Per-U colocation makes more sense than a dedicated cabinet when you're running fewer than roughly 8–10U of physical gear and don't have near-term plans to fill more space. Below that threshold, you're paying for cabinet real estate you don't use. Above it, the per-unit cost math flips and a dedicated cabinet wins.
What Are You Actually Paying For With a Dedicated Cabinet?
A standard full cabinet is 42U. When you lease one, you're paying for all 42U whether you fill them or not — plus a power allocation, typically 2–4kW at minimum, that gets billed regardless of actual draw.
That's the right trade when you need the space. You get physical security of a locked enclosure, freedom to cable however you want, room to expand without negotiating new space, and in most facilities, a guaranteed power circuit that's yours alone.
But if you're running a firewall, a small storage appliance, and two servers — call it 6U — you're paying for 36U of air. That's not a hypothetical. It's what a lot of companies do because they assume colocation means cabinets, or because they're planning for growth that takes longer to materialize than the sales cycle that locked them into a 36-month term.
At IDACORE Boise, we start at 1U with no power commitment minimum. That's not a loss-leader promotion — it's how per-U is supposed to work.
When Does the Math Actually Favor Per-U?
Here's the honest crossover analysis. The exact numbers depend on your power draw and the specific facility's pricing, but the structure holds everywhere.
| Scenario | Per-U | Dedicated Cabinet |
|---|---|---|
| 1–4U, low power draw | ✓ Lower total cost | ✗ Paying for unused space |
| 5–8U, moderate power | ✓ Usually still wins | Roughly comparable |
| 10–15U, growing footprint | ✗ Per-unit cost adds up | ✓ Better value |
| 16U+, dense gear | ✗ Significantly more expensive | ✓ Clear winner |
| Compliance audit requirements | ✓ Same certifications apply | ✓ Same certifications apply |
| Physical security priority | ✗ Shared enclosure | ✓ Locked cabinet |
The compliance row matters. Some people assume per-U colocation means a lower tier of facility. It doesn't — not here. IDACORE Boise holds SOC 2 Type II, PCI DSS, NIST 800-53, SSAE-16, and HITRUST CSF. A 1U customer in a shared cabinet gets the same audit-ready environment as a customer with a full cage. The certifications are facility-level, not enclosure-level.
What Kind of Workloads Actually Belong in Per-U?
The clearest use cases:
Edge or branch infrastructure. You need a firewall and maybe a small appliance at a specific location. You're not building a data center presence — you're extending one. Per-U gets your gear into a carrier-diverse facility without a cabinet commitment.
Disaster recovery anchors. A DR node doesn't need to be large. It needs to be geographically separated, reliably connected, and in a certified facility. Running 2–4U of replication targets at IDACORE Boise — or at IDACORE North in Coeur d'Alene for Pacific Northwest companies using Boise as primary — costs a fraction of what a dedicated cabinet would run.
Compliance-driven offsite. Healthcare SaaS, financial services, anyone who needs a second HIPAA-eligible or PCI-scoped location but doesn't have the workload volume to justify full cabinet space. The certifications are there. The space commitment doesn't have to be.
Testing and staging gear. Production is in the cloud or in a cabinet somewhere. But you've got a physical appliance — a specific network device, a hardware security module, a storage array you're evaluating — that needs to live somewhere real. Per-U handles this without locking you into cabinet-scale economics.
Early-stage infrastructure. You're moving off AWS or Azure. You know you want to own your hardware. You don't yet know exactly how much space you'll need in 18 months. Starting per-U lets you get into a facility with 7 on-net carriers — Zayo, Lumen/Level 3, Cogent, CenturyLink, Syringa, Cable One, Hurricane Electric — without committing to space you might not fill.
What Per-U Doesn't Give You
Be clear-eyed about the trade-offs.
