NetApp – Four-Post Rail Kit

KB ID 0001007 

Problem

I’ve never really worked with NetApp equipment before, but today we had to rack a lot of DS2245 shelves, DS4246 shelves, and an FAS6250 controller. Every single one of these had the same rail kit.

After much swearing, and inserting and removing of cage nuts and bolts, someone committed the cardinal sin of actually reading the instructions. What he discovered was you don’t fit the cage nuts to the rack!

Solution

1. Yes, the cage nuts need to be INSERTED INTO THE RAILS. In the mounting kit you will find TWO TYPES of cage nuts (M6 and M5), they are labeled. Use the M5 cage nuts (they have an M5 engraved into the side of them). For the DS2245 and DS4246 shelves insert them like this.

Note: For the FAS6250 Controller, the cage nuts go in the opposite way round, like so

2. You can also insert cage nuts into the back of the rails, or fit them into the rack, (as normal).

3. To fit the rails into the rack use the bolts with the ‘thinner’ head. (Note The other M6 bolt in the kit wont fit, but if you have some M5 cage bolts kicking around DONT USE THEM, use the ones in the mounting kit.

4. Fit the rails into the rack, use bolts top and bottom at the front, and use all four at the back of each rack rail. Do not use screw collars.

5. At this point work out where the cage nuts need to be placed into the rack above the rail so when the shelf/controller is inserted into the rack the holes line up.

Note: This procedure may seem a little ‘odd’. Fitting nuts into rails is not something I’ve ever had to do before, but it works because the equipment has space to allow for the screw head like so;

 

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