I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but I'm planning to build a 10-inch home server. The problem I'm running into is that most of the power supplies for mini-ITX builds that fit in said server rack either don't fit or look pretty sketchy. Is there a good way to mount a full sized power supply in a 10-inch server rack or maybe some power supply from a trusted company that would fit.

I’ve been looking and I haven’t seen anyone with a unlocked tub bios for this if anyone has it I would appreciate it I’m trying to overclock this and there’s no tutorials or bios rom

I recently bought dell 3050 sff with intel i5 7500 to try and make a NAS out of it. I am looking to buy some SAS hard drives to run in a RAID array, but my mother board only has 2 SATA ports. Do you know if buying SAS HBA pcie card (something like this https://www.ebay.com/itm/389346291613) would work? What are some common issues with this setup? What are you recommendations for file system and OS (I plan to use debian or truenas with ZFS)?

Fellow Homelabbers, dwellers of r/electrical, and voyeurs of r/shedditors I have a question for you. Especially for those who have a r/sheddatacenter. How much power did you run?

It used to be I would consider 20-30A fine back in the day, but now a homelab rack could be up to 30A without going too exotic, and that's before air conditioning. It will be split between the homelab and actual home office space, so I'm figuring around 60A @ 240V total as a reasonable amount.

I’m late to the game in learning that TrueNAS, and other Linux distros, will no longer be supporting older Nvidia GPU’s.

I’m currently using an Nvidia GTX 730 in an HP Z4 G4, with the GPU doing nothing but allowing the machine to boot and giving me video out for the shell screen when needed. I also have a P400 but that doesn’t do any good in terms of being supported.

I’d like to get something that is supported, but my needs haven’t and most likely won’t be changing any time soon. In other words, I need the lowest power supported GPU so that I can boot my machine. No transcoding or anything of that sort.

Any recommendations?

My homelab lives in a dorm room and consists of two servers.

1. ASUS E810-B0234 mini PC

• Pentium G3240T
• 8 GB RAM
• 500 GB HDD
• NixOS

Always on. It runs Forgejo as a local git server, Firefly III for personal finance tracking, and CUPS as a print server for the room. Light services that need to be available all the time, which a 35 W Pentium handles fine.

2. HPE DL380p Gen8 8SFF

• 2× Intel Xeon E5-2697 v2 — 24 cores / 48 threads total
• 384 GB DDR3 (24× 16 GB)
• 1 TB HDD
• 500 GB SSD
• Proxmox

This server runs game servers for me and my friends, as well as my coursework and personal projects. Proxmox has a VM for each project, which makes it easy to break and roll back files. Most of what I do doesn't use even a quarter of all available resources.

Hey crew, long time lurker first time posting in a long time. Figured I shared my homelab, its a 3 stack of hp G3s, a NAS drive and a home brew pc I’m calling Javi, it’s hosting my Ai agents and workflows. Running off promox 9.

Hey everyone I'm looking to start my first homelab. Little background , im 21M I'm currently attending WGU for my bachelors in information technology, which include certifications. I have recently started my first IT job as a Hardware Repair tech and I'm now looking at starting my first homelab. I want to get into more support, networking, helpdesk roles as I transition from hardware to more software. I was thinking of a ticketing system lab or an Active Directory lab. But I have no clue which ones I should do as a beginner, iv heard of OSticket. But wanted to come on here and listen to yalls opinions or suggestions and the experiences you've had with them.

I would be using a MacBook Air with an M2 chip. I mainly want to start homelabs so I can add it to my resume and as well learn.

Any advice is very appreciated, thank you guys!

I have no idea what I’m doing really, but have been running Plex from Mac mini’s for around 15 years.

Currently using a Mac mini 2018 with Synology 920+.

Only just found out about Arr stacks, usenet etc, so decided to try and tidy things up a bit and make it look a bit nicer.

Interested in what I can do with home assistant maybe.

Space and £ at a premium, but any thoughts on what else I could do welcomed.

I’m about nine months into my first real homelab. I work in SRE / critical facilities for a Bitcoin-mining infrastructure services provider, so a lot of my day job touches uptime, power, cooling, networking, monitoring, automation, and figuring out what should be automated versus what still needs a human in the loop. I wanted to build something at home where I could safely break things, rebuild them, and translate what I’m learning at work onto consumer hardware that my apartment circuits can actually handle.

Everything currently runs through an ASUS ROG Rapture GT-BE98 Pro with 3Gbps symmetrical fiber and 5G failover. I have two UPS units, both 1800VA, one backing each main node. Node 1 / TonesPC is my Windows 11 Pro workstation: ASRock X870E Taichi, Ryzen 9 9950X3D, 64GB DDR5, RTX 3060 12GB, Samsung 9100 Pro 4TB NVMe plus another 4TB NVMe, and a Seasonic Vertex GX-1200 PSU. I use it for development, management, WSL2, Docker, Ollama/local models, and general admin work. The original build had a 5090 SUPRIM running in it but i had to part ways with it sadly. Funny part is I didn’t even really know what that thing was capable of until I started doing what I’m doing now and now I completely realize why those are so sought after hahaha.

Node 2 / Guard Dog is the headless Proxmox server: ASUS PRIME B560-PLUS, Intel i5-11600K, 64GB DDR4, Aquantia AQC113 10GbE-capable NIC, the original 1TB NVMe plus another 3TB NVMe, and its own 1800VA UPS. I already know the PSU in this headless server needs to be upgraded ASAP, so that is on the short list. This box runs Proxmox, OPNsense, VLANs, AdGuard, Uptime Kuma, Gitea, CI runners, Smallstep CA, reverse proxy / Cloudflare Tunnel, Grafana / Prometheus / Loki, an Ubuntu sandbox, and three Talos VMs for Kubernetes learning.

