Introduction

As you progress deeper into what could possibly be classified an addiction, your enthusiast drive will, at some point, lead you to rackmount systems. I'm not saying everyone will end up with a 42U seven foot computer case for your computer cases in your home office, but it's been known to happen... a few times in my case.

I bet a few of you are already knocking on the door. Let's see if this sounds about right. You have a handful of computers already built, but some are not hooked up to a keyboard, mouse or monitor. From time to time you need to plug them in, but most of the time you're just accessing them through remote desktop. These computers take up quite a bit of floor space and you've already moved them away from your main computer. If that's the case then it's probably time to rack and stack them.

Rackmount gear is notoriously expensive. Buying a full 42U rack from Dell, HP, EMC or just about anyone else is going to cost you an arm for the rack and a leg for shipping it to you. Even in low-tech Indiana, a full 42U on Craigslist for less than $100 dollars is an easy find. You just have to go get it, but that pales in comparison to the price of a brand new rack and the cost to ship them.

Now that you have the space, it's time to populate it. Several years ago I acquired an Antec Take-4, Antec's 4U rackmount solution. The case held up very well over the years and recently I needed to find another one. The great thing about rackmount cases is they tend to stay on the market for a very long time. The technology really hasn't changed a lot.

Today we're looking at my new Antec Take-4 case. I'm using these two cases in our new NAS server testbed that uses dual identical computers to stress NAS servers. Antec was gracious enough to send me another one and I would like to show it to you.