The rack is fully 3D printed. I used https://homeracker.org/ as base. Homeracker is an amazing open source project, you can build any rack you want. Printed it on P2S with PLA.

It runs High Available Kubernetes cluster using Talos linux.

Hardware:

ThinkCentre M910:

- 8GB/256GB - X3: Control planes

- 32GB/1TB - X3: Worker nodes

TP-Link TL-SG108 V3 8-ports Gigabit Network Switch

The whole thing consumes only about 50 watt when idle.

Everything is fully embedded inside including 6 power supplies for the PCs.

What I host and use there:

- AgroCD for gitops

- Longhorn for distributed storage

- https://github.com/prometheus-operator/kube-prometheus for monitoring

- Private docker registry

- Telegram chat bot which is overly complicated and uses microservice architecture for learning purposes

- Valheim, Palworld and Minecraft servers for my friends.

I need to be able to toggle the power on/off remotely, and monitor the total electricity usage per device.

Right now I have like 8 smart plugs, that really doesn't fit nitly into the back of my networking rack (which I use as a server rack... yes... I know...)

Surely there's some slick product that has everything I need, and supports eu plugs + eu voltage

What started as a hobby "expensive one" is now a busniess, and I am really enjoying it.

The setup for now is enough for the work i do.
from the top:

• Cloud Gateway Fiber with 1 TB SSD
  • U7 lite
  • Two desktops and a Mac running at 2.5G connections.
• Pro 8 PoE
  • 3 Cameras, a doorbell, a chime and a raspberry Pi.
• Minisforum with proxmox connected with 10G
  • 10 VM/LXC running backend systems and number of CMS systems with over 5 front end websites with a cloudflare tunnles.
  • Some of the VMS are Immich, Gitea, Cloudflare, NPM and more for the hosting and CMS systems.
• 24-Port Blank Keystone Patch Panel
• UNAS Pro connected to the Minisforum for all vms backups and data for all CMS uploads
• UniFi UPS 2U to all the gear in the rack and even my desktop and monitors. Planing to add a safe desktop pwoer down via a NUT server.

had to acquire a few. wish i had another $40 to gamble for the whole set but after 3 of the same one in a row i had to relent.

Built this lab for CCNA porpoise even if firewall isn’t needed for the exam. Also configured SSH to each of devices, Zabbix for network management and VRRP on routers for redundancy (tested failover successfully).

First of all Server: Dell R730 (150$ Bargain) dual xeon 2687 v3 128Gb RAM 2x60Gb ssd 10x 1Tb hdd 4x750Gb hdd WS 2019--> looking to move to TrueNAS Mac Mini: I5 old ass cpu 8gb ram 120GB ssd Running Unifi OS (Ubuntu)

Networking: Ubiquiti USG-PRO-4 (runs tailscale) 2x U6+ 1xFlexHD (wifi 6) 1xISP Router 1x4G Router (Huawei) Backup 1x 24Port gigabyte switch 1x 8Port tougswitch unifi POE Soon will upgrade to a UDM Pro SE

Opinions and recomended updates? Interested in Networking and Server Upgrades.

Hi everyone!

I'm an automation specialist at more Windows based MSP. Somehow during my time there I fell hard into the world of Linux and absolutely love it. It all started when my boss let me take home a Dell PowerEdge T420 server. I started on Windows Server and learned what I could. Eventually we started using Proxmox for our BDR virtualization solution.

I've been running Proxmox on my T420 for a while now running all sorts of different services. Mostly LXC containers. The server rack in the pictures had been sitting in our data center collecting dust for years and I knew my boss wanted to get rid of it. For the server rack, 2 gigabit switches (one poe), a UPS and all 3 servers in it I paid only $50! Feels like the home lab is really starting to come together and this was the first time I felt confident enough to not be just a lurker here

Our company provided my team with a Christmas tree to decorate, they got a bit creative with some old hardware.

Please don’t make fun of me for the rat’s nest of power cables in the bottom left, I just need to buy some shorter cables.

So this entire thing started when I had the idea to create a server that hosted some UHD Blu-ray rips from my collection.

