Setting up a Retro Rack

Setting up my 42U "Retro Rack," a soon-to-be pile of classic enterprise gear from the1995-2005 era of tech -all housed right in my homelab. From the iconic Cisco 7206 VXR serving as the networking backbone to powerful IBM p-series servers literally anchoring the rack, this setup is a throwback to the hardware that powered the internet and businesses worldwide.
In this first video I'll walk you through the setup process and share my vision for the Retro Rack, along with the goals I have for how it will help me in my homelab.
Check me out on Patreon: www.patreon.com/clabretro
Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio
#netro #homelab #retrotech #retrocomputer #computers #networking
Rack stuff
StarTech Universal Rack Rails: amzn.to/404JV1Q
StarTech 42U Rack: amzn.to/482c3oh
StarTech 25U Rack: amzn.to/3mEB7hS
Tripp Lite SMART1500LCD UPS: amzn.to/3KZW3Jw
1U 24 Port Patch Panel: amzn.to/3Nm0bFa
1U Brush Panel: amzn.to/3mExAA3
1U Rack Shelf: amzn.to/3oaDclT
Video gear
Camera: amzn.to/4al3xjA
Main mics: amzn.to/4dCUuO2
Desk mic: amzn.to/3ye8BsV
Note: The above are Amazon affiliate links. It doesn't cost you extra, but I'll receive a commission which will help keep the content coming. I only link to things I've personally ordered.
00:00 Intro
01:32 Retro Rack Goals and Plans
03:54 Building the 42U Rack
06:56 Setting up the Cisco 7206 VXR
13:40 Configuring DHCP on the VXR
17:40 Racking up Machines in the Retro Rack
24:01 Testing the Retro Rack Network
27:56 Future Retro Rack Plans

[@JordanRNolan]

I was looking forward to a relaxing Sunday afternoon with a ClabRetro video.... But I'll take it on a Monday during work. 😂

[@gregfarley715]

People who work in IT, watching someone who works in IT do IT things for fun, my kinda day

[@Andy-fd5fg]

About time you got a bigger rack. We all look forward to the third rack appearing in about 12 months.

[@clabretro]

more likely than I ever would have thought

[@alisharifian535]

A few days after seeing your video about using routers as dialup servers, I unexpectedly came across a used Cisco 1921 in a home security system shop and for my surprise it had a wic-2am-v2 modem. Despite having zero experience in network stuff (beyond configuring my modem😄) I could config it using your instructiond and with a help of spare parts that I had I have made a land line simulator that provides off hook and ringing voltage.(it doesn't look pretty but works). I now have my own dial up network and connected my retro PC to it.

[@TrolleyMC]

I already said this on the patreon, but those IBM servers fit so perfectly with the Cisco 7200. So excited to see more Sun Microsystems though, but especially the Compaq Proliant. The power bar with the lit up switches though really ties it all together. Great build, clab.

[@clabretro]

thank you! yeah I'm excited to get the Sun and Compaq gear in there!

[@pauldunecat]

It helps quite a bit to enable CDP and LLDP in a home lab. Then you can show cdp neighbors detail or show lldp nei det to find gear. Future things for vids would be doing dot1q interfaces on the routers to do inter vlan routing when you don't have a L3 switch in the rack. You'll do the same thing on the PIX so you can have more vlans than ports in the PIX. Private vlans can control your security for stuff on the same vlan. You're sparking my interest to restart doing my home lab again, I stopped playing with it after I got my CCNP and it became a job. Now I'm doing mostly infosec and GRC, so not playing with the networking as much. I have so much gear to use in two 12u racks... :-)

[@poddmo]

I highly recommend factory resetting as part of your workflow, ideally just before racking. Then the rack becomes a predictable entity. The 10.0.0.86 is probably some legacy config in the network gear.

[@JoBo-ug6tf]

For the bottom of the rack: get a 1U shelf (Startech makes one, full width and adjustable length) and then don't bother with the universal rails for the next server up. I have my UPS on the bottom (on top of the shelf) and then a 4U server above that. Yes, you lose that 1U but you gain rigidity and you know for certain that those chonktastic IBMs aren't going anywhere.

