john@johnrshannon.com wrote:

> On Tuesday 14 March 2006 08:30, David Brownlee wrote:
> >  	What do people recommend for 2U rackmounts?
> >
> >  	We have about a dozen Antec 2U20ATX300UK with Asus A8V Deluxe
> >  	    http://www.antec.com/uk/productDetails.php?ProdID=3D02202
> >
> >  	... which are not too bad - they are quite shallow, look good,
> >  	have space for 2 3.5" drives in a removable unit behind
> >  	the PSU (though a little tight) and space for a 5.25" and
> >  	3.5" along the front which are more awkward to swap out.
> >
> >  	Cables are the standard "not all custom made" mess.
> 
> I have several Antec 3U chassis. I also have some Supermicro chassis;
> I find a number of details, such as the ease of intalling and using
> siderails, superior on the Supermicro products. I've only used them
> with Supermicro boards.
> 
> http://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/2U/

Heh.  I was about to send the same URL but decided to see if there'd
been any other replies first.  I also have a number of supermicro
chasses and have been very happy with them.  I have also always used
supermicro motherboards in them; I'd want to do some checking before
spending any money, but I'd be surprised if there were any significant
issues with most others.

I also have a few Chenbro chasses.  They should come with a warning 
label about their disk trays:  drives are attached to the trays by
screws through the bottom of the tray into the bottom of the drive.
The clearance between the heads of the screws and the frame holding 
the tray is ... not much; I'd guess less than 1mm.  I have _twice_ 
had a screw work loose by enough to make it impossible to remove
that drive from the chassis.  Once we were ultimately able to remove
it by slipping a very thin piece of metal between the frame and the
bottom of the tray, and with a lot of force pulling the tray past
the narrow spot where it was otherwise catching.  If that trick
doesn't work, the only other option we've been able to figure out
would involve drilling out the rivits that hold the drive frame into
the chassis.  (After the first time this happened, we started using
locktite on those screws.  A few years went by, we got some new 
servers with Chenbro chasses, and whoever put them together either
didn't know about the previous problem or forgot.  Which is how we
came to learn this lesson twice.)

That aside, Chenbro chasses are fine.  If there's no Supermicro
chassis with the features you need and there is a Chenbro, I'd 
seriously consider it --- provided you can be sure to remember
to use locktite on the drive mounting screws.

again with one of the new chasses.