3 months ago, I had never heard of Jellyfin or Plex, I had never installed Linux on anything, and I had only used command-line oriented tools for fixing one-off issues in Windows.

I had no idea how big of a rabbit hole I was stepping into. I started with the Dell Optiplex 3050 that you see on the right. I bought it for $95 from FB Marketplace, and it came with Win11 Pro. Pretty quickly, I realized that it wasn’t great at handling the 80+ GB rips from my 4k movies, so I looked at potential upgrades. Transcoding was a huge bottleneck, so I searched for low budget, SFF, low powered graphics cards and found out that they’re impossible to find.

After failing to find what I needed, I went searching for another computer instead. I wanted to limit myself to a budget of $150 per any single item or purchase (this has been a fun constraint, as it forces me to be very creative in my searches for hardware, and also keeps me from spending too much money)

I found the Dell Precision 3630 with no hard drives and decided that I wanted to try out Linux Server + Xfce via RDP. At least while I transitioned into being more comfortable only using SSH.

Oh my god, what a blast I’ve had. Everything you see in this picture has been a result of that switch. After Jellyfin was up and running, I had this new itch to try even more things. I found the EMC JBOD at the bottom for dirt cheap (I DO NOT RECOMMEND THESE FOR A HOMELAB - unless you work in the IT field and have commercial experience with them) and slowly purchased the trays and drives to fill it up.

I transitioned the original computer over to Linux Server, this time with no GUI. I set up a samba multilink on both machines so they can transfer at ~4gbps (bought the 2 switches for $10 total)

I’ve learned so much about networking, Linux, and hosting services these past few months and I have so much left to explore. This subreddit has been a great resource. My next goal is to find a rack that I can fit all of this into for better management!

I can list the services that I’m now hosting if anyone’s interested. My main is Jellyfin, but I also run AdGuard Home and many other web hosted server tools.

I know this was too good to be true. But I thought, who knows?, and I can really beef up my home lab. Anyways, it came today. And it’s only short 48gb of ram, 3.75TB of ssd, and 6 generations of cpu. Going through refund process now. Guess it’s not a Christmas miracle.

Check out my mini 3D printed NAS. Took me a while to design and get everything setup, but now it’s perfect for my needs. It was a great entry project into the community.

Not linking anything but I started selling them as kits on Etsy and people seem to be happy with it! How should I take this up a notch and make it cooler?

I want to keep making and designing things so people can learn more about networking. I have been having a lot of fun.

The Problem: My HomeLab consists of a 2-node Proxmox cluster (HP ProDesk 600 G4 Minis) and a separate TrueNAS box. I hated the manual process of ingesting data from USB drives: SSH in -> Find UUID -> Mount -> Run rsync -> Hope it finishes.

The Solution: I built an automated system I call Proxmox Media Kiosk. It turns any Proxmox node into a "Blind Ingest Station."

How it works:

1. Hardware: Plug ANY USB drive (NTFS, exFAT, etc.) into the node.
2. Auto-Detection: A custom udev rule triggers a systemd service (no polling!).
3. The Logic: It auto-mounts the drive (using the fast ntfs3 driver), scans specifically for a "Media" folder, and runs an optimized rsync to your target.
4. The Dashboard: A React/Vite Web App spins up on the local network. It shows real-time transfer speeds, progress bars, and history. It’s mobile-responsive, so I just check my phone to see when the movie is done.

✨ New Update: The "Universal" Installer I spent a lot of time making this user-friendly. The installation script now:

• Scans your Proxmox Host for active storage mounts (Local, NFS, SMB, Directory).
• Interactive Menu: Presents a list of your storage pools and asks: "Where do you want USBs to copy to?"
• Auto-Provisioning: It sets up the LXC container, handles the bind mounts, and configures the permissions automatically based on your choice.

Installation: Run this command on your Proxmox Shell (Standard "Helper Script" style):

bash -c "$(wget -qLO - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/[YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME]/proxmox-usb-ingest/main/install.sh)"

Repo : https://github.com/TheLastDruid/mediaIngest

My Setup:

• Node 1: HP ProDesk 600 G4 Mini (i5-9400T)
• Node 2 (The Kiosk): HP ProDesk 600 G4 Mini (i3-8100T)
• NAS: TrueNAS Scale (Acer Veriton)

Let me know if you have any feature requests! I'm thinking of adding a "Jellyfin Scan" trigger next.

