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zkent

30 Posts

48170

June 8th, 2005 13:00

Fill rack with fake servers

We are a fairly small company. Right now, we have one dell rack with a few servers in it. We plan to fill up the rack within the year (maybe add an additional rack) but it seems a little empty right now. We are moving to a new building and want to make our server room a visible part of our company.

So what I need is to fill the empty areas of the rack with realistic looking faceplates complete with lights. I know there are filler panels but I want these to look like servers, drive arrays, etc. I know that I can't be the first person to think of this. Does anyone know of such a thing? Do I need to purchase Dell Bezels and do some custom mounting and wiring?

Thanks,
Zach

Engineerthis

5 Posts

June 8th, 2005 20:00

Ha,

     That's pretty good,  fake servers.. Trying to impress some clients?  I wouldn't bother with fake bezels, etc.  Buy a couple of rack shelves and put regular mini towers in there. Or get a 1/2 height rack, or rack enclosure w/ dark windows etc.

zkent

30 Posts

June 9th, 2005 12:00

Yes. To be honest we are trying to impress our clients. We are a small company that has jumped into a big pond with a lot of big fish. We do amazing things being the size we are and the industry is taking notice. We are signing up fortune 500 clients as clients. Within a few years I expect to have a full datacenter but for now my server "closet" is not that impressive.

I just can't believe no one has thought of this before.

Jingle2

104 Posts

June 9th, 2005 18:00

Go to ebay and find the tallest rack mounted tape library (one deck out of 6 loaded) you can buy for the least amount of money.

Jingle2

104 Posts

June 9th, 2005 18:00

If you're in a big city with any film activity you could also rent them out to movie studios as set props.  : )

zkent

30 Posts

June 9th, 2005 18:00

Thanks. I think I have found a new market. Im gonna look into the cost of producing fake stuff for racks. :)

zkent

30 Posts

June 9th, 2005 19:00

That gives me a great idea! Maybe I could find a prop company that has some old "futuristic" computers from the movies in the 1950s. Those really ugly things with the big guages, blinking bulbs, and oval windows... We could put those in the publicly-visible part of the server room. I'd love to see the faces of the people who saw it. LOL

Dreamthinker

24 Posts

June 14th, 2005 07:00

on ebay, you can buy 6300's, (7u?), for $150 +shipping, from one seller, the rest are $300+, the money to size ratio is nice, and a 6300 can still be usefull
 
there is a place by St Paul, called MPC (materials prossesing co), they take donations from companys for tax write offs, i baught a PE2300, for $25, they have 19" rack ,mounted blower fans, (those BIG huge ones) for $10, older server cabnits for $100 (rare), and just about anything else you can imagine, they scrap most of the servers, and sell the parts to clients, HD's RAM, PSU's, and i think they recycle the cases, and throw away the bezels, alot of the stuff comes from the Mayo Clinic
 
you prob can't get the stuff without a road trip, but look in your area, there is prob a Puter boneyard within 50 miles of you, they are a very valuble place to know about

zkent

30 Posts

June 14th, 2005 12:00

Thanks for the info :)

speedstep

9 Legend

 • 

47K Posts

June 16th, 2005 00:00

Then we fill a fake office with fake Server Administrators and sell the whole thing to the Government. No Wait someone probably already does that.

zkent

30 Posts

June 16th, 2005 12:00

LOL I want that job! No wait... I do

zkent

30 Posts

June 17th, 2005 12:00

@Dreamthinker wrote:
...then had to specify "momentary button" and the guy was completely clueless, even after a detailed description, with hand signals... .

Now I am going to show my age... I had to look up "momentary button" on google... I would love to build one of those servers... :)

Message Edited by zkent on 06-17-2005 09:36 AM

Dreamthinker

24 Posts

June 17th, 2005 12:00

on the whole Sci Fi thing, i think all it was back then was a peice of sheet metal, and a radio shack (the old radio shack, before they sold out)... i went into a radio shack about a year ago..asked the guy where the buttons were, then had to specify "momentary button" and the guy was completely clueless, even after a detailed description, with hand signals... "we sell buttons?" was the last thing i heard before i left...anyway..a 50's sci fi consol, can't be hard to fabricate

speedstep

9 Legend

 • 

47K Posts

June 17th, 2005 19:00


@zkent wrote:
LOL I want that job! No wait... I do



You have violated government security regulation section C sub part 4 of the secret police manual.

You will be terminated in 15 seconds

Goodbye Jim

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