page_title: 19-inch rack
section_title: Overview and history
hierarchical_section_title: 19-inch rack / Overview and history
caption_attribution_description: English: Diagram of w:replay racks with telephone equipment mount on vertical rails. This system was standardized for use in Bell System central offices in 1922-23. Original caption: "Fig. 28 — General View Showing Typical Group of Equipment Units Employing Panel Mounting Method"
context_page_description: A 19-inch rack is a standardized frame or enclosure for mounting multiple electronic equipment modules. Each module has a front panel that is 19 inches wide. The 19 inch dimension includes the edges or "ears" that protrude from each side of the equipment, allowing the module to be fastened to the rack frame with screws. Common uses include computer servers, telecommunications equipment and networking hardware, and audiovisual production and scientific equipment.
context_section_description: Equipment designed to be placed in a rack is typically described as rack-mount, rack-mount instrument, a rack-mounted system, a rack-mount chassis, subrack, rack-mountable, or occasionally simply shelf. The height of the electronic modules is also standardized as multiples of 1.75 inches (44.45 mm) or one rack unit or U (less commonly RU). The industry standard rack cabinet is 42U tall, however, 45U racks are also common.
  The term relay rack appeared first in the world of telephony.
  By 1911, the term was also being used in railroad signaling. There is little evidence that the dimensions of these early racks were standardized.
  The 19-inch rack format with rack-units of 1.75 inches (44.45 mm) was established as a standard by AT&T around 1922 in order to reduce the space required for repeater and termination equipment in a telephone company central office. The earliest repeaters from 1914 were installed in ad-hoc fashion on shelves, in wooden boxes and cabinets. Once serial production started, they were built into custom-made racks, one per repeater.  But in light of the rapid growth of the toll network, the engineering department of AT&T undertook a systematic redesign, resulting in a family of modular factory-assembled panels all "designed to mount on vertical supports spaced 19​¹⁄₂ inches between centers.  The height of the different panels will vary, ... but ... in all cases to be a whole multiple of 1​³⁄₄ inches".
  By 1934, it was an established standard with holes tapped for 12-24 screws with alternating spacings of 1.25 inches (31.75 mm) and 0.5 inches (12.70 mm)   The EIA standard was revised again in 1992 to comply with the 1988 public law 100-418, setting the standard U as 15.875 mm (0.625 in) + 15.875 mm (0.625 in) + 12.7 mm (0.500 in), making each "U" 44.45 millimetres (1.75 in).
  The 19-inch rack format has remained constant while the technology that is mounted within it has changed considerably and the set of fields to which racks are applied has greatly expanded. The 19-inch (482.6 mm) standard rack arrangement is widely used throughout the telecommunication, computing, audio, video, entertainment and other industries, though the Western Electric 23-inch standard, with holes on 1-inch (25.4 mm) centers, is still used in legacy ILEC/CLEC facilities.
  Nineteen-inch racks in two-post or four-post form hold most equipment in modern data centers, ISP facilities, and professionally designed corporate server rooms.  They allow for dense hardware configurations without occupying excessive floorspace or requiring shelving.
  Nineteen-inch racks are also often used to house professional audio and video equipment, including amplifiers, effects units, interfaces, headphone amplifiers, and even small scale audio mixers.  A third common use for rack-mounted equipment is industrial power, control, and automation hardware.
  Typically, a piece of equipment being installed has a front panel height ​¹⁄₃₂ inch (0.03125 inches or 0.794 millimetres) less than the allotted number of Us.  Thus, a 1U rackmount computer is not 1.75 inches (44.45 mm) tall but is 1.71875 inches (43.66 mm) tall.  If n is number of rack units, the ideal formula for panel height is h = (1.75n − 0.031) for calculating in inches, and h = (44.45n − 0.794) for calculating in millimetres.  This gap allows a bit of room above and below an installed piece of equipment so it may be removed without binding on the adjacent equipment.
caption: Telephone equipment racks (1923)
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