Back in 2019 a guy on this very forum told me to spend $150 on a used APC UPS before I even ordered my first rackmount chassis. I ignored him and fried a drive during a brownout 3 months later. Has anyone else had a simple piece of advice save them from a stupid expensive mistake?
I was setting up my first home rack in the basement last weekend, got all the cables neat and tidy, then plugged in my old PDU and heard a pop. Smoke started pouring out the back of the rack before I even had the server powered on. Turns out the PDU had a cracked fuse holder that I missed when I tested it - lucky I was standing right there. Ended up ripping everything out and running a temporary power strip until I can get a replacement delivered. Has anyone else had a PDU fail on you like that out of nowhere?
He just cut two holes in the drywall and ran flexible ducting from the bottom of the rack to the crawlspace under the house, and his temps never went above 85F even under load how bad is that idea for dust or pests long term?
I had two 120mm fans on opposite sides of my rack both set to exhaust. Some user named tech_dad_42 pointed out I was basically creating a vacuum. Swapped one to intake and the noise dropped by half. Has anyone else messed up fan direction like this?
I moved my whole 12U rack down to the coolest corner of my basement near the foundation wall. Temp dropped by 8 degrees, but within two days the humidity spiked to 70% and my drives started throwing read errors. Turns out that corner was also the dampest spot in the whole house. Anyone else have a cooling fix that backfired with moisture problems?
I spent $80 on those adjustable rack rails from a popular brand for my home server setup. They promised easy mounting but the holes didn't line up with my 12U open frame rack at all. I spent two hours trying to make them work before giving up. Turns out I could have bought cheap L-brackets from the hardware store for $12 and been done in 10 minutes. The return shipping was $15 so I basically threw away $95 total. Anyone else have a rack accessory that sounded great but was totally useless?
I built a 12U rack in my basement last month and used a foam air filter from a hardware store to keep dust out of the intake fans. The foam got soaked with humidity and the fan motor overheated, melting the filter and dripping plastic onto my switch. Has anyone else had a filter fail like this or found a safer kind to use?
Bought a rackmount UPS off Facebook Marketplace without checking if it had a 5-20P plug instead of a standard 5-15P, and now I'm stuck rewiring my whole circuit or spending another $50 on an adapter.
I put a $40 rack shelf under a 35lb UPS and it bent like a taco inside a year, so why does everyone keep buying these instead of spending $15 more on a solid steel one from a server pull?
I was just checking my Ubiquiti dashboard this morning and saw 50 devices online at once. That includes all my family's phones, laptops, security cams, and a few IoT gadgets. I built this whole setup in my basement last summer with a used 24 port switch and a repurposed gaming PC for Plex. Honestly I thought my little 1500VA UPS would give up way before now. Has anyone else been surprised by how much their home gear can actually handle?
I was dropping off some old monitors at the Austin recycling center last weekend and spotted this dude unloading a whole server rack from his truck. He had this janky setup where he used a window AC unit and some dryer ducting to push cold air into the front of his rack. I asked him about it and he said it dropped his temps by 15 degrees compared to just fans. Has anyone else tried rigging up a portable AC to cool their gear?
Was at a friend's place last month helping him rack a new switch, and he just casually said 'you know stacking fans in the back is just recycling hot air, right?' I had 6 Noctua fans crammed into a 12U rack thinking it was genius cooling. Actually measured temps after rearranging to a push-pull setup with proper gaps. Dropped my CPU idle temp by 8 degrees Celsius. Now I actually measure static pressure instead of just slapping fans everywhere. Anybody else fall for the 'more airflow' trap at first?
He said it dropped his temps by 6 degrees ever since he flipped them around, has anyone else tried reversing their fan direction on a budget rack?
I was helping a buddy redo his home rack last Saturday and spent an hour cutting zipties off a patch panel. Those plastic straps wreck the cable jacket over time and you cant add or move a single wire without clippers. A 100 pack of velcro strips costs like 8 bucks at Home Depot and you can reuse them a dozen times. Has anyone else had to dig out a ziptie clean up session from a previous owner?
Walked past a guy at Micro Center last weekend telling his friend that and I wanted to ask him how many drives he's toasted trying that theory, has anyone here actually run a rack without fans for more than a year?
I picked up a used APC UPS off Craigslist for my home rack thinking I was being smart. Got it home, plugged everything in, and the battery died within 10 minutes under load. New batteries cost more than the unit itself, so now it's just a heavy paperweight. Anyone else get burned buying used UPS gear?