These 10″ mini racks are about half the width of a typical 19″ rack, allowing them to fit in more places.
Man, my kneejerk reaction is that this is a mistake.
You have a massive amount of 19" rack infrastructure out there. If you go for, say, a 9"-ish rack, then you can potentially mount them side-by-side in existing racks. That extra inch they’re using is going to make it a lot harder to play nice with existing stuff.
EDIT: Hmm. I don’t know what motherboards those things use, but might be because microATX is 9.6" and maybe being able to use those is desirable. Mini-ITX is 6.7".
Rack width includes the rails/ears. That’s where the extra inch you’re referring to comes from. The actual size of equipment you can slide between the rails and inside the rack, not including ears, is about 17.75" for 19" racks and about 8.75" for 10" racks. That is indeed half the width. Or at least within 0.125", but I don’t know how accurate these numbers really are.
MicroATX very much cannot fit in this 10" rack.
Equipment that is “half-rack” or “half-width rackmount” tends to be primarily intended to mount two devices side by side on the same row of a 19" rack, but also can often be mounted in a 10" rack by attaching ears to both sides.
Tbh, I’m not feeling this. It’s hard enough to find decent priced stuff that fits in a 19" rack, now there’s another form factor to target that could divide that market even further?
This form factor isn’t actually new. This article is just about someone consolidating resources related to its current market options into simple documentation.
One major perk to this size is that it’s small enough that the vast majority of 3D printers can make plastic mounting brackets for it, making it a lot easier for people (who happen to have access to a 3D printer) to use small low-power gear that isn’t designed for rack mount.
So it’s most popular for people who want to run a few Pi systems, similar small SBCs, or mini PCs similar in size to a Mac Mini, or who want to throw network gear they already own that isn’t designed for racking into a rack. Even ITX systems don’t really seem like a great fit for this in my opinion, though it’s at least possible to fit them.
I hear you. Don’t buy new and be patient.
Used rack mount equipment is hard to find until you have enough contacts. Nobody sells it used because none of the businesses buy it used.
So you can get a ton of it basically for free once you know the recyclers.
Mini racks are not for people using traditional rack mount devices. Mini racks are for SBCs, NUCs and other Small form factor PCs.
I for one am a fan. I will never want traditional 19" inch rack mount server devices in my home. Too much power, noise and heat.
Now…I just need to get an Nvidia DIGITs to mount on my mini rack.
