Quote Originally Posted by Wilbur
Bad idea - A computer case is designed with Thermo-dynamics in mind. A PC case is basically a large heat-sink, with heat being taken away from the areas thats its generated. Wood, is not a good conductor of heat. In a constant 40 degrees C + enviroment, the wood will crack and get damaged, as well as not being as solid as metal.

Welding up a framework and adding paneling can be done in a similar amount of time to making one out of wood. It'll be stronger, heavier and will cool better. The main problem with having this many computers in such cramped conditions will be heat. Heat generating items will have to be sectioned off. Hard-drives will require shitloads of cooling. If you've ever had to deal with an X-Blade enclosure you'll know how much of a problem heat build-up was with them.

Good luck getting the heat problem solved :-)
Having made and used several PC cases out of wood, I'd have to disagree there. Most PC cases are made out of metal for cost and assembly reasons not for cooling or even airflow reasons.

A well designed case made from virtually any material, will beat a poorly designed metal case for heat extraction any day. I have also run a PC from a card board box, two 120mm fans (one at front one at back) and kept a lower mean temperature than the case (steel) that the components came out of. It was also an awful lot quieter.

Plus arguably plastic is at least as good an insulator as wood yet several mainstream PC manufacturers use all (or mainly) plastic cases.

The only real issue you have when using non-ferrous materials for PC cases (and note plastic cases normally have some form of thin metal lining for this exact reason) is interference, and with wood the simple solution is to line the case with aluminium foil, making sure there is an earth connection through the PSU.

As for the disscussion in hand, I saw an interesting rack mount unit like this made from an ikea drawer unit, each drawer containing a PC (micro ATX) the guy was using the setup for distributive computing (rendering I think), each drawer was a mainboard, PSU & HDD he had a fan set into the drawer front. Not sure on cost and I haven't got the link to his webpage in front of me, I'll try and dig it out.