A Wacky but Interesting History of Rack-Mounted PC
I’m always intrigued by interesting historical accounts that brought about the technological innovations we rely on today. I continue to be shocked by how events so early in human and American history serve as the impetus for modern technological developments. Here are two that I recently discovered that you will surely find fascinating…
Rack-mounted computers exist—at least some degree—in almost every company, but where did the idea originate? My initial web search for “origin of the rack-mounted PC” surprisingly yielded a record from the Middle Ages that turned out to be not relevant but nonetheless amusing:
“Late in the 12th century, during the reign of King Henry II, a certain peasant criminal [aka a ‘PC’], surnamed Langham, was sentenced to a punishment that required him to write 1,000 times the phrase, ‘I will never again catfish the King.’ He was also forced to endure the torture device known widely as simply, ‘the rack.’”
This peasant criminal (PC) on the rack in 1187 is the first-recorded rack-mounted PC, but it’s not the right kind of PC to truly serve as the origin of today’s rack-mounted PCs.
Though a 12th century peasant criminal (PC) stretched across a medieval torture device called “the rack” appears to be the earliest recorded “rack-mounted PC,” it seems to be too big of a stretch to credit this as the origination of what we know today by the same name. So, I continued my search.
The next recorded historical account was not until 753 years later, as recorded in the February 4, 1919 edition of The New Braunfels Tribune. Astonishingly little technological progress was made in rack-mounted computing between the years 1168 and 1919!
Unlike the rack-mounted peasant criminal, this 20th century account ticks all the boxes to qualify it as the seminal moment, triggering a new line of thinking about efficient administration of centralized computers. An excerpt from the Tribune article reads:
“It was dawn on a crisp, January morning. The air was still, and snow flurries were accumulating on ground. Levi Stasiunas sat motionless under a tree with his muzzleloader in his hands. He had been there for hours, and the hardness of the frigid ground was becoming ever more noticeable through his dungarees. He hears a rustling. Stasiunas holds his breath, not wanting to risk frightening whatever was approaching. He fantasized that it was the 12-point buck he’d caught glimpses of in the past. The rustling grew closer. Stasiunas’ heart raced. He every so slowing raised his rifle in case this was THE ONE! A twig cracked. The faint outline revealed it was in fact a deer, but it seemed to walk with an unusual gait. Then, emerging from behind the juniper was THE MAGNIFICENT BUCK that Stasiunas has dreamed of shooting. He had laid in bed for a hundred nights, imagining the shoulder mount regally displayed above his homestead fireplace, and here was that very deer just 30 yards away. But wait! What was that? It was THE buck, but he looked peculiar; something was in his antlers! The deer turned toward Stasiunas, and the morning sun revealed the oddity–the buck had an entire computer system tangled in its antlers, effectively mounting it to the buck’s rack!”
Well, this buck turned out to be quite the trophy, bringing unheralded notoriety to Stasiunas throughout the countryside and ultimately serving as the inspiration for the modern rack-mounted computers many of us use today.
(Stasiunas’ trophy buck with the first known rack-mounted PC on display in the world headquarters of ClearCube Technology in Cedar Park, Texas)
Solutions for easy management of centralized computers
Today, rack-mounted PCs can be found in closets, cooled by a window AC unit, and partially obscured by a pile of Red Bull cans and Cheetos bags…OR…they can be found in secure, brightly lit, raised floor, UPS/generator-equipped, data rooms. In either situation—or somewhere in between—these machines are critical to many IT operations. Such physical computers can be used as bare metal servers, cluster or cloud hosting servers, or virtual machines in a VDI or DaaS environment.
Despite server room PCs being commonplace, many IT teams are not fully aware of the rack-mounted computer products available, products that will make their jobs easier and save their companies money.
ClearCube offers an exciting line of rack-mounted computer products that help businesses needing space-efficient and reliable centralized computer hardware.
If you are in (or operate similarly to) any of the following industries, you will want to become familiar with ClearCube’s product options:
- MSPs/DaaS
- Architecture
- Engineering
- Media & Advertising
- Gaming design
- Web hosting
- Data analytics
- AI
Consider whether these situations hit home with you:
Don’t want to send your company’s $6,000 GPU-equipped computers home with employees?
Need to keep proprietary designs, software, and data securely on-premises but allow employees to work remotely?
Providing DaaS solutions to companies whose employees need more than a merely a shared vitual desktop instance? [Are these the correct words?]
Are you running an array of headless computers in a data center that’s becoming cluttered or crowded?
If you have any of those situations in play, then the products highlighted below may be the perfect solution.
The Client Drawer
This innovative product allows you to easily rack-mount NUC mini-PCs? The Client Drawer is a standard-width 4U chassis that holds up to 10 mini-PCs (NUC computers). Aside from the obvious benefit of efficiently storing 10 computers, the Client Drawer is engineered to provide ease of installation and superior serviceability, having the following features:
- Can be rack-mounted in any standard 19” server rack (but it doesn’t need to be rack-mounted)
- Comes with (2) 600W, redundant power supplies built in to provide failover protection
- Rear side has (2) HDMI, (2) USB-Type A, and (1) RJ-45 LAN connection per mini-PC compartment (X 10)
Consolidates the power connections from all 10 computers into two external power cords - Allows IT administrators to manage each computer without having to remove it from the drawer and without disturbing the operation of the other units
- Active cooling with (4) fans
- 10 mounting dividers
- Enables 100 NUC mini-PCs to be stored in a 42U rack (with 20 power cords instead of 100)
Blade Computers
Blade computers provide robust computing power while taking up little precious space in server room racking. Options for 3U or 6U height blades, based on computing power requirements.
3U blade computers support multiple displays and are terrific for power users in a VDI environment.
With hot-swappable memory, multiple 4K display capability and the ability to accommodate up to a P4000 graphics card make the 6U blades well-suited for most power users.
Both the 3U and the 6U models are available in multiple configurations, and both have corresponding chassis designed to hold up to 8 (3U) or 10 (6U) blades. Equipped with chassis, a 42U rack can hold 112 3U or 70 6U blade PCs. Speaking of chassis…
Blade PC Chassis
1U Rack-Mountable Workstations
Do you need powerful rack-mountable computers but either only need a few (per racked space)? Do you have enough usable rack space that the efficiency of blade PCs is unnecessary? Do you use two-post racking or need to install the PC in a vehicle or other confined space? Here are some 1U options to meet your specific needs:
These 1U rack-mountable PCs can come equipped with up to a P6000 graphics card, so they are ideal for power users working with 3D graphics, AI, or vast and complex data structures. Swappable memory. This line can be configured for 1GE or 10GE copper or fiber connections.
This 1U rack-able workstation is short in depth (11”), so it can be racked in a two-post rack, as well as a standard four-post racking or even a vehicle (e.g., a mobile media van, airplane, etc.). This unit is also light in weight, so it’s easy to rack and service. Despite its smaller size and light weight, this unit can house up to a P4000 GPU in its single PCI Express slot, providing ample computing capabilities for all but the most data and graphics-heavy users. Capable and lighter weight, this unit is also lower-priced than other rack-mounted computers and blades.
