IT Rack Upgrades

The Old Server Rack

We can take an old server rack and fully upgrade it to today tech. Please call us or use the FREE QUOTE contact form on this site to tell us about your project.

We just finished a rack upgrade this week. Checkout the BEFORE and AFTER pics below.

You can see the old rack was badly in need of some TLC. The rack included some old mismatched switches with no PoE+, an old non-business grade gateway and just a jumble of wiring with no cable management plan.

The old rack did not have a top on it, and it did not have a door – so it was not lockable.

The New Server Rack

We upgraded the gateway to a Ubiquiti UDM-Pro SE. The Pre SE can handle door access and camera management if needed. It is truly a small business solution. Ubiquiti definitely has some flaws, but they produce solid hardware for a reasonable price.

We ditched the old HP and Netgear (GS348PP) switches for two Netgear business level switches with 48 ports each. The switches can provide PoE+ as well with up to 24 ports each and 380W of total PoE/PoE+ power.

The switches have selectable LED indicators to switch between showing activity on the port vs showing a solid LED for connection / link status only.

We removed the punchdown connection board at the top of the rack and added new keystone boards that allowed us to quickly land enet cables at the back of each board.

We added new cat6A short patch cables for a tighter look. The cables are color coded as well so that the top ports of each switch are white patched and the bottom row of ports is blue patched.

We used orange patch cables for connections that go back to the UDM-Pro SE or from the Comcast Business cable modem to the LAN.

The 15U server rack includes two server fans mounted in the top of the rack that keep the rack cool.

In addtion, the vented top piece of the rack and the open access panel on the bottom help keep air flowing vertically in the rack.

We used 1U vented blank panels for the bottom three bays of the server rack for a neater finished look.

The power distribution is via a CyberPower (CPS1220RMS) rack mounted surge strip. This client did not want a UPS, but we could have certainly added that as well.

Just for fun and for a cool aesthetic, we added a green LED light strip inside the door of the sesrver rack.

Check out the before and after pictures below.

Server Rack