To the left you can see the fan unit which I installed. This is also made by the same manufacturer as the cabinet and blows a lot of air. It can be ordered with 2 fans or up to 6. You can see the available positions for a future fan mod. It is quite heavy and attached to the roof or bottom of the cabinet after removing the blanking panel.

Unfortunately it is attached with 4 small bolts which I feel should be larger and stronger. However the unit has not fell even after several months. When the fan unit spins up it makes a heavy duty sound which I have not heard before in computer equipment. These fans move a lot of air. The fan unit has a kettle plug socket on one side and a power switch on the other. There is also a thermostat which you can set to trigger the fans at a certain temperature. The cord for the thermostat is shorter than I would like though.

To the right you can see the thermostat for the fan unit. You can set the temperature that the fans will be triggered at using the blue dial. The unit is attached with a clip that is screwed to a standard cage nut and screw combo. Please note that the fan unit is an optional accessory and not included in the standard cabinet. It is a useful accessory to have the fans triggered by thermostat because they make a lot of noise, therefore in an office environment this will cause annoyance. So the fans can be triggered to exhaust the hot air only when necessary therefore avoiding unnecessary noise.

Castors are also supplied as an optional accessory. These are rated for max 750kg which is quite a lot. They are completely plastic without any rubber tread but work fine. You can see the brake which is a screw key on the right side. The only problem is that you have to completely remove the wheel and axle to install on the rackmount cabinet with a large vertical bolt. They turn around in all directions so your rackmount cabinet does not only go in a straight line. To install them you could lean the cabinet against the wall. This would allow you to install one set but turning it and leaning it against the wall to install the other set would be downright dangerous.

I recommend to lay the cabinet horizontal on the floor lying on the rear door. Then you can install all the castors safely. The only problem is that when you want to bring the cabinet upright again, you will not be able to pivot on a cabinet edge as the wheels will not allow you to pivot. We solved the problem by using the pallet the cabinet came on. We put the pallet flat on the ground between the wall and the bottom with the castors on. Then we were able to pivot the cabinet against the pallet and get one set of wheels on the pallet top and then push it off the pallet so all wheels were on the ground. Difficult to explain but you will figure it out. The only consideration is to have enough people to help you. If the cabinet falls on you it is going to break some bones, so do not do any of that alone or when you are all tired. The quality of the castors is very good, they are made in UK.

You should consider that when the rackmount cabinet has wheels on it is convenient to move around however the cabinet will be affected slightly more by movement when you are working on it. Without the wheels the cabinet will be perfectly supported by the floor. It is more recommended to not have wheels but placement of the cabinet may require wheels if you have a small server room and therefore need to move it out to access the rear for instance.

Chances are that you will also need some shelves. Not all equipment you have will be rackmount and you may also like to put a monitor in the cabinet also.

To the left you can see a 450mm shelf. The actual shelf is very strong but the rackmount ears are very soft metal. Whether this is intended or not, to me it is disappointing.

Personally to support a monitor I would not extend the ears further than seen in the picture. Even with the ears extended fully it will not fit in the cabinet with 75cm depth between the forward and rear rails. That is the necessity of purchasing additional rails or longer shelves. They have up to 650mm shelves available but I do not want that depth of shelf. I think it will be better to support the shelves with additional vertical rails then it will be the strongest solution and also permit installation of equipment with smaller depth of slide rails without having to source extension rails.

That is indeed the problem with rackmount, the cabinet is either too shallow or too deep. The manufacturer should note on their webpage that the 450mm shelves are useless for a 90cm depth cabinet unless additional vertical 37U rails are installed. Anyway it is always better to ask the opinion of your supplier before you purchase things, unlike me.

Next, let's have a look at the rackmount screws which can be ordered from Triton in boxes of 50 with cage nuts and plastic washers.

The cage nuts were surprisingly easy to install and remove. The screws are a little soft and the black washers are a bit ugly but come on they are only screws.

A good thing about triton accessories is that they all come with enough screws, cage nuts and washers that you do not need to buy more for that purpose. Still, best to order more than you need. You cannot just go to the corner shop and order more, rackmount equipment is difficult to source. You will end up dropping a lot of screws and cage nuts into the difficult to reach depths of the cabinet anyway. Just hold on carefully to those proprietary components though, don't drop them.

In conclusion the cabinet is of excellent construction and has many features which are useful and make installation easy. The side doors are a must for easy installation, especially of the fan unit. The manual included with the cabinet is not really a manual at all. It is a product catalogue. No accessory even included a diagram for installation.

The manufacturer has advised me that they are working on a new manual and even replied to my technical support question regarding the fan unit installation very quickly and from a person with an English sounding name. So no problem with any language barrier due to the location of the company. I should also note that the cabinet arrived bolted to a wooden pallet with full thick cardboard panels covering the sides and extra protective cardboard over the edges, a carboard lid on the top and was completely encased in thick shrink plastic. So no damage during transportation.

Transportation is another issue. You will need 2 bodybuilder types to lift the cabinet to your office or probably 5 weedy technicians. It is important to specify full delivery option in your order by a professional transportation company. It weighs over 100kg and will injure you seriously if it falls on you.

Nevertheless, the price is very competitive for a quality rackmount cabinet.

The main problem with rackmount cabinets is setting the rear rails at the right depth to accommodate your equipment. You may have equipment that requires a shallow depth and also you may have equipment like servers and the APC rackmount UPS which with the included rails require more depth than you would expect. Triton has made a cabinet which will allow multiple sets of rear rails in order to support 2 or more cabinet depths therefore avoiding the problem. If you have only one set of rear rails you will have to source long slide rails for your short equipment. This may be extremely difficult.

We had a lot of problems to order another pair of rear rails. There was some problem with supply at the factory. My supplier Digital Data Communications in Greece came through in the end though. Although it took 3 months, I received a full set of rails (2 pairs!!)

I recommend that you have installed an extra pair of rear rails at the factory when you order a cabinet to avoid these delays. It is usually more difficult to source longer slide rails for some equipment.