An on-premises IT team is staging a new 42U cabinet. The bill of materials lists six 4U GPU servers, four 2U storage arrays, one 1U KVM switch, and 3U of blanking panels reserved for cable ingress and airflow management. After mounting this hardware, how many rack units will still be open for future expansion?
A full-height rack provides 42 rack units (RU). Add the space required by each item: GPU servers 6 × 4U = 24U; storage arrays 4 × 2U = 8U; KVM switch 1U; blanking panels 3U. Total consumed: 24 + 8 + 1 + 3 = 36U. Remaining capacity is 42U − 36U = 6U. The other options result from mis-adding one or more components or not subtracting from the rack's total height.