How much weight can a server rack hold?

As much as its weight capacity for the way you use it. A rack on casters can have two: one standing still and one rolling. The StarTech 42U Enterprise cabinet is rated for 1999.6 lb (907 kg) standing still and 396.8 lb (180 kg) rolling. Add up the weight of everything the rack holds, and compare it with the figure for how your rack will be used.

Compare the weight of everything in the rack with the weight capacity for how the rack will be used: standing still, or rolling.

Standing still or rolling

The spec sheets in our catalog mostly label the two "stationary" and "rolling". Some call them "static load" and "dynamic load". Static or stationary is the rack standing still. Dynamic or rolling is the rack moving on its casters with the equipment in it.

On every rack we have both figures for, the rolling one is the lower. How much lower varies from rack to rack.

If your rack will stand in one place, the standing figure applies. If you will roll it with the equipment in it, even once to clean behind it, plan against the rolling figure.

A listing's title may give only one of the two. The StarTech 25U open frame rack is sold with "1200lb (544kg) Weight Capacity", its standing figure. Rolling, it is rated for 661.4 lb (300 kg). Check the manufacturer's spec table for a second figure before you rely on the first.

What counts against it

Everything the rack holds. That includes your equipment, the shelves, and everything resting on the shelves. A shelf counts as well as what is on it.

Not the rack's own weight. A weight capacity is what the frame carries on top of itself. The rack's own weight matters to the floor or the wall it stands on, which is a different question.

A shelf has its own weight capacity

A shelf is rated for the total weight of everything resting on it. How it is held changes that figure, even between shelves of the same size.

Wall-mount racks

A wall-mount rack may have a single weight capacity. The StarTech 12U wall rack is rated for 198.4 lb (90 kg).

That figure is about the rack's frame. Whether your wall and its fasteners can hold the rack, with its own 19.0 lb (8.6 kg) on top, is a question for the wall. A rack's weight capacity does not answer it.

In the planner

The Gearome planner adds up everything in your rack. For a rack on casters, it asks whether the rack will roll, and tells you when that answer decides the check. How it works lays out the rule, figure by figure.

What a weight capacity does not cover

A weight capacity covers the frame, for the conditions the manufacturer states. It does not tell you:

• how the weight is spread, and whether a top-heavy rack could tip;
• whether your wall and its fasteners can hold a wall-mount rack;
• what the floor under the rack can carry.