Rack Your Home Lab With $8 IKEA Lack Tables
January 31st, 2010 | 
Author: 
The LackRack
Most of my colleagues have a home lab with at least some equipment that is rackable, but because of expense, room size, or the decor concerns of a much smarter significant other purchasing a data center rack is not possible (or advisable). In fact, our servers, storage and switches are stacked under a desk, piled in a corner, or hidden in a coat closet. Virtualization and server consolidation has helped reduce the total amount of hardware we need running at home, but we still end up with a makeshift and cluttered workspace that keeps us in the dog house.
Now, imagine this conversation:
| significant other: | “I can’t believe my mother is coming over and you can’t put all this stuff away” |
| you: | “Where can I put it?’” |
| significant other: | “You don’t really want me to answer that, do you?” |
| you: | “Besides, if I shut all this down and put it away you and your mother won’t be able to use Facebook, get email, or share photos. By the way, this stuff helps pay the bills, remember?” |
| significant other: | “Well, can’t you stack it all in one pile at least?” |
| you: | “Honey, I was reading VMETC.com today and I got a great idea about this. We need to go to IKEA.” |
| significant other: | “Huh? Did you say you want to go to IKEA?” Are you feeling OK?” |
| you: | Yeah, I can get a few end tables and a coffee table for this room, organize my hardware, and you can even decorate the table tops how you like.” |
| significant other: | Oh Baby! You know I love IKEA! I need to get that closet organizer, and the tray for the kitchen drawer, those picture frames I want you to hang, there’s got to be something for the mess in the garage, the kids need more of those train tracks, we can look at the futons, I want to line our dresser drawers with that decorative paper I showed you …. Let me go get the IKEA catalogue!! |
| you: | (to yourself) Oh man, what did I just do …. ?” |
Yes, going to IKEA with your Love is a dangerous undertaking, but it’s a reality to consider for your home lab.
The IKEA Lack tables are the perfect size
for standard rack mount switches and servers, and since they are easily stackable with the help of some standard L brackets from your favorite hardware store, using multiple Lack tables can create a multi tiered shelf system for your home hardware. Suddenly you may become more organized and more appreciated by your significant other. No promises on the last part.
Lifehacker.com’s article Build a Network Rack with an IKEA Table explains that these $8 tables “just happen to be the exact width of a network rack and you can easily screw rack devices right into their sturdy legs.” Lifehacker links to the source of their article, eth-0.nl LackRack Wiki page, which is full of interesting ideas and photos about using the end table along with some humorous comparisons between using a LackRack over a commercial data center rack.
The rest of this post is info copied from the eth-0.nl wiki:
Goodies
- You can put food and/or drink on your rack.
- You can put a small lamp on top of the rack to see your hardware and/or better find the aforementioned food and drink.
- The table can be painted in a color of your preference, or decorated in various ways. The eth0 Design team can advise, for a fee, how to optimally decorate the rack to suit your environment.
- That means, no more dull black/gray racks!
- Or you can put stickers of your favorite event on them : [1]
- It’s easy to colour-code your datacentre: e.g. red for critical services, grey for office automation, green for file-servers, black for systems and network management.
- Cheap!
- Easy!
- Looks good!
Alternative configuration
fitting the equipment to the rear of the front legs
- Mounting the equipment to the rear of the front legs is recommended if you plan to fit switches with fiber uplinks; the created tabletop overhang shields the fiber connections from minor mishap
FAQ
- Q: Does the LackRack provide redundant power supply?
- A: Only if you add it yourself
- Q: Can I put my (coffee) mug on top and don’t have to worry about it if I spill liquid on the LackRack?
- A: You can spill coffee on the LackRack, since it can be cleaned quite easily. However, if you have appliances in the LackRack, there is a chance that these appliances cannot handle the coffee (or any other liquid). You should take precautions in order to protect your appliances
Specs
As from the Ikea product page:
- Product information
- Easy to assemble.
- Low weight; easy to move.
- Readily available desktop area holding your laptop during maintenance.
- Levenstein distance of “Lack” and “Rack” is 1. Can this still be a coincidence?
- Designer:
- IKEA of Sweden
- Product dimensions
- Length: 55cm (21 5/8 “)
- Width: 55cm (21 5/8 “)
- Height: 45cm (17 3/4 “)
- Almost 9U of rack space
- Care instructions
- Wipe clean using a damp cloth and a mild cleaner.
- Wipe dry with a clean cloth
- Product description
- Top: Particleboard, Fiberboard, ABS plastic, Printed and embossed acrylic paint, Clear acrylic lacquer
- Filling material: Paper
- Leg: Particleboard, Fiberboard, Foil, Foil
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![[1]](http://wiki.eth-0.nl/index.php/Image:Lack2.jpg){kind=link}
That was a worthy laugh. Thanks!
I currently have a 7' x 19″ network rack in my office. I just showed this to my wife and she was all for it… oh boy (!).
Taylor,
Nice to know you will be spending some QT at IKEA soon! Have fun!
That's kind of cool..
For some reason, I think i'd want some sort of base reinforcement before mounting a couple 50 pound servers to it. And probably a shelf, since the rails would be hard to attach to that
haha happy times. I've been using one of these lack tables to sit a few of my servers.. with a switch lying haphazardly on top.. this is brilliant.. and i totally missed the obvious. lol. That the switch could be racked in between its legs.. hrm. dirty sounding. lol Anyways. Seeing the pics on lackrack has been truly inspirational. Thanks mate!
Great VDay gift from my wife! Just got 3 Lack Tables. Looks like I will be organizing my basement “junk”. BTW, she went to IKEA while I was in Las Vegas at VMware PEX. Whew!
This kind of rack is quite good according to its specification but it's still good to have a good rack enclosure equipment for more manageable and convenient place for those data center equipments.
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