I chose a tower over a rack for my home lab, here's why

I run a Dell PowerEdge T360 tower in my home lab, and I made that choice deliberately.

Rack servers are tempting. You see a fully loaded 42U rack on someone's setup post and it looks impressive. But in a real home environment, a rack comes with real tradeoffs.

Noise is the biggest one. A 1U or 2U rack server with high-speed fans is loud. Not datacenter-loud, but loud enough that it can't sit in a living room or home office without driving you mad. My T360 runs quietly.

Space is the other factor. A rack needs a cabinet. A cabinet needs floor space. A tower sits next to your desk like a regular PC.

Are you running a tower or a rack at home?