We're getting ready to move to a new colo facility and I'm designing the rack layout. While we have a full rack, we only have 12U worth of hardware right now: 1x 1U switch 7x 1U servers 1x 2U server 1x 2U disk shelf The colo facility requires us to front-mount the switch and use a 1U brush strip, so we'll be using a total of 13U of space. Regarding growth, I'm reasonably sure we'll be adding another 4U in servers, 1-2U of network gear, and 2-4U of storage in the mid-term. Specific questions I'm hoping to get help with: where should I mount the switch? the LEDs are on top... should I group the servers by function with space for adding new machines? as an alternative, should I group servers based on whether they are production or staging? where in the rack should I start? in the middle? at the top? at the bottom? equally spaced? Here's a silly little ASCII diagram of what I'm thinking right now. Please feel free to tear my design apart, I've really no idea what I'm doing :) Any advice is very welcome. edit: to be clear, the colo is providing redundant power with UPS and generator, so that's why there's no power gear in the plan, except for the 0U PDU that I didn't diagram. 42 | -- switch ---------------------- 41 | -- brush strip ----------------- 40 | ~~ reserved for second switch ~~ 39 | ~~ reserved for firewall ~~~~~~~ 38 | 37 | -- admin01 --------------------- 36 | 35 | -- vm01 ------------------------ 34 | -- vm02 ------------------------ 33 | ~~ reserved for vm03 ~~~~~~~~~~~ 32 | ~~ reserved for vm04 ~~~~~~~~~~~ 31 | ~~ reserved for vm05 ~~~~~~~~~~~ 30 | 29 | -- web01 ----------------------- 28 | -- web02 ----------------------- 27 | ~~ reserved for web03 ~~~~~~~~~~ 26 | ~~ reserved for web04 ~~~~~~~~~~ 25 | 24 | 23 | 22 | 21 | 20 | 19 | 18 | 17 | 16 | -- db01 ------------------------ 15 | +- disks ----------------------+ 14 | +------------------------------+ 13 | ~~ reserved for more ~~~~~~~~~~~ 12 | ~~ db01 disks ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 11 | 10 | +- db02 -----------------------+ 9 | +------------------------------+ 8 | ~~ reserved for db02 ~~~~~~~~~~~ 7 | ~~ disks ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 6 | ~~ reserved for more ~~~~~~~~~~~ 5 | ~~ db02 disks ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |