Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Im Curious, how many of you use a Rack and/or HTPC

Exactly what the title says

"Im Curious, how many of you use a Rack and/or HTPC"

When I mention having a AV rack or that I'm using an HTPC, most folks just try to muster a smile and tilt their head a little like I was on America's most wanted the night before.

Is it still that much of niche hobby?

Being an Audio/Speaker forum, thought u'all would be a nice mix to take a tempature on, and get a take on this.

The other forums I visit: AVS, MyMovies, theGreenbutton, etc. are already "in the game", so hard to tell.

Thanks

Jeff

I don't have a rack or an HTPC.

I do, however, have a rack with 2 ESX hosts and a vCenter server at work, along with a 2 tray iSCSI SAN, a couple of Cisco gigabit switches and various other equipment. Does that count?

So I guess my 24 port netgear gigabit rack mounted switch ain't going to float your boat! Or my 20 hot swap bay server? Okay we are finished here! I am amazed at how many ports I use on that switch for one tiny house!

Hell, I don't have that stuff at my house!

But no, I'm not fond of the Netgear gig-E switches. I've got one sitting on my desk at work on the off chance I get invited to a lan party at some point, but the thing is a pain to administer, and virtually impossible to integrate into a Cisco network.

Well I do have an ulterior motive asking this question.

huh huh huh. He said "rack". Huh huh huh.

No rack. I have a PC attached to the main A/V system, but don't use it for PVR purposes. I DO use it as a streaming and music source.

I love my Squeezebox duet, streaming from a computer!

Hey Jeff, what Netgear do you have?

I'm looking for a 24 port GBE unmanaged switch for my house, I was looking at a few Cisco ones around $300, give or take $50.

I went with the most logical (for a house setup and non critical) one off of newegg for 169 dollars! It's a .... running to the rack to check! Hell I don;t recall! Sorry it's a D-Link and was the cheapest 24 port on newegg with a good rating. Aint nothing in this house it wont do. 24 port gigabit, no POE. MAnaged I dont think so but not sure, Id have to read the manual,aint going to happen

I have an ultra low tech rack. It’s an adjustable metal storage rack form Lowe’s sitting in the office next to my living room, Great ventilation for the equipment and keeps the heat out of the rest of the house.

Right now it’s holding 3 PCs (General, Gaming and HTPC), Onkyo, Xbox 360, Buttkicker amp, Oppo BDP83, Oppo HD981, Direct TV DVR (x2), NAS, Router, Switch, HDMI Switch, Modem, External hard drives (x2), w/ plenty of room to spare for holding blank media & cases for burning.