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I have ten 19" servers each with 4 hard drives and an average 160W usage.

For a 2 month test run of a service i want to put them just on a table without purchasing a rack. Maybe in two stacks 5 each.

Will this add vibration and cause problems to the hard drives? How about the heatflow?

Should i stuff styrofoam or blankets or wooden planks between the cases?

Lothar
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    Just buy a crappy secondhand rack. In the US at least, these you can get for $20-$30 fairly easily, and many for actually free if you come and transport it off the premise. – EEAA Apr 08 '14 at 21:16
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    I'd wager that your table isn't even rated to withstand that kind of load. Ten servers crashing to the floor doesn't sound like a good time to me. – EEAA Apr 08 '14 at 21:18
  • I could get a 2nd hand rack for $100 but transport is a serious and expensive issue. – Lothar Apr 08 '14 at 21:25
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    Have you contacted the University central IT department? If yours is like most Uni IT departments I know, they have a barn *full* of unused gear. Maybe they have a rack they'd be glad to get rid of. – EEAA Apr 08 '14 at 21:26
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    Ten servers crashing to the floor, in this context, sounds HILARIOUS to me. – Evan Anderson Apr 08 '14 at 23:05

2 Answers2

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Terrible idea - what do you do if/when you need to get inside one of the servers? how are you going to do the cable-management? This is a site for PROFESSIONAL sysadmins, who inherently wouldn't even consider this.

Chopper3
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  • Cable management is the least problem. If something is going to crash, well this is a HPC project to test various algorithms and not a high availability environment. In fact they don't even have a connection to the outside. But i have to work on 100 TB data and the university supplies the computers but not the rack. By the way, stupid arrogant answer/comment. – Lothar Apr 08 '14 at 21:23
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    @Lothar - you came to a QA site for professionals, and as Chopper3 said, this isn't something that any professional sysadmin would consider doing. Please, don't take offense. It's not meant to be personal - it's just a *really* bad idea. – EEAA Apr 08 '14 at 21:25
  • I have to concur that this is a terrible idea. Spend the money and save yourself the aggravation. – David Apr 08 '14 at 21:56
  • @Lothar - I'll accept my answer may sound arrogant but I don't believe it to be stupid. – Chopper3 Apr 09 '14 at 07:30
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    Murphy's law - its the bottom server you need to get into. Corollary, the one above it can't be shut down because of "important-task" – Criggie Dec 08 '17 at 10:27
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If you can't get a rack (and if you live in any populated area and have a pickup truck you can probably find free if you do all the heavy lifting) the next best option is shelves. Heavy duty shelves enough for each server to sit on its own. Make sure they are actually rated for the weight of the servers. Servers are heavy. Make sure they are bolted to the wall or floor so they don't tip and crush someone.

Stacking them all up can cause all sorts of problems. Vibrations. Air flow issues. Grounding issues. Cabling issues. And safety hazards - they will slide around fairly easily. They may fall on your foot.

Putting plywood or foam between them may help vibrations but make other issues worse.

Grant
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  • Tables are better then shelfs, shelfs are normally not 75 cm deepth. – Lothar Apr 08 '14 at 21:33
  • 10 Servers on 2 tables also do not make more then 75kg, thats a no brainer from the static. It's only heatflow or vibrations. Looks like nobody really learned to improvise. – Lothar Apr 08 '14 at 21:35
  • The question is not if the table can handle it, its whether the case of the server at the bottom of the pile can. It likely wasn't deaigned to do that. – Grant Apr 08 '14 at 21:38
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    @lothar shelves come in many sizes. Pick ones that will fit the servers. I thought that point was self evident. – Grant Apr 08 '14 at 21:39
  • @Garet: Well they are Sun 1U Servers i've seen them in piles of at least 30 on the floor at the data center when they arrived. How do you think they are transported? Sun/Oracle ships them from USA to Europe in containers boxes, surely not stacked one by one. – Lothar Apr 08 '14 at 21:44