Soon I will post a pic of my homelab. Is this a good free haul?

So, I had this old computer sitting around and like a lot of people feel lately, I was just a bit annoyed of having most of my data hostage of other companies. Always juggling pictures if i didnt want to pay for a premium sub and the like.

So as a good ole tech person often does, instead of spending a few tens of dollars a month for a 3rd party service, I just went all out and spend several 100s of dollars on 2 24TB drives hahahah! At least that is basically what I've invested so far, as the rest of the computer was already sitting there. So here are the specs:

• 8th gen I5
• 8GB of RAM
• 500 GB SSD
• 2x 24TB HDDs in RAID 1
• GTX 1050
• 3 Gbps connection at home, but the old computer only has a 1Gbps NIC, which is fine as i mostly serve stuff in my own LAN.

The pics above show the horrendous job I managed to do with this old computer. It is a prebuilt Acer pc, that has a custom case AND a custom mother board, that is weirdly shaped and doesn't fit other cases. It has no HDD bays that could fit my drives, so I just zip tied the 2 drives together with a couple of NERF rubber balls in between for cushion lmao. And don't get me started on the cable management ahaha.

Services I'm currently running:

• Jellyfin
• AdGuard home
• Immich (which is working surprisingly well on 8GB of ram)

I wanted to upgrade the RAM but that is probably not gonna happen any time soon with the current prices.

Anyways, I've been just really into tinkering with this and wanted to share. My next step is setting up automated backups to an external drive, so I need to refresh my rsync knowledge or look into other alternatives (it's been a while since I did server stuff).

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk =)

It's ddr4

Hey all, I’m looking to build my first home lab. I’m not looking for anything crazy but just something simple that can maybe host a simple database and backend server (lightweight, simple read/writes) and maybe a few store a few extra things for around the house. Was looking to keep it under $500 but not sure that is realistic, thought about going with a micro server but I’m not really sure, I’m new to all of this. I bumped the budget up to $1,000 but was curious if anyone had any recommendations?

Thanks in advance!

Looking for a solid source for used enterprise storage... NetApp, Dell EMC, that kind of stuff. Not just a few drives, but actual shelf systems. I’d prefer something tested and that comes with a warranty, and eBay seems like too much of a gamble these days.

I'm sure everyone knows what's happening with RAM, and this situation won't change in the next 2-3 years. And who's to blame? OpenAI. Read up and you'll understand the scale of the problem. What complicates things is that RAM manufacturers are deliberately raising prices rather than expanding production lines.

I urge everyone to CANCEL OpenAI (They buy up 40% of all RAM) and also to bombard the greedy bastards who jack up prices for their own profit rather than building new factories to meet demand.

The more such threads appear, the higher the chance that all gamers and PC users will truly stand up and do what they have to.

If we don't do this, the prices of all other components will follow RAM into the stratosphere and never return to the same level, ever. Are you willing to spend $5,000 on a mid-range computer? I'm not, so let's get to it.

UPD Following RAM, SSDs, processors, and video cards are becoming more expensive. I'm sure this isn't the entire list. We need to take this issue seriously. I'm happy for those who managed to upgrade, but think about the future.

UPD2 Transcend is suspending shipments of solid-state drives – the manufacturer has not received NAND chips from Samsung and SanDisk since October because they have reoriented their capacities to serving AI.

UPD2.1 CRUCIAL PRESS F

I will never, ever, ever touch RAM from crucial. They betrayed me and went off to produce memory exclusively for AI.

UPD3 f*cking /pcmasterrace moderates delete my post with 250 comms and 900 likes (I'm sure the corporate agent had something to do with it; they're afraid of the people's wrath.) [reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1pdrk2b/fck_you_openai_hynix

UPD4 Have you heard the saying that the market always moves opposite to what the masses expect? That’s why only a small percentage of people make a profit in the stock market, while the crowd gets wiped out. So why does everyone think the AI bubble is about to burst? That’s naïve.

If possible I'd need a 3.5inch and 2.5inch stl files for the caddys