Moving to a rack mount setup

I wrote a post a few months ago cataloguing moving my home server from the old NZXT case I had leftover from my old PC into a Rosewill chassis that would let me, eventually, move to a proper rack setup. This past Prime Day, I purchased a Riveco 15U rack and then some sliding rails to go along with it, with the hope of finally moving the loud and hot NAS into the basement where it belongs.

Putting together the rack was easy enough: there were a lot of screws, which is fine, but the assembly was straightforward.

We then took out the rails (iStarUSA TC-RAIL-26) to affix them to the rack and I discovered my error: I ordered 26" rails when I probably needed 20". Ah well — I ordered them from eBay and wasn’t interested in going through the return process.

We continued through and, with just a little trouble, were able to mount the chassis within the rack and have it slide out properly. I’m indebted to SPX Labs’s YouTube video showing assembly of rails and a chassis just slightly different than mine, which was a great reference. The rack does tip when the chassis is fully extended, but that’s workable for now and will resolve when I fill the rack with other equipment.

Finally, we decided we were committed for the evening and turned to routing ethernet into the basement. The room I’ve designated to be the home of the rack is the former location of our oil tank; shortly after we moved in, we had the tank replaced, as it was around 60 years old and filled with sludge. We also relocated the tank because its vent and fill caps were in the garage. The tank predated the garage — the previous owners added it on. Moving the tank left this room empty, so we now have a basement storage room that’s conveniently right under our office, where our router is also currently located.

One day, I’d love to wire the whole house up with ethernet, but today is not that day. We got creative (or sloppy, as I’m sure any professional network folks reading this will say): there are a bunch of unused vents throughout the house. It used to have a central fan system and, for some inexplicable reason, a previous owner ripped it out and left all the vents but not the ducts.¹ Many of these vents run straight through into the basement,² including one on the floor of the office, hidden by some built-in bookcases. Joe cleverly used some string for a string trimmer to pull the cable through the vent and into the basement room through a pre-existing hole.

With ethernet pulled down, the rack was ready to hook up. Right now I have the world’s shittiest surge protector down there, but I have a rack mounted surge protector en route to me. The ethernet is dangling, but again, down the line, I’ll get a proper network setup.

For now, I’ve accomplished the goal of getting the rack established and getting the server off the floor of my living spaces. I’m hopeful the cooler basement will improve the temperatures inside the chassis, too.