[rescue] Moving Sun servers?

[Mr Ian Primus]

--- On Fri, 4/29/11, Vintage Coder <vintagecoder at aol.com> wrote:

> Do they have to be carried level or can I just grab one at
> a time and carry it without worrying? I don't have a rack
> and I am tight on space so I plan to stack them 3 or 4 high
> on each other until I come up with a better setup, will that
> be a problem? Anything else to look out for?

Nope. Nothing to watch out for moving them. You can lay/carry them flat, up on end, on their sides, any way you please. I've operated Sun E420's on their sides next to the desk in lieu of proper rack mounting. There's nothing in them that's gravity sensitive. Just, after you move them, check that everything is firmly seated - really hard banging can cause the CPU to come unseated slightly.

You can stack them pretty high, those cases are sturdy. Only thing I'd be careful of is the faceplate - they break easily. Many surplus Sun servers I've seen have completely broken faceplates because someone manhandled them. It's not that they're flimsy plastic - no, SGI claims that title. It's that the server is really heavy, and if you slam it into something, or slam it down on the front faceplate when setting it down, it's going to break it.

The only other thing I'd watch out for, is if these are in a rack already, be sure to unbolt and take the rack rails with you - don't leave the one half in the rack, since after you work on these for a while, you'll really want to rack them up some day.

-Ian