that must be a pretty shallow rack. The Xserves are long, but I've never used a 4 post rack where they wouldn't fit easily.
on the other hand, I once tried to put a Belkin KVM/LCD/keyboard thing into a rack. It was documented as being one size (both in the manual and on the box, as well as the web page) but when I unpacked it and tried to put it in the rack, it was six inches too long. It was easily a foot longer than an Xserve. Crazy.
Then I had the fun of shipping the damn thing back and getting my refund.
Square hole racks are great. That's all I buy these days. Most servers come with hardware for square hole racks, and some (like the Dell RapidRails or whatever they call them) are really, really easy to install. Apple's rails for the G4/G5 Xserves really sucked.. it looks like the Intel ones are only marginally better. The Xserve RAID isn't too awful, but they're not great.
IBM's rails are pretty bad. They stick out 6 inches in the back (to hold a cable management system which I haven't had any reason to attach) so I can't close the back doors on my main server rack either. :-( It's not as if the machine itself sticks out.. it's just the stupid rails.
by Tim Buchheim — May 21
on the other hand, I once tried to put a Belkin KVM/LCD/keyboard thing into a rack. It was documented as being one size (both in the manual and on the box, as well as the web page) but when I unpacked it and tried to put it in the rack, it was six inches too long. It was easily a foot longer than an Xserve. Crazy.
Then I had the fun of shipping the damn thing back and getting my refund.
Square hole racks are great. That's all I buy these days. Most servers come with hardware for square hole racks, and some (like the Dell RapidRails or whatever they call them) are really, really easy to install. Apple's rails for the G4/G5 Xserves really sucked.. it looks like the Intel ones are only marginally better. The Xserve RAID isn't too awful, but they're not great.
IBM's rails are pretty bad. They stick out 6 inches in the back (to hold a cable management system which I haven't had any reason to attach) so I can't close the back doors on my main server rack either. :-( It's not as if the machine itself sticks out.. it's just the stupid rails.