shipping pre-built cabinets vs. build-on-site

Mon Apr 6 19:46:21 UTC 2009

I have some experience with this, and, in general, if you have the  
option,
it's best to ship the equipment and racks separately in their original
manufacturer's packaging.

If you don't have that option, use a moving company with a specialty
(or specialty department) that does electronics moving.

If you have to ship a rack this way, try to order the rack so that the
equipment with the greatest moment(1) from the center of the
cabinet is in the lowest positions and the equipment with the least
moment is at or near the top of the stack. Place all of the equipment
as low as possible in the rack.

Additionally, if there is anything with removable disk drives in the
rack, you are far better off to remove the drives and carefully pack
and ship them separately. Obviously, appropriate labeling is
crucial here if the drives already contain data.

Owen

(1)moment is the length (from the center of the rack) to the center
	of mass of the object multiplied by the mass of the object.