You're in a shared cabinet. That means you don't get a locked enclosure by default. Your gear is physically accessible to facility staff, and depending on the facility's policies, potentially visible to other customers in the same cabinet. At IDACORE, access is controlled and logged — this isn't a free-for-all — but it's not the same as a locked door with your padlock on it.
Cabling flexibility is more constrained. In your own cabinet, you can run cables however makes sense for your gear. In a shared cabinet, you're working within the structure of what's already there and what other customers need.
Power density per-U is also limited. If you're running gear that pulls 2–3kW in a single 2U chassis, per-U pricing structures often don't accommodate that cleanly. High-density compute belongs in a dedicated cabinet or — if you're talking about GPU clusters at 40–120kW per cabinet — somewhere like IDACORE East.
And if you're planning to grow into 15–20U within a year, just start with a cabinet. The migration from per-U to dedicated isn't painful, but doing it six months into a 12-month term is friction you don't need.
The 12-Month Term Difference
Most enterprise colocation providers require 36-month terms. That's three years locked in before you know whether your footprint assumptions were right.
IDACORE Boise's standard terms are 12 months. For per-U customers especially, that matters — you're often in per-U precisely because you're in a transitional phase. A 12-month commitment gives you time to validate your actual space and power needs before you commit to cabinet-scale pricing.
This isn't a small detail. A company that starts per-U in month one, realizes they need a full cabinet by month eight, and migrates at month 12 has made a clean, low-risk progression. The same company locked into a 36-month per-U contract — or worse, a 36-month cabinet contract they signed before knowing their footprint — is paying for the wrong thing for a long time.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is per-U colocation and how does it differ from a dedicated cabinet?
Per-U colocation means you rent individual rack units inside a shared cabinet, paying only for the space your gear actually occupies. A dedicated cabinet gives you the full enclosure — typically 42U — regardless of how much you fill. Per-U is cheaper when you're running fewer than 8–10U of equipment. Above that threshold, a dedicated cabinet usually wins on both cost and operational flexibility.
What is the minimum commitment for per-U colocation at IDACORE Boise?
IDACORE Boise starts at 1U with no power commitment minimum. There's no requirement to reserve a minimum number of kilowatts upfront, which is unusual — most enterprise colo providers bundle power minimums into their base pricing. Standard contract terms are 12 months, compared to the 36-month terms most enterprise providers require.
How much does per-U colocation cost compared to a dedicated cabinet in Boise?
Per-U rates at IDACORE Boise vary by configuration, but the core math is straightforward: if you're paying per-U and your equipment footprint grows past roughly 10–12U, the per-unit cost typically exceeds what a dedicated cabinet would run. Contact IDACORE directly for current pricing — the honest answer is that the crossover point depends on your power draw as much as your U count.
Is per-U colocation suitable for compliance workloads like HIPAA or PCI DSS?
Yes. IDACORE Boise holds SOC 2 Type II, PCI DSS, NIST 800-53, SSAE-16, and HITRUST CSF certifications, and is compliance-ready for HIPAA and financial workloads. Compliance certifications apply at the facility level, not the cabinet level — so per-U customers get the same audit-ready environment as dedicated cabinet customers. You'll still need to handle your own application-layer compliance controls.
Can I start with per-U colocation and expand to a dedicated cabinet later?
Yes, and this is one of the practical reasons to start per-U. You get your gear into a certified, carrier-diverse facility — IDACORE Boise has 7 on-net carriers — without committing to cabinet-scale space before you know your actual footprint. When your U count crosses the economic crossover point, migrating to a dedicated cabinet in the same facility is straightforward and doesn't require moving your network connections or renegotiating carrier relationships.
If you're trying to figure out whether per-U or a dedicated cabinet is the right starting point for your environment, we'll give you a straight answer based on your actual gear list and growth timeline — not the option that maximizes our contract value. IDACORE Boise is live and accepting customers now, with 1U minimums and no power commitment floor. Talk to us about your colocation requirements and we'll tell you exactly what makes sense.
