Blanking Panels for 19inch Server Racks and Cabinets

A range of 19inch server rack blanking panels to help improve rack and cabinet airflow and cooling. These 19inch blanking panels and plates close open spaces in the front of server racks and help to prevent cooled air and hot exhaust air from mixing. Ensuring an optimised airflow management strategy can help to prevent the build-up of ‘hot-spots’ inside a server rack which can reduce server, storage and UPS performance and overall working life. Our 1U rack panels are easy to install.

Blanking Server Rack Airflow

Servers, storage, and networking devices generate heat, and this has to be actively managed in a server rack or cabinet. If the rack mounted devices have internal cooling fans, these will be typically designed to draw cool air into the front of the devices and to expel this through the rear as a hot, exhaust. This equipment arrange is standard practice for any rack installed device with an internal fan and is the reason why best practice cooling is to present air conditioned cool air to the front of a rack cabinet and to channel this using an airflow management strategy to the intake of the local air conditioner or cooling system.

Rack Blanking Panels and Blanking Plates

Wherever a server rack or cabinet is less than 100% populated, there can be rack panel sized gaps left in the front of the rack. These can allow the hot exhaust air to mix with incoming cooling area. Temperatures inside the rack increase, with the potential for ‘hot spots’ and the overall energy and air flow efficiency reduces.

Blanking panels or plates are typically 19inches wide and made to fit a standard U-size in height can be secured into position using cage nuts. A blanking panel can be easily installed or removed as new equipment is added to the server rack. The most common size for a rack is 1U blanking plate.

1U Metal Blanking Panels

The most common size of 19inch blanking panel is 1U in height. Metal blanking panels are the most commonly used but plastic is also available. Most blanking plates are available in one of two colours (grey or black) but custom colours can be manufactured and supplied to order. Bespoke panel designs are also available and are built-to-order rather than ready off-the-shelf.

For more information on please contact our projects team.

Many small businesses and especially those working from home, do not have a server room in which to house their server(s) and computer networking devices. Their IT systems are often run from a corner of their office, and this can lead to several issues including risks of accidental cable disconnection and trip hazards, security to prevent unauthorised access, noise pollution and heat generation.

Computer and small server rooms tend to only have one or two server racks to protect from power outages. For these installations, a rackmount UPS if often the preferred solution. There are some factors to consider when planning to install an uninterruptible power supply in a server rack which do not apply to a floor standing tower system.

Server rack densities are increasing and have quadrupled over the last 9 years from 2011 to 2020. From 2.4kW/rack to 8.4kW/rack according to the latest survey by the Uptime Institute. What affect are these increasing demands having on server rack deployment, power protection and cooling system arrangements and what is the primary cause of data centre outages.

A server rack is a frame into which 19inch rackmount servers, storage and associated networking devices are mounted or ‘rack mounted’. The frame may be 2 or 4-pillar in design. Equipment suitable for a server rack is termed ‘rack mount’ or designed for ‘rack mounting’. A server rack with side panels and a front and rear door assembly can be called a server cabinet. The front door may be solid metal, perforated hex mesh or glass. The rear door is typically solid or perforated hex mesh. The doors and side panels do not just make the server cabinet more secure but also assist air flow management. Server racks and cabinets are defined by their height in ‘U’ where 1U=45mm and their width and depth with typical sizes being 600, 800, 1000 and 1200mm.

If your cabinets are only partially populated and has perforated ventilation holes in the front and rear, you may not need additional cooling fan kits. Server manufacturers typically recommend a minimum perforation factor for the doors of the cabinets that would be used to house their servers and this is typically from 63% upwards; to allow adequate air flow from front to rear.

Server racks are designed for front air intake and rear cabinet exit. Cool or air conditioned air should be drawn into the front of the rack by fans within the servers themselves or within the server racks and this then exits as warm air out of the rear of the cabinet. In a data hall server racks are typically positioned in rows and the rows positioned so that the fronts face each to optimise cool air and hot air flows. This is a basic for of hot-aisle/cold-aisle containment. The server racks may themselves be within a separate containment known as a hot-aisle/cold-aisle container. For some server racks we can also offer rear cooling doors to help collect the hot exhaust air. The cooling doors fit onto the rear of the cabinets and use chilled water pipes within the rear door. We can also supply additional cabinet fans for extra cooling capacity.

We have over 30 years of experience working within data centre and server room environments. Our knowledge and experience means that we know how to design, install and maintain the right cooling, energy management, power and monitoring solutions for any critical IT environment.

Field based engineering locations: Chester, Warrington, London, Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds, Belfast, Dublin and Glasgow for nationwide service coverage, site surveys, maintenance and emergency call outs.
Call us for a free survey.

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