8U Server Cabinet, 10 inch Mini Server Rack for Network, Servers, A/V Equipment and DIY Projects, 7.87 inch Depth, Black

Great Value. Star docked for lack of cage screws and thin acrylic panels. I chose this over the other options from brands you probably recognize like GeekPi, Waveshare, etc. I thought the rolled steel might provide some more weight and stability when plugging and unplugging cables and devices from the front as I'm using this as the base for an experimental desktop workstation rather than a more traditional homelab. It also just looks more like a miniaturized version of a real rack you'd find in a closet, so I found that novelty to be a selling point. At time I got it, this 8U unit was the same price as GeekPi's 6U unit. When I thought about it as two extra U for the same price it was the deciding factor, but keep in mind if you don't have cage nuts already, you need to factor that into your total cost. Also, you have to deal with cage nuts. As far as I know this is the only mini rack on this site that uses them. I specially accepted the cage nuts as part of a rite of passage, but they are that for a reason. Cage nuts suck! The included shelves and blanks are great. The shelves have holes for common mounting points like Raspberry Pi and 2.5" SSD I also would have liked to see 3mm acrylic side panels. They're thin kinda like fast food cups but not as brittle. I'm sure it's fine but still. Doing some DIY side panels is probably in my future. Ultimately, the manufacturer just needs to fix the issue with the screws. It looks like they included two bags of screws instead of one and a bag of cage nuts. The thin panels is a gripe, there's nothing wrong with them. I like this rack a lot and I appreciate that its not the same ones you're likely to see online frequently if you're the kind of person looking at this stuff. If you are homelabbing for the explicit purpose of gaining experience, I'd actually recommend this one first. 8u is room to grow but enough constraint to make you think, and you must endure the horrors of cage nuts. Best to do it in the lab.

Product is a good value for the money compared to competitors and the accessories you get. But there's a significant caveat: The product image makes it seem like you can install the shelves as is with what's included in the box. You can't. There are no cage nuts included; they must be purchased separately. Trying to attach the shelves with just a screw and a washer is nonsense -- it'll fall right off. I was pretty disappointed. My unit also had a major QC issue: one of the flanges on the top of the rack was bent, causing the bolts in one corner to be misaligned. Luckily it's sturdy enough of a rack I was able to simply sit on it to bend it back into place and avoid a return.

A heavy rack in the standard 10" size (compared to 19" standard) it is suitable for half-rack equipment like networking gear or mini-PC's. Subjectively it felt smaller than I expected, being used to full sized racks, and a lot heavier than I felt was necessary. This thing isn't going anywhere, being made of substantial steel and bolted together. I initially had some head-scratching trying to decipher the instructions, but eventually it came together - although it took some wrestling to "square up" as the tolerances on the bolt holes aren't good enough to put the final bolts in unless you're absolutely perfect in squaring everything during assembly. My skills somewhat lacking in this department, i did miss two bolts, but this had no effect on the rack overall because of the overbuilt nature. Besides the bolt tolerances being tight, I also had extra nuts and fewer bolts than the required number, leading me to wonder at the final quality checks. Extra of both wouldn't be a bad thing because if you drop either it will roll into the worst place possible (of course) or be lost forever. The choice of rack fastener needed is also a pain, leaning more to the square server-type that requires rack-nuts rather than the smaller kind that just requires the bolt. My opinion is that it's not a bad product, it's too heavy for such a small size and format, and it requires assembly. This would have been vastly superior if it came pre-welded, saving me an hour of assembly time and cursing, and would not have cost more to ship as the final sized rack could fit into the shipping box it came in. Changing to a factory welded fame would improve this to no end. Moving to an aluminum alloy would also reduce weight of the steel and not reduce capacity in a meaningful way.