[@cocusar]

Excellent way of starting the week! I'm waiting super hyped for the upcoming content.

[@c1ph3rpunk]

I’d recommend adding a Sun Jumpstart server for installing Sun boxen. It’ll use a tftp server so there’s overlap with that need.

[@clabretro]

Definitely!

[@gobills737]

I'm at work watching you put together a rack, when I should be working probably.

[@whette_fahrtz]

I'm also in the same boat with the cage nuts. They can be a bit annoying to put in once you have a more full rack with less access, but a $10 cage nut lever on Amazon fixes that. I can get them in faster than someone can fiddle around with some plastic bag full of plastic.

[@swilson42]

Once I found a cage nut tool, just found it tossed in a bag of cage nuts one day in the early 2000’s, I never had another cut finger or busted knuckle. Such a game changer for such a little simple tool! No need to spend 10 times the money on fancy rack studs once you have the right tool. Plus, I can’t imagine plastic holding up to the types of weight I used to put on cage nuts back in the day. 😎🙃

[@TobyAsE120]

Nice! Be sure to do proper cable management with cable guides, different color etc. A properly wired up rack is very beautiful!

[@clabretro]

that's the plan!

[@v3ctors69]

I bought a terminal server (Cyclades Alterpath ACS8) because of you. Ohh boy, the side quest.....and scope creep.

[@tarajoe07]

I absolutely love Rack Studs! Especially great for homelab use, to rack stuff by yourself

[@andygaither7026]

Best. Monday. Ever. Thank you for the drop Mr Lab! ❤

[@PocketPi0]

great video to watch during my study hall

[@utp216]

All the space for activities!!

[@v12alpine]

Maybe do some iperf tests thru the VXR? My dusty memory seems to remember those things falling over pretty easily after a certain traffic level. Had one terminating an OC3 in a former life.

[@clabretro]

I'll definitely try some perf and load tests in the future

[@EVersaevel]

All depends on the npg in there, I know we even ran c7 switching on one, dsl bras etc, workbeast of its time. Didn't really like bgp reconvergance on the ams-ix

[@nickwallette6201]

Oh I'm SURE they do. This was in an era where they still leaned heavily on the CPU for forwarding-plane stuff, and they also let you oversubscribe the backplane quite a bit. You had to be careful about how you populated some chassis to ensure you got the throughput you expected. I just Googled the datasheet, and it doesn't provide throughput numbers, but does claim a "maximum" of 6x Fast Ethernet ports, or 4x OC-3 ports. That suggests a ceiling of 600Mbps ... and even that might be ambitious. :-)

[@rnts08]

65xx series was better than the 72xx series, if I recall correctly. We did tons of gbe switching and full bgp4 table upstream on fiber gbics. Juniper was always more comfortable to work with though, all the way up to sds and sdr.

[@SamForbis]

I think you'll like the rack studs for the smaller items. They're a lot easier to work with than the cage nuts in my opinion. They feel super sturdy when mounting smaller stuff like switches and routers. I am using them for my UDM Pro and UNVR.

[@Krafting]

I just love seing you getting so hyped about all these things (see 27:30) It's like I'm seing myself in a mirror when I got my 25U rack, I just couldn't believe it, and now I am able to find good amount of stuff to just have fun with, and I'm so happy I'm not the only one this crazy about hardware on here! Keep up the good work, thank you so much for all your vids!

[@clabretro]

thank you!

[@vaseline5070]

Honestly, I've always had an interest in how the "internet" worked. I'm currently working in IT as support but recently I came across your channel. I watched your previous videos and it pushed me to study for both my Network+ certificate and then my CCNA.

[@clabretro]

I'm glad to hear that, good luck studying!

[@ricardobornman1698]

The fun is making it, breaking it and re-making it again. Ah, the possibilities. 😁

[@SFSWales]

Can't wait for more videos on the Retro Rack! It looks super cool so far.

