racking my personal computers
2026-04-06
I moved into a new house this year and decided to do something about the various computers I had collected.
I enjoy stressing myself out, wasting money and unnecessary complexity so naturally gravitated to small form factor rack mounting.
This post breaks down my requirements, decisions and experiences racking my desktop computers at home.
the chassis
The rack and systems in it would be in my home office, dense and quiet are not normally words you'd associate with rack deployments but nevertheless, that is what I wanted to achieve.
Each of my systems had differing requirements from a case. The personal computer has a 2 slot GPU fitted so vertical clearance was more of a consideration. One option was to mount the GPU horizontally with a PCI riser but in the end I decided for a 4U chassis.
The server needed space for 10 HDDs and was already resident in a Fractal Node 304 which meant much of the hard work re parts sizing (the motherboard is mini-itx) was already sorted if I wanted to go 3U here.
The cases also need to fit in a 'data' class rack cabinet. This means a max depth of 500mm to give at least 100mm of clearance at the back for cables in a 600mm post to post rack depth.
With all those things in mind, I settled on the following cases:
- Sliger CX4150i
- personal computer chassis, 4U with enough space to vertically mount the 2 slot GPU and keep the old motherboard ( atx) and power supply (full size atx), has 1 external 5.25" for my SATA blu-ray drive
- changes to the existing build required here were basically just new fans, the cpu cooler I had in the old tower case was too tall for the 4U, so I swapped it with the cooler in the server
- Sliger CX3701
- server chassis, 3U with front loaded, lockable HDD bays.
- changes here were a bit more expensive, I needed a small form factor power supply and a new tower cooler that
would clear the 3U height restriction in addition to all new fans
- PSU choice: Corsair SF750
- tower cooler: Noctua NH-D9L chromax.black
For both systems I replaced all fans with Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM chromax.black.swap (sorry beige fans).
Now that the rack chassis were decided on, I needed to find a rack for them to go in.
the rack
I had more options here and as it would turn out, there are plenty of companies based in England that I could order from.
I settled on a 12U freestanding data cab from a company called Orion which matched my all black theme nicely.
I swapped out the solid front and back panels for mesh to improve the airflow.
With 7U taken up by my cases I would also have a bit of space left in the rack for a switch or UPS
I bought these rails which was a bit of a gamble as I wasn't totally confident on the required length.
Orion say that their cabinets have an internal racking depth that is 130mm less than the external depth (600mm in this case) so I was 90% sure all would be well.
The rails fit in the rack and are compatible with the cases, but they are not simple to install.
Buying a rack with removable side panels will save you a lot of time here if you've never done this before. The tolerances aren't perfect either, one of my cases has a nice big scratch along it thanks to the rails.
the build
After waiting an age for the second half of my chassis shipment to clear customs the day was upon us to do the transplant work.
This took way longer than I anticipated, even with the Friday off work I still didn't have everything back up and running until Sunday.
The rack was made to order so took a week to show up, here it is unwrapped with most of the panels off. My dog wasn't sure what to make of it.
The first order of business was to get the empty cases into the rack in the positions I wanted them in. I found using a drill hole marker useful for lining things up on the rack posts. Spoiler alert, I changed my mind on this positioning multiple times.
I forgot to take any pictures of the personal computer transplant, but I have a few of the server mid-rebuild. Look how cute that tiny power supply is.
Hard drives going in, I have 8x8TB in the system at the moment but have space for two more if I ever fill up the server.
Still working on the cable management but both the systems are racked and power cycled at this point. My fingers are wrecked but overall really pleased with how it all came together.
In the end I repositioned the cases at the bottom of the rack rather than the top.
closing thoughts
You're never going to get perfect silence with HDD based storage servers, but I am on balance happy with the noise profile of the rack. You can hear it, but it's not annoying, more of a low hum.
What is noisy though is the GPU in the 4U (no surprises really, it was very noisy in the old tower case). When I'm playing a game it spins up like a jet turbine. If new GPUs ever become affordable again, I think I will take a look at water cooling. The 4U does have the space for a radiator and I think that would really make a difference.
Rackstuds are great, they made moving things around in the rack way less frustrating.
This wasn't cheap. I think all in I was approaching £1000 for the rack, cases and necessary parts changes.
It's possible that some of the parts I used could be found cheaper, if you didn't focus so much on density you could go for larger cases and a bigger rack which bizarrely will work out cheaper (easier to find from local suppliers).
I made a tradeoff between density and convenience by going with a 4U case for the personal computer. In the end I wanted a quieter system and a larger case with more airflow makes that easier.