Silly Question about rackmount rails

[TallGraham]

Hi Everyone

I have been installing servers of all sorts for years in my job. Even played about with rack cabinets at home as well. The one thing that has always bugged me are how poor and awful to use the rackmount rail kits are.

The best by far that I have used are the Dell ones that just clip into the cabinet at the front and back and slide easily to extend to the depth of the cabinet.

So a silly question, are the screw hole locations on rackmount cases in standard places, or do all manufacturers just change them to suit themselves?

If there is some sort of standard then I'd like to get some sets of Dell rackmount rails for my cabinet at home. The ones I have are sadly some of the aforementioned "poor and awful" ones

 

[Rain]

Dell's rails are fairly proprietary, sadly. Unfortunately, every manufacturer does things differently. I agree, Dell's rails are amazing; SuperMicro's rails aren't half-bad either. There are some really rail kits out there though; I feel your pain!

When in doubt: Shelves.

 

[NetWise]

I don't understand why it's so hard for everyone to just copy the Dell rails. Compared to everything else I've set my hands on, they are leaps and bounds the best of them all.

Especially as you go through the generations you can really tell how much they improved each time - whereas many other vendors seem to be using the same 15 year old design that was a PITA back then as well ;(.

 

[Patriot]

I didn't realize some vendors didn't use tool-less rails...
I have only ever used HP rails and aside from the disk enclosures having a security screw... they are quite nice.
G6/7 had a separate piece you attached to the server before sliding it in.
Gen8/9 is just a rack piece and the servers have nubs that stick out to click in.

Frankly I wouldn't be surprised to find out that dell's rails are 1 gen behind HPs ... like their blades have tended to be.

 

[NetWise]

That's how dell's have been since the 2950 days of not earlier, I don't remember that far back. Each iteration just gets better. Put the two back nubs in the rail then use it as a pivot to 'close' the server down into the rails.
Anything with slides attached to the side of the servers is a lesson in frustration.
I haven't touched HP servers in a long time, I'm shocked that only came about in G8+!

 

[TuxDude]

I haven't racked a HP server newer than G7 (all my newer ones are blades), but do have a bunch of experience with Dell's system of 'nubs' that drop into the rails. In my opinion, Dell's system of clicking the rail into the rack is very slightly easier to use than HPs (at least, comparing Dell gen-12 servers to HP gen 5-7), though the construction of the HP rails is significantly simpler and is probably a noticeable cost saving. But when it comes to putting the server into the rail, I much prefer the (apparently somewhat older) HP method of attaching a slide to each side of the server, and then sliding the entire assembly into the rails in the rack. Maybe I just haven't gotten the technique quite right yet but I always seem to have issues with the Dells with the ends of the rails swinging farther apart than they should be and the server trying to drop through between them, or only catching on one side. I moved a slightly older 5U Dell last week and getting all those little 'nubs' to line up while holding the weight of that thing and doing it all by myself was a serious pain in the ass.

 

[NetWise]

To be fair - mounting a 5U server by yourself, is crazy. There's a reason we have buddy's or rack-lifts - to ensure we still have backs in 10 years or don't accidentally drop a very expensive box of parts - or data. I never mount anything > 3U by myself, just too much risk and liability, even if it's my own equipment.

You're right on the nubs and lining them up. But I just do one side, then push it over to other, and get that one in. Once the two rears are in like a hinge/pivot, the fronts are easy.

 

[TuxDude]

I don't normally mount things >2U by myself and would probably have gotten in trouble from our OHS people if they saw. But stuff's gotta get done, that thing had to be out of our old datacenter, and I had an outage window and no helpers. And sometimes I think everyone who works in IT is just a wimp - back when I was working in construction while I was in school I commonly lifted or carried things a lot heavier than a 5U Dell. Working an office job for close to 20 years now is making me weak and fat.

 

[Patriot]

Yeah... had an issue with a DL380p above my head not wanting to have the front nubs fall in place just right.
I prefer the old method myself. The 1u's still use the old method.

 

[TallGraham]

Some nice feedback here. I have some short 3U server cases that I am using to house my hypervisor nodes. Yes, 3U! Sadly some of the cards I had originally were full height and I hate riser cards.

I might see if I can get hold of an old broken 2U Dell server and some rails. A mate of mine is a pretty damn good engineer. It may just be a case of making a few holes in the case and then adding the "nubs" as people call them. From what I remember they only screw in. A little side project me thinks

 

[TallGraham]

I don't normally mount things >2U by myself and would probably have gotten in trouble from our OHS people if they saw. But stuff's gotta get done, that thing had to be out of our old datacenter, and I had an outage window and no helpers. And sometimes I think everyone who works in IT is just a wimp - back when I was working in construction while I was in school I commonly lifted or carried things a lot heavier than a 5U Dell. Working an office job for close to 20 years now is making me weak and fat.

It's not the weight so much as the awkwardness of it all. I tore my lumber muscles trying to move an old HP printer back in the mid 1990's. The network printers were the size of small houses back then.

In construction you move something from here to there, and usually tend to have the room to bend properly and put it down, pick it up without twisting or reaching. In IT it is completely different..... from racking servers in stupidly small places to trying to feed cables under desks etc. You just can follow health and safety and manually carrying processes properly because there isn't the room!