[@johncloar1692]

Nice step I have several racks they all run short on space. Like me too many toys. But what fun!

[@raiden72]

I love your videos. They bring lots of nostalgia seeing the old equipment go brrrr

[@Trylen]

Take it from another nut with a rack, rack studs are life savers!!! Granted I only have a 36u, but my lab might not be 7 feet to the push tile ceiling. a number of 4u's couple of 2u's and pair of cisco 2960S's and it adds up. They help for guiding gear to be installed, but they are plastic. you'll want more shelves.

[@techosarusrex]

never thought I'd find retro networking videos interesting (as someone who is in their 20s) :), but I do, keep up the great work :D

[@clabretro]

thank you, glad you like it!

[@techosarusrex]

@@clabretro you're welcome 🙂

[@Conmega1]

Like to keep stuff in piles on the floor… Un-approving wife… Stop calling us all out! Haha. It’s great to see videos that are so true to how this hobby goes sometimes. Honesty and showing all the struggles is a breath of fresh air in this space of retro tech videos. Along with plenty of educational material thrown in there about the hardware instead of JUST showing it off.

[@feieralarm]

I'm actually surprised you didn't go for a nice old IBM cabinet, but I guess those don't just materialise in your basement. Still nice seeing some of the gear neatly racked up already.

[@questionablecommands9423]

I will forever be an evangelist for the (somewhat uncommon) 37U rack, which will roll through most doorways.

[@ricdintino9502]

Organizing things into piles is a perfectly legitimate system.

[@MrCorSmit]

I have the same big starteck rack and love it

[@ultraswank]

Excellent, look forward to following your retro rack journey :)

[@nickwallette6201]

This one hits hard. I just bought that 25U StarTech rack a couple months ago. Immediately filled it up completely full front and back, and then found just a couple more things on eBay ......

[@clabretro]

it's truly shocking how easy it is to fill them

[@Netist_]

Hey, I got that same rack. I was worried it would be super cheap and crappy, given the price. It was a little frustrating to get it square, but other than that it's been a solid piece of equipment.

[@dono42]

I love the Retro Rack. I wish my wife was as understanding😉 Do you have a UPS? UPSs are usually placed at the bottom of a rack as they are quite heavy.

[@clabretro]

I have one in the original rack, decided it didn't really make sense to have a UPS in the retro rack since the gear will be off most of the time.

[@TradieTrev]

Just keep telling your wife you want a bigger rack than hers; They are always understanding like that hahaha! @dono42

[@PowerToolism]

Dude, Im doing basically the same thing at the moment (just got my Rittal 42U rack set up), love to see some of this infrstructure stuff!

[@clabretro]

awesome!

[@UpLateGeek]

Pro tip: for those right-angle rails, you should be able to flip them upside down and stack the gear on top. You lose one unit, but it prevents the issue of gear taking up slightly more than 1U. Also they won't block gear that's just wide enough to fit between the vertical rails. Edit: You can also slap a blanking plate over the front before you screw it in to make it look nicer.

[@clabretro]

I'll experiment with that!

[@spewp]

The mere sight of rack nuts were so triggering. They're fine... till you need to install hundreds of them. The tips of my fingers were tingling just from looking at them, gnarly.

[@r4v3rbr]

Your terminal server console is probably missing a default gateway, or it's set to something other than the current default gateway of that network, that's why it wont resppond to pings from outside, but you can easly access it over the local network...

[@mickwolf1077]

I find it therapeutic building PC's and messing around with my mobile rack cabinet too.

[@AureliusR]

Awesome video... can I just say, I love your rack. I bet everyone likes looking at your rack!

[@TradieTrev]

Nice rack! Fun and games on the networking; as I'd expect lol. You're building a whole network exchange here mate!

[@IBM_Museum]

@20:24 (what a coincidence) - Yes, that looks nice.

[@erich1850]

Love it! Looking forward to future videos!

[@kicknhobo]

I need more of this ASAP!

