I can imagine what a rack full of 1U's from varying vendors with different cable management systems would be like.

It can be tricky. Single vendor helps, even simpler if it's all Sun - http://www.bogons.net/pics/bogons_20021205b.jpg http://www.bogons.net/pics/bogons_20031005a.jpg Sun Netras are a perfect fit for the requirements listed so far - serial LOM for total control - net bootable, reinstall remotely - console diagnostics, you can figure out why it won't boot - low power use, can fill the rack - cheap on ebay - plenty around ex dead.com - consistent form factor, buy individually and not have every chassis be different - not 6 foot deep, you can close the rack doors, air can circulate - rails that work in most racks - easy wiring so pulling one box doesn't disturb the next - choice of OS to suit dogma The only down side is limited CPU speed, no dual 3GHz power guzzlers (which probably sit idle) but they're plenty to fill more bandwidth than people want to pay for I liked them so much I bought a rack full

And then again, this isn't mission critical stuff, and the charter was for a "publicly usable personal 1u" aimed at the lowest price....

I'm not sure what the mission is but I've found people think they're most critical. brandon