I have a server with desktop hardware (microATX motherboard and Core Ultra 7 265K CPU) which I use to run a Minecraft server. Its current physical location isn't ideal, so I'd like to put it in a rack mount chassis and move it to a server room I have access to through my university. However rack space in the room is limited, so it would be best if I can fit it into a 1U space.

From what I've heard the biggest issue with 1U is cooling, especially as the 265K can draw up to 250W. It seems like 1U microATX chassis do exist, like this one, but they don't look like they have good airflow, and I'm not sure where I would get a short enough heatsink. Could I realistically make 1U work, and if so what should I look for in terms of hardware? Or am I going to have to go with 2U?

Edit: I ended up giving up on 1U. Instead I bought a miniITX motherboard and am going with this 2U dual miniITX chassis. Way more vertical space to work with and it gives me the option to add a second server (something I want to do once memory/storage prices calm down) within the same rack space.

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[–] 7 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

In all my research most cases for standard hardware are 4u and when you try to get down to 1u or 2u you spend a lot of time/money trying to fit it. I would look into buying dedicated server like a dell r6xx series box and going from there you'd honestly save money and headache.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

    A typical server unfortunately won't work for my use case, as Minecraft servers are highly single threaded workloads and desktop CPUs are just far better than server CPUs in that regard.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 weeks ago (1 child)

    You must have a lot of people and/or some heavy mods. I haven't had much issues with 3-4 people on a VM with a Xeon E5-2690 2.90GHz

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