[@slimegamerc]

cool to see you expand your homelab! maybe you could use a 2u server for SNMP monitoring of the retro rack?

[@oldenburgermitrad]

This will be a very interesting season 🙂

[@vincent_sz]

Nice work. I were working for a small hoster around 2007 and had to deal with many crazy self build servers from colocation customers in cheap shared racks. These L Rails are just a pain in the ... They steal space (we basically charged more for this type of rails). Its mounted but servicing and handling the servers is just a hassle. Proper rails make everything just more easy.

[@TylerStartz]

My soul needed this.

[@_chrisr_]

Is one rack enough? Perhaps a network rack and a server rack (with 48 port interconnects) and perhaps some fibre. Helpful to have raised floor to put it on which makes cable routing nicer. Depending on how you have the rack filled they can be unstable when you slide a server out, they usually have a plate to allow it to be fixed securely to the floor. Power can be an issue, I remember designing them with dual 32A PDUs with iec sockets to connect to the units. UPS at the bottom of course.

[@jamess1787]

Looking forward to the content. Love your channel! 🤜🤛

[@clabretro]

thanks!

[@LarsBollwinkel]

Nice setup. My guess with the "terminal-server"-router: check if the gateway is set correctly. This has effed my more than once and I had to drive back on site to fix a missing gateway...

[@clabretro]

i thought for sure that was going to be it too but it didn't make a difference, really weird

[@datgerman]

@@clabretro I could be completely wrong about this, it's been a long while since I have done anything networking related but I would try using a crossover cable (ethernet A on one end and Ethernet B on the other) instead of a standard/straight-through cable between the switch and terminal server. You might have already touched on this in another video, I can't really remember if you did, but in ethernet networking, you can't connect "like" devices together using a standard cable. If you want to connect 2 switches together, you need a crossover cable so they can communicate. Same if you want to connect 2 routers, or even a PC to a router directly. I don't remember the exact reasoning for this but we were taught the OSI model of troubleshooting, which is basically "try the simplest thing first, then get more complex from there". Switching out the type of cable is one of the simplest things I can think of first, since the configuration between devices doesn't really warrant trying more complex troubleshooting quite yet. If I had to guess, that Terminal Server, while it is being assigned an IP Address, has a network interface that is more akin to a switch than a router, so switchport to switchport (switch to terminal server) possibly needs a crossover cable in this situation. Again, could be completely wrong about this one but I have been enjoying your retro networking videos and just want to try to contribute. 😄

[@jpancrazio]

Those shelves work fine, I have used 100's of them for custom blackbox builds for a company i use to work at

[@clabretro]

Yeah might need to just spread them out a bit more

[@TheShutterNinja]

I have an old 2821 (which is ironically NIB) in the rafters of my attic, and I have no idea what to do with it. I don’t want to trash it, so I guess it will continue to sit there until either I die or I finally feel nostalgic enough to do something with it.

[@extrameatsammich]

Unexpected 13th Warrior reference! 😍

[@CammiesGames]

as soon as I saw this ran to my room

[@Frankfurtdabezzzt]

26:30 hey, that's the exact cable management they had at my old job, except it was ten times worse there. A massive web of cables between two fully loaded full-size racks.

[@toddshreve]

I also recently installed Mannington Laminate!

[@clabretro]

haha nice

[@schweben]

your videos are sooooo relaxing, tysm for making my day

[@clabretro]

glad you like them!

[@RoyHess666]

12:10 **The fans sound fantastic** Pun intended! 🙂

[@Cory-Stewart-]

Have 1 or 2 heavy weight sidling shelves with 4U space for hot swap stuff. Patch Panel above or between.

[@IntegerOfDoom]

I've never understood networking. Maybe I should get into it now that I have the space.

[@ytoobsytok1399]

The 7206 is where I cut my routing teeth when I started as a systems engineer at an ISP back in the early 2000s. Great memories. I hope you emulate some T1s, maybe build a little ONS ring?

[@clabretro]

there will definitely be some T1 action in the future

[@stonent]

He did have a T1 setup at one point.

