how to remove hp proliant gen8 rack rail

[saiyen2002]

on the video here from hp it shows how to clip in the rack rails into the server easily. What it doesn't show is how to remove the rack rail from the rack.

at this point in the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=-4XUWsrOsKQ#t=22

you can see the levers which hold the rack in place.

If you have servers both on top and below, then there is no way to reach the those levers.

am i missing a trick here ?

Thanks

[waaronb]

I've never run into a situation where I wasn't able to reach the tab to remove the rail from the rack/cabinet, but I tend to leave 1U of space between servers if I have that option.

If you're racked to the max, I don't know if you're able to access your cabinet through side panels. Otherwise you may be able to reach some hooked thing through from the inside part you can reach and just pull that tab inward to the center of the rack.

That should be enough to unclip it, but fortunately I've never had to try. I happen to have a DL380p gen8 on my desk right now... I'm looking at the cabinet rails and I think that would work. I don't know what kind of thing you could use as a hook... a paperclip might not be strong enough. That spring tab is pretty stiff and takes some force to move. But I'd guess even a small screwdriver at an angle could slip in and pull it back enough to release it.

[saiyen2002]

That is one of the possibilities I was thinking of, but like you said waaronb, the tab is very stiff, I doubt a paper clip would cut it.

 Removing and installing rack rails should be trivial matter, but this seems very amateurish from the likes of HP.

I used to use the HP dl120 servers which have been discontinued. The build of the rack rails for those were not as good as the current ones, but at least installing and removing them was easy.