I agree with @simplextech You have plenty of room for a rack (or two). My full rack is 20x30x72, looking at your tiles, you have more than enough space down there, and as mentioned the shelves would no longer be needed. Half my equipment is “rack mountable” the other half is on ‘shelves’ (or the shelf made by other equipment )
Now granted a full rack on wheels is about a grand ($1000 for 42U), but you could also get a half rack or even a wall mounted rack (as mentioned above) to keep the cost down. Racks are not the CHEEP solution but ultimately if you want to pack a ton of IT stuff in a small space, you’ll end up with a rack in some form or fashion sooner or later.
But then again if you did have a rack you wouldn’t be able to continue using such a unique patch panel mount
On second thought I’ll just send you my address, and you can send one of those “various boxes” my way to clean up some of the clutter
avoiding the obvious jokes and puns… Size isn’t everything, but yes we wanted a bit more room for all the goodies to fit and ensure we don’t have any of the interference issues that pop up in some hardware platforms (looking at you Pi 4’s)
The shelf is actually studded in to the wall. I can climb it like a ladder and it doesn’t as much as even wobble. the sheetrock is actually resting on the inside of the shelves. The previous owner was huge on storage. Which, don’t get me wrong, I love, but there’s no taking it out either. This is the area under the steps and so there is also storage in there so I’ve been mandated by the Husband not to block it. So I’m stuck.
The rack below is 20 inches wide, so all you need to do is maybe ‘jack’ stud to each side and mount the rack up high. That way you can get to the lower shelves, but need a stool for uppers. Stuff that never gets touched can go up top. This rack has adjustable depth, standard 19 inch wide (21 outside) and is only 26.5 high. It should fit right above that 4 port face-plate. For under $150 it’s a pretty good bargain. They also have shelves for under $20.
Keep in mind that ‘racks’ come in all shapes and sizes, so there is bound to be something to fit your need if you look hard enough. The reason we like racks so much is the thin metal allows us to hold lots of weight with little space taken up by the material needed (wood shelves take up much more space as you see). You could build additional shelving out of wood, but that would consume more space and be harder to remove than a rack.
In the house I have some hidden dedicated “isles” . The one for HA is in the back of my printer shelve. It has a UPS (Eaton 850, the best economic UPS I ever had):
looking at it again now, I think its because of the coloring of the enclosure… it gives the entire setup a sepia tone… the back wall also looks like some hacked open futuristic safe
All the stuff is inside a wooden cabinet. on the back wall there is my old alarm system, to be replaced. The patch panel too. I had similar feeling too…
)
?