[@zadtheinhaler]

I'd be real interested in a network diagram of of how you've got everything now, versus how you're planning to have it in the near-ish future!

[@Robert-fb6fe]

17:22 The devices on the 10.x network can't access the Internet for a couple of reasons, the Vxr router needs a default route set for your uplink (ip route 0.0.0.0. 0.0.0.0 ) as well as setting up a route on your existing networks router for the networks connected to the Vxr, you might want to implement a routing protocol such as ospf or eigrp for this

[@poweredbyWatts]

I need a 72RU rack in my life now. If only I had a basement to build it in…

[@eduardodiaz5459]

Retro ???? Is just what is working in my company currently.!!!!

[@TeslaTales59]

Cool vid. Been building racks for years. The Dell racks for example have built-in cable mgmt (I am not being critical) Also for network/cable management, you might try a 24 port keystone rack. Would help them thar cables in line.

[@clabretro]

Will definitely be adding in some keystone panels to help with cable management!

[@4rft5]

hell yes! i've been waiting for this for a long time

[@craw0967]

Used to have one of those Startech racks. Downsized a lot after I got married and no longer have it, but it was really solid. Nice buy. I have to say though, seeing all those drain pipes right by all your hardware makes me nervous for you. I get it though, gotta make do with the space you have.

[@clabretro]

Yeah... if there's a water event this stuff is in trouble lol.

[@Anaerin]

Out of interest, if you installed those "universal rails" the other way around (rotate the pair 180 degrees), the lip would be a step down at the back, making it a little easier to rack things into them.

[@911delorean]

Retro track idea. Pihole is a dns server that you can host yourself that blocks ads. I ran mine on a old Pentium III server running Debian. They still release a up to date version for 32 bit processors. Or the slightly newer Pentium 4 64 bit based xeons can run the newest versions of Debian or Ubuntu server. This way you could have an almost completely isolated retro net. Other than having to have a route out. But also create DNS entries for the retro net to access items via website rather than ip.

[@mito-pb8qg]

YASSS Rack stuff! And retro stuff! Gotta love it :D

[@MetaversaicCat]

Stacks on Racks on Stacks on Stacks You should do a silent video of every thing in the rack powering up.

[@markpriceful]

The fans sound.. fan-tastic 😂

[@BlakDrgn]

GET RACK STUDS. THEY'RE AMAZING. 23:40 oh there they are. LOL

[@clabretro]

haha

[@BlakDrgn]

I have two Cisco 1720's with twin t1 csu/dsu cards in them. Free to a good home. Hmu

[@apalrdsadventures]

I see that you too appreciate a pile of cables on the floor of the lab

[@clabretro]

love a good pile

[@Ziraya0]

You should do a stream or stream-like video of the boring configuration stuff, I think it could be very interesting even if it's much slower and more fiddly.

[@clabretro]

Yeah been thinking about something like that, maybe in the future!

[@nickwallette6201]

