Dell R620 with no rack

[Markess]

I was gifted a 1U Dell R620 with almost no on-time and relatively quiet, so I want to keep it. But, I don't have a rack to put it in. Is it possible to mount this on its side, or vertically without creating airflow issues?

My other hardware is in tower cases with large, slow fans to keep noise down and "Spousal Approval" up. The switch is 1U, but is low power/heat, so there's been no issue with it on its side next to the towers. The R620 has a lot more airflow/heat though, so I'm not sure if I can safely orient it other than "flat". Advice on the internet is mixed, so I thought I'd ask here.

From an access standpoint it would be best to set the Dell to be on its side too, but I'm unsure the best orientation: Power supplies "up" or "down". Or is it a bad idea entirely? I can also do vertical on a wall, or keep it flat on top of the wall unit in my home office, but both those make access difficult.

As I suspect is the case for a lot of us, my home set-up grew over time from a single machine. If I had to do it all over again, I would have started with a large rack and put everything in 4U cases with big fans from the start. Oh well, maybe its an excuse to re-do everything.

Thanks for any advice.

 

[SPCRich]

the fans blow fast enough that mounting on side or vertical would be no issue, although mounted vertically, you run into gravity issues (easy to knock over). Also make sure you have ample room under the front to suck air up. if you mount vertically or horizontally, make sure you use SSDs, as bits will fall off the hard drive platters. J/K.

the R620 doesn't generate that much heat at idle, under load sure, but you're maybe looking at around 80W idle, about as much as a standard bulb.

I would formulate some sort of mounting arrangement with cinderblocks or something, or build something out of wood to hold it on its side, and you'll be A-OK.