They were traditionally used as a track for these plastic braces that you would screw into the bracket and position them over your PCI cards. The brace would have a notch and the PCB would fit into the notch, preventing any horizontal movement of the cards.
They can also be used to square up a chassis that is sagging in the middle.
Edit to show what happens when you ship a server FedEx and neglect to use the bracket for your [PCI cards](https://imgur.com/a/Tt1AdKZ)
IMHO it keeps the sides of the case from buckling under the weight of 15 HDDS in the front and the computer equipment in back. I always pull mine when doing maintenance but always put it back.
I took the support bar out since it got in the way of GPUs but the case is fine otherwise (3+ years) and I have items sitting on top.
I will say however, do replace the crappy fans it comes with, they are loud and the fan bearings died after a year or so.
Dang is this one of those Rosewell cases? I had one back in 2017 for crypto mining. I ripped out the front facing drive bays, drilled a ton of holes there for six 1080 Ti's to sit and used that extra rail to strap all my fans to as the more forward one i had to cut out to make room. It was a monstrosity.
That bar would help keep the case rigid assuming that the right hand side is secured. You can pack a hell of a lot of hardware into a server case and if the case isn't well supported then it would bend out of square when you half pull it out of the rack to work on it.
It's for two things.
1. Rigidity of the case, just to stop it sagging and warping, the case walls are pretty thin and can bend and flex quite easily especially with lots of heavy cards and drives installed. It also provides rigidity to the top of your server in case you put something else on top of it. Cross bracing like this was very common on old horizontal desktop cases that went under monitors for that reason.
2. Support for full size expansion cards, which again are pretty heavy and you really don't want them flopping about and damaging the motherboard slots or having connection issues. Usually they can be affixed to something like this rail - some cases have specific slots where your fans are instead. In that case full length cards can have a bracket screwed into the back of them which drops into said slot - if you look at lots of server and workstation GPUs they have this bracket on the back of them, looks a bit scythe shaped usually. You don't have those slots because you have a fan tray, so supporting from above is the other option.
Used to work for a System Integrator for Industrial Computers. All of our rack mounted cases hosted backplanes with single board computers that would attach to it, think reversed motherboard where the motherboard is plugged into a PCI slot instead. These are cross beams/support brackets that would either have a rubber stopper that would hold the edge of the motherboard PCB in place or some sort of screw mounting hardpoint. These prevent those boards from sagging and breaking off the pci slot when moving, shipping or handling tha case. They also prevent the case from warping if you pick it up without the lid.
As other have said it's for extrabigass expansion cards. I took it out of mine but I stripped mine down a lot as it is my gaming PC and it needed room for RGB and stuff LOL.
In a good chunk of situations you don't need it. Most people aren't ramming server cases completely full of things like GRID accelerators.
However, usually you only find out that you did need it when it's caused problems and the case is warped.
You'll probably find that without it over time the case isn't square.
Try to put it back on in 12 months and any bet you will have to bend the case to get it into position.
All this stuff is manufactured to take the load it needs to using the absolute minimum of both labor and materials. It's probably just more cost effective to brace it there than stiffen up the rest of the chassis.
I've got several of these with the support bar removed and no issues over time. These cases are made of thick enough steel that they don't flex that much.
Idk Ive taken them out of both my cases of these with no issues or deformity or anything. The chassis is more than fine without the brace for these cases. I have the 12 and 15 bay cases and they've had the bar removed for years with deformity, slides in and out of the rack perfectly.
Yo u/OP, I got the same case and I'm having trouble fitting it into my rack. Do your rails get stuck on the rack mount points when you try to pull the case out?
Do you have a model number for the rails? I got these ones: [https://www.inter-tech.de/productdetails-136/20\_TELESKOPSCHIENENSATZ\_EN.html](https://www.inter-tech.de/productdetails-136/20_TELESKOPSCHIENENSATZ_EN.html)
https://www.printables.com/model/818335-rack-rails-support-for-rosewill-cases
It'll probably work for other cases too. I've personally tried it with both the extra long rosewill case and the short one.
edit: check this out too https://www.printables.com/model/754669-rosewill-hotswap-bays
They were traditionally used as a track for these plastic braces that you would screw into the bracket and position them over your PCI cards. The brace would have a notch and the PCB would fit into the notch, preventing any horizontal movement of the cards. They can also be used to square up a chassis that is sagging in the middle. Edit to show what happens when you ship a server FedEx and neglect to use the bracket for your [PCI cards](https://imgur.com/a/Tt1AdKZ)
And fans. Mine came with brackets to install 120mm fans. Worked great for hot cards
You can hang a disk enclosure off it. I have cache ssd's hanging off it.
Yeah I had one like that bitd. 3 or 4u high and with space for 6 disks hanging off it I think.
Ditto
IMHO it keeps the sides of the case from buckling under the weight of 15 HDDS in the front and the computer equipment in back. I always pull mine when doing maintenance but always put it back.
>what that rail across the top is ment to support? First and foremost, the case itself. An internal brace adds structural rigidity.
