Upgrading my server rack from 15u to 42u. Suggestions appreciated.

I'm assuming this is in a closet or enclosed space of some sort with limited ventilation? If you shove 42u into an unused bedroom closet where the home run is, you'll probably need to plan for more ventilation and duct work. I had the equivalent to a 15U in a spare bedroom closet that I left the door open on (and it was very little comparative compute, mostly networking, NAS and UPS) and the closet was easily 7 degrees warmer than the bathroom outside the open door.

I used (was told to use, more properly) Compaq DL380s for storage in my first data center, and multiple generations are pretty cheap on eBay, but the price of the SAS drives is astronomical. I know you'll probably use a homebrew NAS in a rackmount enclosure, which I have zero advice on.

Relying on a single 14TB drive that wasn't at least mirrored? I thought I knew ye!

In all honesty, once I moved to a 5 bay non rackmount NAS, my cheapness became an advantage. I start with 2-3 drives, add one more when the price on the next tier drops, replace one of the smaller ones every two years when it fails, and it's like a slow trickle, but it keeps me safe. The current storage pool I started with was with 4TB drives a decade ago. As the drives fail, a 4TB gets replaced with a 6, a year later, the next 4TB that fails gets replaced with an 8 that cost as much as the 6, etc. I have two 9.1, two 12.7, and one 10.9, with one of the 12.7s as a hot spare. I used to use Western Digital (Red Pro) exclusively, but have started to inject the Seagate equivalent into the mix. In looking at the BackBlaze drive reports, it seemed a wise strategy. One thing I noticed that when I bought drives with nearly sequential serial numbers (at the same time), if one failed, the next one was going no more than 45-60 days later.

I would obviously investigate any NAS OS to make sure it integrates with BackBlaze or similar for offsite backup. I know if there's a flood, fire or tornado, the guns and the NAS and getting grabbed first, but it's so cheap. Even to get a drive shipped to you from BB for restoration, it's maybe $200.

Why get big when small rack do trick

I'm wondering about moving to solid state myself. Wish it would come down in price

Storage seems to be the hardest thing to manage. I only have 5.25 TB split between 3x NVME and 1x SATA SSD.

Subscriptions are cheaper than disks but maybe less quality and my movies didn’t work well on Christmas despite my live and series being perfect.

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Storage is stupid simple to manage

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Until you want to keep heat, noise, and size to a minimum.

100TBs in 2u space with 48 cores/64 threads running at max 70w

i've seen your server pics baw

and yes i'm jealous

You need to grab a Cisco 3850-12X48U while they're still cheap as dirt to throw in the new rack, when you get it.

36x 1gb POE+ ports, 12x mgig 1/2.5/5/10gb POE+ ports, with an expansion slot for up to 8x 10gb SFP+ ports (hell, you can even get a 2x 40gb SFP+ module for it ). I got mine with a 2x 1gb, 2x 10gb SFP+ module for $100

What's your plan for this 42U server rack? In your other thread, you're looking at a desktop NAS. As Blue pointed out, you can fit a lot of storage and compute in a 2U server. Maybe it's a good time to consolidate rather than expand.

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What's your plan for this 42U server rack? In your other thread, you're looking at a desktop NAS. As Blue pointed out, you can fit a lot of storage and compute in a 2U server. Maybe it's a good time to consolidate rather than expand.

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i currently have a 24port managed switch, rackmount ups, reolink nvr, dell poweredge, 5 external hdds, hue hub, keyboard/monitor, laser printer and planning to add a 4 bay NAS.

it gets pretty warm in there and i have no fan/circulation currently which is an attractive feature of most larger cabinets.

its possible i can fit everything in my existing one and move the printer to a different location but i liked the idea of getting everything as far off the floor as possible. i'm also considering wall-mounting the 15u.

i guess room for growth and ventilation are my 2 biggest objectives.