On-the-fly notes: 7:20 -- That's a T3 card. While the original idea was to have a full roster of T-carriers, we pretty much only ever used T1s and T3s. Above that, the OC-x took over. (OC-3, OC-12, OC-48, and OC-192 particularly.) 16:30 -- "Some sort of autonegotiation" -- Nope, that's just the switch telling you that the port is in Spanning-Tree blocking mode. Under the original STP spec, the port listens for a while before entering Forwarding mode, to ensure it won't loop. Because the default timer of ... I think it's 15 seconds? ... is a small eternity now, you can use PortFast to bring the port up more quickly. 17:20 -- Can't ping Google. Yeah, this is almost certainly because your home network doesn't know how to get to your lab subnet, so it got the DNS request and then replied -- by sending that packet to the default gateway, which went out to the Internet. You would need a route to point 10.0/24 to the VXR's 192.168 IP. Depending on what your home router is, you might also need to tell it to allow the other subnets to use outbound NAT. 24:40 -- Re: Mounting on the front. You have to decide what you value most here. Cisco routers (like the ISRs, PIX/ASA, etc.) typically have a port side and a faceplate side. It's up to you whether you prefer a clean looking rack with pretty faceplates, or convenient access to the interfaces. It's usually easy to decide, since there are approximately 27 routers left in the world that still have faceplates that fully clip on properly, and even the "clean" side has a power cable sticking out, so you may as well set it up with the interface side visible. (To add to the quandary, the console port, lights, CF card, etc., might be on either side. Thanks, Cisco.) If you're mixing servers and networking equipment, it's pretty common to put the server faceplates toward the front, and the networking equipment facing toward the back, since that's where all your cables are anyway. This is why lots of networking equipment has an orderable option to change the direction of the fans (front to back, or back to front.) Except when it's left-to-right. Power distribution is almost always in the back, although with your fancy switches, you might prefer it up front. It just makes cable management harder. Even "proper" racks do a terrible job at this. Power Distribution Units (PDUs) are often in "zero-U" form that goes vertically along the rear sides ... which conveniently blocks access to the mounting rails, and sometimes to the equipment itself. Very few vendors have put two and two together and opted to make the cabinets a couple inches wider to accommodate vertical PDUs without interfering with the racked stuff. Maybe they'll figure it out eventually, but there's so much momentum in a 24-inch wide form factor that ... probably not. We can't have nice things. 25:10 -- Terminal Server IP pings. To get a reply from a _different_ IP, one of two things has to have happened: Either you're using .86 as a route to .2 (which might be because you set the gateway to 86, although that still doesn't make a ton of sense on a /24 when both should be in the broadcast domain -- and you might get an ICMP redirect where 86 tells you "just go directly to 2, dummy"), or they both resolved to the same MAC. Try showing your ARP table and see what it resolved for the .2 address and the .86 address. Compare that to the other host that can ping both. If you haven't set any static ARPs, it MIGHT be that they both have the same MAC address. Some vendors reuse MACs, and I've run into at least one vendor that just uses the same MAC on every device.... although I expect more from Cisco. Oh, and also make sure that the subnet mask is set correctly on the TS. I've seen Cisco stuff work in broadcast with the wrong subnet mask before. That was one of several times in my career where I saw something and thought, "How has this _ever_ worked correctly??"

[@clabretro]

Thanks for the great comment! It was strange, cleared out the ARP tables and everything. .86 was never present (the machine itself was 10.0.0.4, and none of the interfaces were .86). I have a suspicion it could be some odd WSL funny business going on, but haven't confirmed yet.

[@jakint0sh]

Niiiice! Now you can go set up a whole Sun/Solaris networked environment with all of your SPARC servers and get something like $100,000 of 2003 enterprise compute horsepower roaring away in there :)

[@clabretro]

That's the plan!

[@DanielTheRat]

Had to stop what i was doing well alyways i have to when you post. now fill the new rack and buy a annother one 😂 Cant wait for more content on the rack

[@AshtonSnapp]

Man… I want a retro rack now…

[@bbriante]

i was screaming at my screen when you put those cage nuts into he rack so easily and without a blood offering. (as you can see i am on the team that hate them a lot)

[@clabretro]

😂

[@nickwallette6201]

The ones that come with the StarTech are not as difficult to insert as most are. That's a blessing and a curse, as they're also not as difficult to pop out while you're screwing in your rack equipment. My rack also came with M6 bolts, which are a hair on the large side. The heads can sometimes foul each other on adjacent Us (can be fixed by keeping the captive cage nut a little closer toward the middle of the ear), and I've had some trouble getting them to fit a few ears. My Cisco 2851 ears have vertical mounting holes that extend into the top and bottom of the ears (rather than the more common fully enclosed, horizontally wide holes), which gives very little room for side-to-side alignment, and they happened to be just a bit shy of the center-to-center spacing of my rack rails. I had to use washers between the ears and the router sides to bring them out JUST enough to get the screws in, since the bolt diameter is so big there's no wiggle room. The diameter was also a problem for an E-mu Proteus synth, where the screws ended up cutting threads into the ear holes. Ergo, I recommend sticking with 10-32 bolts, and maybe a cage nut with a stiffer metal clip. They are a royal pain to insert and remove, but they stay put when you get them in.

