Tower Server vs. Rack Server Do you know the difference between tower and rack servers? Actually, both of them are the network servers. The biggest difference is the installed way. A Rack Server is a standalone device installed in the cabinet, while the tower server can be deployed on the floor, desk or other places. The tower server doesn’t need the cabinet. In this article, we will introduce concepts of these two servers and difference between them. What is the Tower Server? The tower server is the most common server we can see. Its appearance looks like our PC host but it is bigger because it has many slots, which are needed to extend server’s functions. As the tower server has a big chassis, we can configure more functions. It’s the reason why the tower server is ideal for many applications. We usually say that general-purpose servers are the tower servers, which can be used in a variety of common applications. Whether it is speed applications or storage applications can use the tower server.
What is the Rack Server? The rack server looks like the switch. It includes 1U rack, 2U rack, 4U rack, etc. Usually, the 1U of rack-mounted servers provide the most space-saving, but poor performance and scalability, suitable for some relatively fixed field of business. The 4U servers provide higher performance, scalability, and generally support more than 4 highperformance processors and a large number of standard hot-swappable components. Its management is also very convenient. Those manufacturers usually provide the appropriate management and monitoring tools, which are suitable for the large traffic applications. However, larger servers, the space utilization is lower. The rack server is installed inside a standard 19-inch rack. Most of this structure is a multifunctional server.
What are the differences between the tower server and the rack server? Compared to the tower server, there are some benefits of the Rack Servers. 1. Easy to Manage Generally, the server rooms are centrally placed with unified management. If there are many tower servers, then the management is very inconvenient. There are power lines, network cables, data lines, monitors, keyboards, mice, switches, routers, devices and others. There will be a mess of the situation and the engine room is extremely difficult to maintain. Otherwise, Heat, dust and anti-mouse are problems. The Rack-mounted servers are in a cabinet. All the data lines are placed into the cabinet. We can’t see any data line from the outside. Cabinets usually is lock up, without manual management. It’s clean, dustproof and safe. 2.
High Security
The Data stored in the server is the company's most important business information. Generally, it does not allow ordinary people to contact, in order to prevent unnecessary damage, man-made vandalism, and data leakage. The Tower server, because it can be placed usually at the production environment, is not placed at the important place, such as the production workshop. The rack servers are put into the cabinet, and most of the people simply can not touch. It is impossible to damage the hard disk. Compared to the rack server, there are some advantages and disadvantage of the Tower Servers. 1. Easy to use With a lot of slots, the tower server chassis often tends to reserve a lot of space for redundancy of hard drives, power supplies and so on. This server does not require additional equipment, placing little space on demand, and has good scalability. The configuration can be very high, so it’s a wide range of applications to meet the common server application requirements. 2.
Low Cost
This type of server is particularly suitable for common entry-level and workgroup server applications, because the cost is relatively low. Their performance can meet the requirements of most SME users. It’s still popular in the market. 3.
Disadvantages
However, this type of server also has many limitations. When multiple servers need to be used to work simultaneously to meet higher server application requirements, it is not suitable because of its large size, large space usage and inconvenient management. In short, modern machine rooms are basically using rack servers. Those tower servers are only used for entry-level and low-end level computing. Related Articles: 1. What is the Computer Server 2. Rack Server Vs Blade Server Source: http://www.router-switch.com/faq/tower-server-vs-rack-server.html