Organizing the Chaos: StarTech Racks, Power Management, and NAS Storage

We have discussed the gateway, the network switch, the patch panel, and the access points, which are unrelated to the rack. So let’s talk about the rack and other things.

Racks 

Since this right here

It can’t hold my setup. I picked up the following rack.

This is a Startech 8U rack. What is an 8U rack?

An 8U rack (short for an 8-rack-unit enclosure) is a standard frame or cabinet used to mount, organize, and protect IT, networking, audio, and video equipment.

Here is a breakdown of what that means in practice:

What does “8U” actually mean?

In the server and tech world, equipment height is measured in Rack Units, abbreviated as “U” (or sometimes RU).

• 1U = 1.75 inches (44.45 mm) of vertical space.
• Therefore, an 8U rack has 14 inches (355.6 mm) of total usable vertical mounting space.

The total physical height of the exterior cabinet will be slightly taller than 14 inches to account for the frame, top/bottom panels, and feet or wheels.

Yes, I know it is upside down. But you see this right here

/image

If it was on top, it was interfering with the shelf I had on it. Right now, the 8U runs $133; when I got it in 2021, it was $62.

The second rack is a 6U rack. I currently have two shelves in it, and it is upside down. This rack holds my NAS servers.

Power

Since I have a few things that need power, like

• Gateway
• Switch
• All my NAS’s

I thought this would be a good thing to have. So I didn’t have a big mess of cables and surge protectors.

Shelves

I picked up a couple of shelves for my NAS servers. I had them in a different location, but I thought I would just put them here with the networking stuff.

These are pretty simple. You install them or mount them, and they work.

The shelves are a nice addition. They make it nice to store my NAS devices.

I know

Yeah, I am using the 6U for holding some of my NAS’s. I have a few more elsewhere. But you can use the server racks however you would like, if I want to put plants on them. Well, I can. I won’t, but I can if I want to.

Thoughts

I know these probably aren’t the best things to get. But it all depends on what you want for your network. These work for what I need them for. They hold the network items just fine.

I can expand my network if I need to. But I might have to get a second power adapter and a backup battery.