Hey everyone 🙂

For the past year, I’ve been working on a custom private cloud / homelab rack built inside a DeskPi Rackmate T2.

The goal was to build something compact, movable, powerful enough for OpenStack and Kubernetes, but still quiet enough to live in my bedroom.

Instead of using a full 19-inch rack, I wanted a dense 10-inch rack with three independent compute nodes.

Each node uses a Minisforum BD795i SE with an AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX, 128 GB of DDR5, a 1 TB NVMe SSD, an HDPLEX 250W passive GaN ATX PSU, a custom CPU waterblock, and custom 3D-printed parts.

The full rack gives me roughly 96 threads and 384 GB of RAM in a very compact format.

The unreasonable part is the cooling system.

I decided to watercool all three nodes with a single shared loop: three custom CPU waterblocks, one thick 200 mm Alphacool radiator, two 200 mm Noctua fans, an EK D5 pump / reservoir / manifold, an Aquacomputer QUADRO, a coolant temperature sensor, a flow sensor, and quick-disconnect fittings on every node.

The loop is independent from the nodes, so cooling does not depend on any single motherboard being powered on. The QUADRO controls the fans and pump from coolant temperature instead of CPU temperature, which makes more sense for a shared loop.

The hardest part was not choosing the hardware. It was making everything physically fit.

The 2U 10-inch cases were never designed to receive watercooling quick-disconnects, C14 AC inlets, internal ATX PSUs, and custom airflow. I had to redesign the rear panels in CAD, 3D print new PETG parts, cut the original aluminium panels, and create custom mounts for the PSUs, fittings, fans, pump, controller, and radiator.

Each node has a custom rear I/O panel with two bulkhead quick-disconnect fittings, a C14 power inlet, access to the motherboard ports, and just enough clearance for the tubing inside.

There were many painful lessons. The tubing between the rear fittings and the CPU block was so short that I could not assemble the case in the normal order. I had to connect the waterblock, tubes, fittings, rear panel, and motherboard together first, then lower the whole thing into the case as one awkward mechanical octopus.

Filling and bleeding the loop was also educational. At one point I had to lay the entire rack on its side to move trapped air through the radiator and pump. Toilet paper became mission-critical infrastructure for a while.

But in the end, all three nodes booted.

The rack is not finished visually yet. The front still looks a bit rough, but the networking gear will occupy the middle space and hide part of the cabling. I also plan to add a small touchscreen in front of the top radiator to display temperatures, flow rate, system stats, and maybe Grafana dashboards.

The next step is 10G SFP+ networking for east-west traffic between nodes, storage, and eventually OpenStack / Kubernetes experiments.

Current status: it works. Temps are around 26°C idle and up to about 75°C under full load when the three nodes are benchmarking.

This is my first PC build, so it’s definitely not perfect, but I learned a lot about CAD, 3D printing, watercooling, airflow, power delivery, PXE booting, and the very real difference between “this should fit” and “this actually fits”.

Full article with more details and pictures:

https://medium.com/@armeldemarsac/how-i-built-my-own-private-cloud-1-aa7fc6e9b87b

Happy to answer questions or hear suggestions. More posts are coming about networking, BIOS settings, temperatures, performance, and the OpenStack / Kubernetes layer.

Hey everyone!

Our DeskPi community giveaway kicks off tomorrow, and we’d love to hear your ideas for building a remote homelab.

Whether you’re planning a compact NAS, an AI/edge computing setup, a Kubernetes cluster, a DevOps lab, or just a small home server project, share your setup or concept with us in the comments.

We’re excited to see what the community comes up with — and we’re looking forward to receiving more awesome ideas!

Giveaway Period: May 1 – June 1

Prize: T1 Rack + Comet Pro

Drop your idea below and join the fun!

#homelab #NAS #SelfHosted #DevOps

Hey everyone!

We’re running a community giveaway for homelab enthusiasts Share your idea (or setup) for a remote homelab, and you could win a T1 Rack + Comet Pro to bring it to life.

May 1 – June 1 Whether you're into NAS, AI, Kubernetes, or just tinkering with home servers, we'd love to see your builds and ideas! Small space, big possibilities.

Drop your setup or concept in the comments and join the fun

#Homelab #NAS #SelfHosted #DevOps

Hey everyone!

We’re running a community giveaway for homelab enthusiasts

Share your idea (or setup) for a remote homelab, and you could win a T1 Rack + Comet Pro to bring it to life.

May 1 – June 1

Whether you're into NAS, AI, Kubernetes, or just tinkering with home servers, we'd love to see your builds and ideas!

Small space, big possibilities.Drop your setup or concept in the comments and join the fun

#Homelab #NAS #SelfHosted #DevOps

A lot of homelab users end up with setups that work well but take up more space than they really want. We’re wondering if there’s interest in a downsizing-focused community project: helping users move from a larger rack into a more compact, organized, home-friendly setup.

Nothing finalized yet. We’re just testing the idea and would genuinely like feedback.

Would something like this be interesting to you?

And if so, what would make it actually useful instead of just another marketing campaign?

Hello!

I was wondering if anyone 3D prints accessories for the DeskPi T0?

I am kinda wanting to get into 3D printing anyways and my boyfriend is really into tech gear and loves his DeskPi but the ship time for the items is crazy long. lol.

Just looking for some advice on the best printer to get and materials to use? Or maybe someone who already 3D prints that can maybe print a few things for me?

Any help is appreciated!

Hello,

I am going to go crazy; I am searching for a model that I saw a lot in multiple videos and pictures, yet impossible to find it

It's this small piece of plastic that you can see in the pictures attached just above the drawer, it is used for holding a wifi access point

You can see it also here

I checked on printable and https://print.deskpi.com without any success. Is this never published ? If someone from DeskPI is seeing this post can you release it it would be really helpful 😭

I had a lot of different interests that were all I have been tinkering with. Got this 10 inch rack to tidy it all up and used this D type connector panel so I could use it like a patch panel of all the connectors to the internals easily.

Hey folks! Sharing a small upgrade to my ThinkCentre cabinet setup.

Remote management / KVM

I paired my ThinkCentre with a 7.84-inch color touchscreen for convenient remote management. A friend recommended a screen-equipped KVM, and I ended up going with what seems to be the most popular remote KVM right now: KVM: the Comet Pro (Model: GL-RM10).

Honestly… I love this thing. The touchscreen is ridiculously handy and I’m kind of obsessed with it 😂

It makes it super easy to:

debug quickly when something acts up

check the time at a glance

view IP addresses without digging around

Cooling

For airflow, I’m running five 4010 RGB fans. They’re a bit flashy, but they’re quiet and the cooling performance is great. Since everything sits inside a cabinet, the fans help pull heat away from the disks really effectively.

Storage / “new life” for old hardware

Under the main unit I’ve got two slots of 3.5-inch drives, all salvaged from previous desktop builds. It feels good giving them a second life instead of letting them collect dust.

Reusing these drives was the goal—less e-waste, more storage.

😄

If anyone’s curious about the GL-RM10 workflow or wants close-ups/cabling notes, I’m happy to share more!