3 ms·

Looks ugly, and why not buy a rack?

by jayalpha 8y ago

mrweasel 8y ago
Racks are terrible as desktops
- jayalpha 8y ago
  Why?
  - sliken 8y ago
    Generally rack based equipment is designed with less vertical height and strict front to back airflow. They are also often designed for relatively high input temperatures, so they are designed for high airflow rates. These combine to be very loud and often crazy inefficient. Read that as consuming significant power to cool the equipment. Mini/Mid/Full tower cases generally are designed to take advantage of heat wanting to raise. So the intakes are often large and low (140mm is not unusual), and the top rear for the exhaust. Even 200mm isn't unusual for the exhaust. Air moving efficient increases quickly with fan size. 1U fans often move at 15k rpm and make more noise and vibration than anything else. Desktop fans are often 1200 rpm or lower and just take a few watts to dump substantial heat. As an example the Fractal Design Mini C (a small, quiet, under $100 case) has room for 2 x 140mm in the lower front, and 2 x 140mm on top. It's a smaller case, so there's only 120mm in the rear. With $80 ish for the case and a few extra fans (Fractal design isn't bad, but not quite class leading) you can easily dump a few 100 watts quietly. Find a rack mount case that can move as much air as quietly is challenging and when possible often prohibitively expensive and/or crazy loud. Last time I build one to house a single socket motherboard and a GPU (much like a desktop) it included 4 delta fans that I needed ear protection on to be in the same room.
    - jayalpha 8y ago
      I don't see your point. Maybe it is true for off the shelf stuff. I may assume that a lot of YC readers build their own system. I just build a rack for my desk. I have not really put it under load, but I have to see the GPU, Power supply or Case fan spinning yet. For now I only have only once fan for the case. The only fan that moves, but silent is the CPU fan. The only thing that you can hear: The 10 TB HDD.

Looks ugly, and why not buy a rack?

mrweasel 8y ago

Racks are terrible as desktops

jayalpha 8y ago
Why?
- sliken 8y ago
  Generally rack based equipment is designed with less vertical height and strict front to back airflow. They are also often designed for relatively high input temperatures, so they are designed for high airflow rates. These combine to be very loud and often crazy inefficient. Read that as consuming significant power to cool the equipment. Mini/Mid/Full tower cases generally are designed to take advantage of heat wanting to raise. So the intakes are often large and low (140mm is not unusual), and the top rear for the exhaust. Even 200mm isn't unusual for the exhaust. Air moving efficient increases quickly with fan size. 1U fans often move at 15k rpm and make more noise and vibration than anything else. Desktop fans are often 1200 rpm or lower and just take a few watts to dump substantial heat. As an example the Fractal Design Mini C (a small, quiet, under $100 case) has room for 2 x 140mm in the lower front, and 2 x 140mm on top. It's a smaller case, so there's only 120mm in the rear. With $80 ish for the case and a few extra fans (Fractal design isn't bad, but not quite class leading) you can easily dump a few 100 watts quietly. Find a rack mount case that can move as much air as quietly is challenging and when possible often prohibitively expensive and/or crazy loud. Last time I build one to house a single socket motherboard and a GPU (much like a desktop) it included 4 delta fans that I needed ear protection on to be in the same room.
  - jayalpha 8y ago
    I don't see your point. Maybe it is true for off the shelf stuff. I may assume that a lot of YC readers build their own system. I just build a rack for my desk. I have not really put it under load, but I have to see the GPU, Power supply or Case fan spinning yet. For now I only have only once fan for the case. The only fan that moves, but silent is the CPU fan. The only thing that you can hear: The 10 TB HDD.