[@andygaither7026]

Clab, do you have a plan to maintain all this old stuff? Like if/when the memory cards in your routers, old SCSI drives, etc goes south?

[@clabretro]

Less worried about memory cards, but I'm hoping replacements like BlueSCSI come along for these faster enterprise SCSI drives someday.

[@andygaither7026]

@@clabretro ​​⁠dude that’s so sick, I love your channel so much! Top 2 for sure ❤

[@MadITGeek]

what about the HP proliant the one with hot-swap RAM (can't recall the name) or that one isn't retro enough LOL. I thought about trying those rack studs myself for my switch as I don't have the rails for it. It's literally on the floor inside my rack-lol (the entire thing is enclosed on wheels)

[@DanielTekmyster]

I’ll look to see if I have brackets for the 2500 router, I have soo many.. what zipcode are you in? Maybe I’ll ship you the whole box instead.

[@clabretro]

Sweet! I'm in the Denver area, feel free to reach out via email (it's in the channel's links section)

[@NJRoadfan]

That rack needs some LocalTalk. Maybe a nice Shiva FastPath 5R..... or the elusive Compatible Systems RISCRouter 3000e.

[@stonent]

Another good cheap source for rails is ones from APC UPS systems. They are the shelf type.

[@NavJack27gaming]

*eyes up the retro game carts on ur shelf*

[@k_w_9013]

Cage nuts are great until one snaps out of where you want it and goes under your fingernail 😬 Been there, done that. Really love your content though, I did an internship at one of Cisco’s TAC labs in the early 2010s and seeing this older gear brings back memories.

[@jpoke89]

As a note, the assembly directions are NOT wrong. Those large holes are used for large bolts, and belong on the back side of the rack when floor mounting it. It's to counter the weight of one or more pieces of equipment being unlocked and pulled out so the entire rack doesn't fall over, especially in rack configurations where heavy equipment like disk shelves are mounted higher up. Since you're using casters, it doesn't matter, but do be aware of the tip hazard as you fill this thing! 6:08

[@clabretro]

Interesting, it's odd because with those bottom members flipped around they don't quite fit as cleanly as they should (you can indeed bolt them in that way, but it doesn't seem right for whatever reason)

[@galeng73]

You need a 12 step program or something like that... (Also, you earned a new subscriber a while back. I just don't comment much.)

[@ToxicwasteProductions]

Love your videos 😍

[@tankgrrl]

Me: It would be cool if Rack Studs would sen-- clab: Rack Studs sent these to me. 😆

[@Megabean]

I always love seeing StarTech stuff haha, I know they are kinda crap but they are from my home city here in Canada. I even interned for them a long time ago.

[@nickwallette6201]

These racks are actually pretty decent. Definitely sturdy enough to be trustworthy. IME, StarTech tends to nail the price/performance threshold. They're not the most premium ever, but they're accessible, and what you get for the money is a genuinely good value.

[@Megabean]

@@nickwallette6201 yeah I’d agree. They’ve saved my butt so many times

[@marcosuksatlife9905]

I have a 42U rack as my main "homelab" rack, i said this is going to last me years and it's nearly full so yeah...

[@NavJack27gaming]

SO MUCH ROOM FOR ACTIVITIES

[@DECcomputers]

That's the problem when the collection gets bigger and bigger. I'll also soon have 2x 35U occupied and it's getting more and more ;) Then there's the question of what should go where, how the power supply should look, how the network should be configured, and so on. You can spend hours or even days on this. I also want to separate my retro network from the home network and use a Cisco Catalyst 3550-12G for this, but this is just exceptional ;) And I don't have any idea about Cisco configuration at the moment, but the static routes are working.

[@clabretro]

Yeah there are endless combinations, I suspect I'll reconfigure this many times haha

[@XxCrawdadCraigxX]

good video