On Thu, Apr 27, 2023 at 09:51:36AM -0400, Chuck Church wrote:
Hey all. Question about standard 4 post racks. We bought some that are adjustable. Unfortunately, the posts are very flimsy, as these are some fancy cabinets with spacing on the sides for vertical patch panels, etc. We found that 2 post mounting of most Cisco devices (namely Cat 9500 1RU switches) are sagging quite bad.
A perpetual problem with Cisco all the way back to their 2501 routers. Sometimes they seem to come out with a better design, only to revert back to the worst design the next generation of gear.
Is there a 'standard' distance between front and back rails that devices usually adhere to?
I've got about 5 different "standard" depths in my datacenter. The most common I have is 29.5" because that is the depth of a whole bunch of fixed (ie. not adjustable) shelves I have are. I've seen 32" and 36" in use for newer setups, as the eqiupment keeps getting deeper, and deeper. Most equipment today will adjust for different depths quite readily, and stick out past the back rails (so those 1050mm or 1200mm deep cabinets really don't give you lots of empty space when the gear inside requires all that depth, then power cables take up the rest). So, ultimately the depth doesn't matter much as the rails will adjust to what you have within reason now-a-days. Gone are the days where equipment (ie. Sun, DEC) only fit in that one rack that Sun paired with that specific Sun line. And when you bought different Sun gear, you needed to buy a different rack to hold that.