I give it try. What the real question is, How many systems do you need to give in the given space. If you use tower cases you will need some type of table, desk, shelves or rack to put them on. This tends to reduce the number if systems you can put in the space and make cabling a nightmare. Using rack mounted systems, (which do tend to cost more) you can get about a 40% high packing density of systems. Think if it this way a tower server could be 20 inches high X 9 Inches wide X 20 Inches deep and hold maybe 10 drives, where in a rack mount case you can get the same equipment in a 4 rack units (1 3/4 inches is a rack unit) by 19 inches wide and 30 inches deep. If you a using external raid chassis they can be mounted above or below the server which can be as little as 1 ru. As an example I have five Quad Xeon Servers each with a 24 drive raids, five UPS, 5 48 port switches and a shared keyboard, mouse and monitor for all the systems, in two 60 racks. The total foot print for these racks is 42 inches wide X 32 inches deep X 60 Inches High. I am on a raised floor system, so all the cables go down under the floor, which makes for a much nicer installation. The racks made cabling between chassis and configuring the systems much easier. The down side was the cost of the rack and the high price of the systems. If you only need a couple of servers towers are OK, but beyond that bit the bullet and buy the rack gear.
Jim -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Hal Kaplan Sent: Friday, December 15, 2006 3:58 PM To: ProFox Email List Subject: RE: [NF]Cluebie for Newbie? Rack vs Tower servers? => => You forgot to say we need more beer! => => John => Shouldn't that be "mass quantities" of beer? One major difference is that rack-mounts require racks. Racks are not cheap but they tend to look neater than a bunch of towers sitting around. Personally, I prefer towers or pizza boxes because they are easier to manipulate but I suppose that there is not much physical handling of a server once it is installed so a rack would not be so bad. We have both and tend to buy whichever is the best deal at the time of purchase. B+ HALinNY [excessive quoting removed by server] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