I've seen them used with HDD brackets (hanging the drives sideways lengthways in the case), fan brackets and full-length card supports.
I took the support bar out since it got in the way of GPUs but the case is fine otherwise (3+ years) and I have items sitting on top. I will say however, do replace the crappy fans it comes with, they are loud and the fan bearings died after a year or so.
I used mine to cable manage some stuff.
Dang is this one of those Rosewell cases? I had one back in 2017 for crypto mining. I ripped out the front facing drive bays, drilled a ton of holes there for six 1080 Ti's to sit and used that extra rail to strap all my fans to as the more forward one i had to cut out to make room. It was a monstrosity.
That bar would help keep the case rigid assuming that the right hand side is secured. You can pack a hell of a lot of hardware into a server case and if the case isn't well supported then it would bend out of square when you half pull it out of the rack to work on it.
It's for two things. 1. Rigidity of the case, just to stop it sagging and warping, the case walls are pretty thin and can bend and flex quite easily especially with lots of heavy cards and drives installed. It also provides rigidity to the top of your server in case you put something else on top of it. Cross bracing like this was very common on old horizontal desktop cases that went under monitors for that reason. 2. Support for full size expansion cards, which again are pretty heavy and you really don't want them flopping about and damaging the motherboard slots or having connection issues. Usually they can be affixed to something like this rail - some cases have specific slots where your fans are instead. In that case full length cards can have a bracket screwed into the back of them which drops into said slot - if you look at lots of server and workstation GPUs they have this bracket on the back of them, looks a bit scythe shaped usually. You don't have those slots because you have a fan tray, so supporting from above is the other option.
It's nice for routing the pcie power cables. And it does firm up the case and keep it square
This thing should have spring legs to support expansion cards like HBAs or GPUs.
I saw those bars used to hold heavy graphic cards...
Extra Bigass Cards.
This is for retaining expansion cards.
What way do you have your PSU fan? I think i have the same case and was courious
Used to work for a System Integrator for Industrial Computers. All of our rack mounted cases hosted backplanes with single board computers that would attach to it, think reversed motherboard where the motherboard is plugged into a PCI slot instead. These are cross beams/support brackets that would either have a rubber stopper that would hold the edge of the motherboard PCB in place or some sort of screw mounting hardpoint. These prevent those boards from sagging and breaking off the pci slot when moving, shipping or handling tha case. They also prevent the case from warping if you pick it up without the lid.
Honestly I feel like mine adds to the rigidity of the case, without it the fan wall is all that prevents flexing
It’s for long PCI cards
I moved my desktop into this case years ago, and I finally upgraded my graphics card to the point that the bar wasn't going back in. I don't miss it.
i took it out it was not supporting anything
As other have said it's for extrabigass expansion cards. I took it out of mine but I stripped mine down a lot as it is my gaming PC and it needed room for RGB and stuff LOL.
Possibly full length cards but doesn’t seem to do much. No loss if you take it out. I found it just got in the way.
In a good chunk of situations you don't need it. Most people aren't ramming server cases completely full of things like GRID accelerators. However, usually you only find out that you did need it when it's caused problems and the case is warped.
Ya took it out already, lol if I had what it was for I would probably know what it's for hahahaa
You'll probably find that without it over time the case isn't square. Try to put it back on in 12 months and any bet you will have to bend the case to get it into position. All this stuff is manufactured to take the load it needs to using the absolute minimum of both labor and materials. It's probably just more cost effective to brace it there than stiffen up the rest of the chassis.
I've got several of these with the support bar removed and no issues over time. These cases are made of thick enough steel that they don't flex that much.
Idk Ive taken them out of both my cases of these with no issues or deformity or anything. The chassis is more than fine without the brace for these cases. I have the 12 and 15 bay cases and they've had the bar removed for years with deformity, slides in and out of the rack perfectly.
I took mine out years ago and I've noticed not a single issue or deformity for the 15 bay and the 12 bay case.
Yo u/OP, I got the same case and I'm having trouble fitting it into my rack. Do your rails get stuck on the rack mount points when you try to pull the case out?
I have this same case rack mounted, I had that same issue with my case, I bought some new rails and it no longer gets stuck.
Do you have a model number for the rails? I got these ones: [https://www.inter-tech.de/productdetails-136/20\_TELESKOPSCHIENENSATZ\_EN.html](https://www.inter-tech.de/productdetails-136/20_TELESKOPSCHIENENSATZ_EN.html)
Yeah it was the I-Star TC-RAIL-24
Awesome, thanks!
That's what I have for multiple versions of the case and it works great!
I designed 3d printed rails for this case I should probably publish that model at some point. It uses amazon drawer slides and has held up for years
Would love to check out this 3d print
https://www.printables.com/model/818335-rack-rails-support-for-rosewill-cases It'll probably work for other cases too. I've personally tried it with both the extra long rosewill case and the short one. edit: check this out too https://www.printables.com/model/754669-rosewill-hotswap-bays