Rack or Cabinet?

[Robert G. Brown]

On Tue, 17 Jun 2003, Trent Piepho wrote:

> Rack
> pros:
>   cheaper, usually < $500
>   open design probably results in better cooling
> 
> cons:
>   noisy
>   doesn't look as nice, with exposed rat's nests of wires, etc.
> 
> Cabinet
> pros:
>   Looks nice, with plexyglass doors and hidden wires, making non-techie types
>     more impressed with how their computer dollars were spent
>   dampens sound
> cons:
>   expensive, typical > $1500
>   lack of airflow may result in poor cooling

Yup, I think you've about got it.  Except that I think that closed
cabinets are often power-ventilated with directed AC so that cooling may
not be that much of a problem, to be fair.

To me, the more than $1000 difference in cost is pretty much everything.
We keep all the racks in a room where sound doesn't matter and there are
enough nodes that the impression factor doesn't matter much either.
It's a workingperson's cluster vs a show cluster kind of thing...;-)

   rgb

-- 
Robert G. Brown	                       http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/
Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305
Durham, N.C. 27708-0305
Phone: 1-919-660-2567  Fax: 919-660-2525     email:rgb at phy.duke.edu



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