe bays on the top. I'd pay good money for something like that, or like what you were describing, either would be very nice.

 

[nabsltd]

an ideal server would be a 3U chassis with 12 3.5" bays in the bottom 2U and 8 2.5" SATA/SAS/NVMe bays on the top.

I don't buy 3U precisely because you end up with some waste at the top that usually has room for a slim optical and controls or front-panel ports.
But, I'd buy what you describe in a heartbeat.

 

[Carnassial]

@SligerCases

Thank you so much for addressing the niche "home" rack market!
I've been looking for such cases for years!
Please consider making a slightly deeper 4U case, with mounting points for 360mm radiator and also pump/reservoir. Mounting points for water distribution/manifold with quick disconnect (so you can service the CPU and GPU blocks independently). Also, it would be nice to have cutouts at the back of the case for quick disconnect bulkheads and/or for cable passthrough.

My current setup:
I have 3x Silverstone RM502. I drilled holes at the back for quick disconnect fittings, which I run to an external 420x420mm radiator.

The RM502 being only 468mm deep is really cramped once you put in all the fans, tubing, and power cables, I'm afraid that the airflow to my passive components is restricted.
I'd like to see a slightly deeper case, 600mm-650mm to allow for cable management and allow more room at the front top for more 5.25" or other expansion bays.

Nice to haves:
A painted interior.
A top panel that can be removed toolessly.

I would like to point out the Alphacool ES 4U. It looks like great case, although it does not come with sliding rails, which is disappointing.

Server Racks

1HE, 2HE, 3HE und 4HE Serverracks die speziell für die Aufnahme einer Wasserkühlung vorbereitet wurden.

www.alphacool.com

I know a 5U would be even more niche, but it would allow for the height of standard waterblocks for consumer cards (some are too tall to fit into 4U). You can also have front facing PCIe (with riser cables) also.

Sorry for the ramble. Looking forward to these cases, I hope you ship to Australia!

 

[tozmo]

The location of psu: PSU cables don't come out at a 90degree angle. Is there enough space between where psu cables come out, where power and data cables go to the yellow drive area, that the fit is not "horrible"?

Would an array of 7200 or sas ssd's have enough airflow around them to stay cool if they abut the psu like that? I've had to rig some special fan setups in my Rosewill to cool sas 2.5 hdd's/ssd's.