Data Cabinet and Accessories
I'm currently getting the house refurbished and as a result we have CAT 7 Ethernet cabling throughout the whole house. Our builder has suggested we get a Data Cabinet and other accessories to put our main networking equipment in. I'm not sure if this is necessary or what size of a data cabinet I would need.I'd appreciate if somebody could explain what are the main advantages of these cabinets and suggest an appropriate size and model, considering the equipment below is what I think should go in the cabinet with their dimensions and that there are also other accessories listed below which may need to go inside it (or outside - I have no idea).
Equipment
Modem - Virgin Superhub 3 (28cm x 20cm x 11cm) (H x D x W)Router - Synology RT2600ac (8cm x 28cm 17cm) (H x W x D)NAS - Synology DS218 - (24cm x 11cm x 17cm) - (No idea what is Height, Width or Depth - but would guess at H x W x D)CCTV NVR - Unknown Model (39cm x 32cm x 6cm) (W x D x H)Music Server (6cm x 12cm x 12cm) - (H x W x D)Something to transfer CCTV footage to the TV - does this exist?
Is there anything else people would tend to keep in here?
Accessories
Cabinet Fan Units
Power Supply
Patch Panel
Switch
On the above accessories I'm not sure what I should be getting, so advice would be appreciated on models.
Thanks. The main reason for a comms cabinet is neatness. Most data networking cabinets have standard 19 inch mounting rails in them designed for equipment and patch panels that are 19 inch rack compliant. (Data networking and telecomms is not their only use - for example a lot of contemporary "electric" musicians outboard gear is 19 inch rack compliant.)
So one can (mostly) assume that any such cabs have "standard" 19 inch rails inside and you usually buy them some number of "U's" high (if I ever knew what "U" stood for, I've forgotten, but I'd guess at "unit"): Rack mountable equipment will be some multiple of "U's" high and one would procure a comms cab with enough U's capacity for the amount of gear you want to install in it. "Little" cabs for a SOHO would probably be 6U, 9U or 12U. Big floor standers for a data centre would be 42U!
But beyond the "standard" sizing of the mounting rails, everything else is up for grabs - internal and external height, width, depth, distance from rail to front door, doors on the front, back, sides, (or not) ventilation, cable management, some have power distro and fans in them - the list of variants is endless! (And the prices.)
Since a lot of SOHO gear is not rack mountable, you'd have to buy "shelves" for it all.
A lot of cabs are metal and as such you wouldn't want to put your Wi-Fi Access Points (or routers) inside them as it'll kill the Wi-FI (Wi-Fi hates anything wet or metal in the way.)
If you house active heat producing equipment in them, heat dissipation and ventilation can also be an issue: If you put a lot of active gear in a small cab with all sides closed, they can get toasty pretty quickly!
So it does rather beg the question, "do you want to bother" for a small SOHO installation...? If the kit and the cable termination is all sequested away in a cupboard you are never going to see, and/or if little or none of your kit is rack mountable, you might perhaps save yourself the money. If your cabling guy is presenting all the termination onto a patch panel, again if it's in a locale that's "out of sight" a PP can be mounted on a couple of stout battens screwed to the wall.
It might perhaps be worth googling for some images of these things ("19 inch rack cabinet" would be a good search term) and see what you think and have a look through this forum as some AVF'ers who have done their own DIY cabling jobs have submitted "write ups" with photos of their work. Thanks for the advice. I will mention this all to my builder and see what he says tomorrow. If I do find anything interesting following my search on AVF I will link it back to this thread in case someone is looking at this in the future. I have a wall mounted 19” rack in my garage with very similar kit to yours. A 10U or 12U high should be adequate. You are also going to need a CAT7 patch panel and a switch and a couple of shelves. Terminating CAT7 is going to be difficult, I hope your electrician is familiar with CAT7 cable and termination. ...and installs it all into proper containment and has rather expensive certification tester on hand - there much more to actually being "cat7" than just buying cat7 cable. In addition to all the above info, I reckon you'll need a minimum cab height of 12U, and probably 18U so you'll have to work it out.Some items could be side by side on shelves, plus space for a power rail, switch, patch panel and some cable management.Probably an 18U 500mm deep cab.You could always just use a frame rather than a full cab, but it depends on where it's going.I'd look to put the AP on top of the cabinet rather than in it, but then I'd be looking at a standalone separate AP(s) mounted elsewhere in the house to get decent coverage everywhere.
If you can afford Cat7 (and it's proper installation) then getting a decent cab/patch panel/switch etc shouldn't be an issue data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7 data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
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