So you got yourself a shiny new Rosewill L4500 chassis during the Black Friday sale, and now you’re trying to figure out how to mount it in your rack. You may be thinking about picking up the official Rosewill rails, but if you read the reviews you’ll find that they are constructed very poorly and don’t work half the time. Good news, I have two other options for you that will work, guaranteed.
Option 1 - Use a shelf style rail, like these Navepoint rails. These rails are cheap at around $30, nearly universal, and hold the Rosewill (or most other chassis) from the bottom. These rails are acceptable, but there are two disadvantages to these rails. First, the thickness of the shelf will raise the Rosewill very slightly above the 4U mark, so you’ll need to leave 1U of free space above it. Second, the chassis needs to be completely removed from the rack for maintenance.
Option 2 - Use a sliding rail, specifically the iStarUSA TC-RAIL-26 rails. These rails are a bit more expensive at about $43 shipped, and mount using the threaded holes on the sides of the Rosewill chassis. These rails are a bit more complex to install, but they excel where the Navepoint rails fail. When properly installed, the chassis fits properly in the 4U space, so you can install units directly above and below it if you want. The gliding rails also allow you to keep the chassis installed in the rack during most maintenance.
If you opt for the iStar rails, here are a few quick tips to make sure they fit properly on the first try:
The rails come in four parts, an inner rail which attaches to the chassis, an outer rail which stays in the rack, and two rack brackets which attach the outer rail to the rack. You’ll need to install the rack brackets on the outer rail before installing the rail assembly in the rack. The front rack bracket needs to be mounted at least 1-1/4" ahead of the front of the outer rail. Conveniently, the rack brackets have a bend in them at this point. See the picture below for details.
The inner rail mounts to the threaded holes on the center of the Rosewill chassis. The rail kit doesn’t include screws for attaching the inner rail to the chassis. My chassis was threaded for #6-32 screws, so I used extra HDD screws that came with the chassis. I have heard reports that newer versions of this chassis have slightly larger M4 threaded holes, so you may want to check yours before you start the assembly. Assuming you mounted the front rack bracket only 1-1/4" forward from the front of the outer rail, you will want to mount the inner rail touching the rack ears on the chassis, like this:
These rails are adjustable from 28" to 39" rack depth. For extremely deep racks, 34" - 39", you will need to mount the front rack bracket with larger than the 1-1/4" offset mentioned in tip one. In this case, you will need to mount the inner rail the same longer distance back from the front.
The rack brackets have four threaded holes, and the hardware bag comes with two square washers and screws per bracket. When you mount the rails in the rack, they mount in the center of the 4U space the chassis will occupy, centered between 2U and 3U.
The hardware bag also includes three nuts and bolts per rack bracket. For proper stability, make sure you use all three screws, and spread them as far as you can from front to back. Here is where I mounted the screws in my rack, which is 31" deep.
Thanks for taking the time and effort to do this. I have had my pair of Rosewill RSV-L4412 sitting atop my half rack for a few weeks now. I have access to several Dell and HP rail kits, and I could just drill them out to fit the Roswill, but I haven’t taken the time to do it.
Does the iStarUSA rails come with all the hardware you need? Since I can’t get the holes to line up with the rails I have, I never really looked at how the rails mount. You mentioned “and mount using the threaded holes on the sides of the Rosewill chassis”. Do the screws that come with the iStars mate to those threaded holes, or is that in the Rosewill package that has a ton of screws?
Thanks again for posting this. Busy through the Holidays, but might be buying the iStars, or trying the HP/Dell rails on New Years Day.
I’ve even tried adjust my outer rails to be way back almost flush with the rear “L” brackets and its still producing the same results. I believe something is hitting aomewhere.
May have to investigate further this weekend.
EDIT: Figured out my issue, was the shelf above sagging just enough that the rosewill was hitting the back l brackets preventing it from going back all the way.
I don’t have a threaded rack to confirm, but the center to center spacing is the same for both the holes on a threaded rack and a square hole rack, so in theory it should work.
in the pictures is looks like the rail ears have threads in them then a screw goes through a square washer that fits into the cage nut hole to hold it on
are there threads on the ears OR do you put a screw through the ear into a cage nut thread?
Cheers for this. I finally rack mounted my L4500 last week with ease due to this guide. Nice to finally have it off the table in my office that it’s been sitting on for the past umm…9-10 months (though that was largely because I hadn’t gotten around to running ethernet down to the basement yet, which I recently finally did)
since the tc model seems to be out of stock everywhere, would these potentially work? i’ve got a couple of the navemount universial shelf rails but since i’m adding to my rack i don’t want 3u to go to waste because of spacing.
I don’t have a set of the RP-RAIL-26 to confirm, but based on the pictures I’m guessing it won’t work properly. The RP-RAIL-26 rack brackets were designed to fit in 1U, not split between 2U like the TC-RAIL-26. Physically, they will probably fit on the Rosewill, but since you can’t split a U with the rail, you’ll need to split it with the chassis, so you’ll end up taking an extra 2U of space anyway. But again, I’m just guessing based on the pictures I can find.
Wow this is SO helpful. I’ve been searching for a solution just like this. I appreciate the time and effort to make this article. I’m going to buy a set of rails right now.
Now my next step is finding a universal cable management arm that I could use with this setup. Any idea of one?
I recently installed a couple of the Dell ones and they’re so convenient and clean looking that I now want one for this build.
I ordered a Set of tc rails from b and h. They said it was shipped directly from the manufacturer and with everything may take awhile. Needed two sets but decided to try getting one. So one set is ordered and we’ll see what happens. Also a site called pro vantage has them(can order) but their site seems a bit sketchy to me.
I ended up getting mine off Amazon. I ordered the suggested iStarUSA TC-RAIL-26 rails. They couldn’t be better. I also found a set on a local classifieds ad that I’m thinking of picking up for a future build. Really the ideal solution for this case.
B and h shipped out the tc rails I order about a month ago yesterday. Before seeing that I ordered two sets of tc rails from eBay via Newegg. They have 5 left currently.
I seldom post places but wanted to take a moment to call out how AWESOME your post is and made this a simple process to build out right the first time.
Anyone try the the TC-RAIL-24? Looks like it supports a chassis 27" deep and from the specs it looks like the Rosewill chassis is 25" deep. I don’t have one yet, just starting to look. Both the TC-RAIL-24 and 26 appear to support a cabinet up to 39" and load of 85lbs, but the 24 allows you to shave off about 2" in minimum depth. For me this server chassis would be the deepest thing in here and I’m looking to keep it as shallow as I can. As far as I can tell (having zero experience here) the only advantage to the 26 over the 24 is support for a deeper chassis.
