10" rack 33³ cube storage
935 words, 5 minutes
Since the moment I started having servers in my house, I always put them under my desk or in a bookshelf. They shouldn’t be visible; because of Wife Acceptance Factor . They shouldn’t be too noisy; because I can’t stand fan’s noise. This led to pretty complicated arrangement as computers have not always been that small and that fanless.
Nowadays, I have put all my geek stuff in a 4x4 cube storage. The inner space is 33×33×33 cm. The exact reference is SPACEO Kub but it is bascially a smaller IKEA Kallax like shelving unit. I managed to use a home-made shelve to organise the stuff but there were a lot of wasted space.
Having set up a Datacenter room in my youth, I was aware of the rack system. But the default size is 19" wide and wouldn’t fit in my Kub. I could have gone for a LackRack but I didn’t want to change my furniture as the 33cm of depth is precisely the maximum that fits in my work zone.
Planning
Accidentally stumbling on Raid Owl’s Ultimate Mini Server Rack video, I starting looking at that DeskPi RackMate T1 thing. It wasn’t going to fit in my Kub but Amazon being Amazon, I started getting offers for 10" rack shelves. Those would fit in the Kub if I could find 10" rack rails. And I did found some.
Using LibreOffice Draw to sketch the rack, I could see that my UPS would have to be kept in its own case, that I would have to change the external USB disk case to optimize the space usage and that only 4 shelves would be necessary as much of the stuff is higher than 1U.
Assembling
So I went back to Amazon and ordered a bunch of stuff.
- 1x ORICO HM35C3, 3.5" disk USB 3.1 case, UASP compatible.
- 2x HMF 66806-02, 10" rack rail, 6U high.
- 4x Lanberg 5901969416978, 10" wide / 1U high metal shelf.
- 1x Poppstar 50x rack screws set.
- 2x Primewire Ethernet Cat 8, 25 cm long cable.
The rack screws were optional as the shelves came with some. Expect that one of the shelves came with only 2 screws. So I finally had use of the spare ones; except I still have to many spares now…
I started looking at how things would fit in reality, just using the rails and two shelves. As expected, the rails would fit and I would have a gap between one rail and one Kub border. What wasn’t expect is the Internet Box would not fit in the 10" shelf… The shelf is 25.4 cm wide but the screws zone is 2 cm, on both side, leaving only 21.4 cm of useable width…
After a bunch of trial and errors, I finally found the proper arrangement that would allow all the hardware to fit. I don’t really plan to add more stuff in there so I added a bit more space to help air flow.
Among the errors I did was the clips orientation. Who knows why, I first installed the clips “vertically”. It rapidly prevented putting the shelves close to one another. The proper way is indeed to install the clips “horizontally”.
I decided that I would fix one of the rail to the Kub side. I still had to find a way to fix the other side in such a way that it would stay vertical. After thinking of a few options, I decided that I would reuse the previous metal shelve that I had. It is a simple piece of metal with holes inside. Once cut properly, it would be screwed to the rail and would maintain the left part of the rack steady. Unfortunately, it seems I forgot to take a picture of it before installing the rack in the Kub.
With all the holes in the metal plate, I was able to install the Topton server power supply, with zip ties. That’s one thing less in the lower Kub case.
Once all equipments were in place, I plugged the Ethernet, USB and power cables. Then finally turned everything on. Hopefully, everything booted without a single issue.
Final thoughts
The installation looks pretty satisfying now. And it only takes a single Kub case. There is even a small place for another small equipment… if I decide to use my APU again, or one of my Raspberry, or if I get a Radxa E52C or a ZimaBoard… cough I shouldn’t cough!!!
You may wonder why I left so much space above the network switch. Well, it’s probably the only equipment that I will need to add stuff to and I have quite big hands. This helps accessing the bottom of the rack, without having to move the whole furniture.
The big Noctua NF-A20 runs in silence and takes heat out of the Kub. My Aeotec ZWA039 and HomeAssistant say it’s about 21°C in the Kub when glances says the Topton CPU is about 45°C.
The rack is also pretty at night but I have a metal door with holes in it that only let little lights come out.
The UPS and the power bricks still use the 2 bottom Kub spaces. I’m looking at finding a powerstrip that would fit in a single Kub with the UPS but I have not find it yet. I may update this post when I have found and installed it.
All in all, I’m pretty satisfied with this 10" rack. I will have to be brave to not buy another set of those to install in the right Kub space that is now empty :p