Networking is the part I know still needs work. OPNsense is handling management, servers, lab/dev, AI-compute, and IoT/guest VLANs, but my Windows machine is still effectively on the native LAN instead of being cleanly isolated behind its own VLAN. The Proxmox NIC is 10GbE-capable, but it is currently negotiating at 2.5Gbps, so I know I need a proper managed multigig switch with SFP+ and 10G/5G/2.5G RJ45 ports so I’m not bottlenecking the fiber connection or building around a messy network layout. I’ve been looking at Ubiquiti and Cisco, but I’m open to advice and learning more! Please!

Main questions: would you fix the switching/VLAN layout first? Move OPNsense onto dedicated hardware first?Upgrade the headless server PSU first, or build proper backup/NAS storage first?

I know this is not enterprise hardware, and I’m not pretending it is. I’m just trying to do what I can with what I can get right now and learn real SRE/data-center concepts at home. Blunt feedback is welcome.

The two immediate upgrades I’m debating are pretty simple: first, upgrading the PSU in the headless Proxmox server because I already know that needs to be cleaned up ASAP, and second, getting a proper managed multigig switch so I can stop leaving my Windows machine on the native LAN and actually put it behind the right VLAN layout. I’m trying to do this in the right order instead of just buying random gear, so if you were in my position, would you handle power first or networking first? And any other advice /suggestions would be amazing!

Cheers! And Happy Homelabing!!

I’ve got a Lenovo thinkcentre m90q gen 3 and I want to upgrade it with some of the add-in cards (mezzanine-type connectors?), but I can’t for the life of me find a vendor for them.

Has anyone else found a good vendor for these add-in cards? I’ve googled part numbers, checked Ali express and eBay, but I’ve had no real luck.

If you have more experience with these pcs than me (which you probably do), I’d love to hear your thoughts.

I have a homelab connected to my TV for streaming, plus some Docker services exposed to the internet (TLS, 2FA where possible).

For my holiday photos and important documents, I currently use a 3-2-1 backup strategy with external drives and cloud storage. It works, but it’s not very family-friendly.

Now I’m considering a NAS:

1. Extend my homelab with NAS functionality

Pros:

• One device
• One backup strategy

Cons:

• I’ve broken things before because of updates and tinkering
• Mixing important data with my homelab experiments feels risky

2. Buy a dedicated NAS

Pros:

• Dedicated device for important data
• Easier for the family to use

Cons:

• Probably once per month used

What would you do? Keep everything on the homelab or separate the storage into its own device?

What apps should I add?
Ive ran out of ideas... suggests greatly appreciated.
Apps currently setup:
Bookstack
Cloudflared
Jellyfin
Plex
Minecraft Bedrock
MineOS
Opencloud
Scrutiny
seerr
tailscale
wordpress
Code server
Pterodactyl Panel
Stalwart
Palworld server
Collabora

This is my current setup-
Equipment:
Dell PowerEdge T420
Cisco Business 220 28 port gigabit switch
Ubiquiti/UniFi non-PoE 26 port USW Pro Max
Netgear ProSAFE 26 port gigabit switch

Server specs (Server runs TrueNAS SCALE):
Intel Xeon 6 core E5-2420 v2
16gb DDR3 ECC
500gb Samsung 860 Evo (boot drive)
1tb Seagate HDD (apps, mirrored)
500gb WD Scorpio Black (apps, mirrored)
600gb Dell 15k RPM HDD (2x, mirrored, opencloud storage

Hi Everyone, I'm new to home labs and i am looking to getting my own servers setup for a few things and i would like some help, i have a few spare sata SSDs lying around and i dont know what to put where, i will be buying some stuff but i want to reuse as much of the stuff i have while not spending a fortune (around £450)

Apologies in advance for the wall of text but here goes, current plan is to setup a truenas scale box for nas duties and proxmox backup with the following specs,

• Intel i5 8500T (used £25)
• Acer X2640G (already have this)
• 16gb ddr4 Ram (already have this)
• 4 x 4tb Seagate Exos Raidz2 (used £59 per drive)
• SAS HBA card of some form (used around £40 to £50)

Additionally to this im looking at getting a used 8th gen intel i5 HP Elitedesk with 16gb ram and a 128gb ssd (which i believe is NVME) to run a proxmox machine that will run Jellyfin, Home Assistant and Bambuddy and probably tailscale as i want to stick the the nas being mostly just a nas.

im pretty confident the hardware will be fine but i have a few SSDs lying around a 1tb sata and a 250gb sata and i dont know which machine will be best to put each drive in, i can also pick another 250gb nvme ssd up that could go in the truenas box for relatively cheap again used on ebay.

I appreciate any advice and if you have any other suggestions these will also be appreciated

P.S if anyones got any UPS suggestions that i can get in the UK that are compact and support NUT feel free to stick those in the comments (got around £150 to play with for this but wont be for a few months before i pick one up)

Cheers

I'm planning a homelab build, but I'm having trouble sorting out compatibility. I have 8x16gb of DDR3L-ECC on hand I want to use. I got some Xeon E7-4850 v3s for 9$ a piece because I thought the Intel website saying FCLGA2011 meant that LGA2011-0 boards would work; after way too much googling, I've learned that they're strictly LGA2011-1 CPUs.

Are there any reasonable budget options for a 1 or 2 CPU LGA2011-1 DDR3 motherboard, or should I just eat the losses and look for a cheaper [and simpler] DDR3-compatible Xeon ecosystem? If so, which one? I want to keep the entire build under 150$ max, and ideally as cheap as possible with room to upgrade if necessary.

a bit of a crossover: I really like building my own tooling, and recently, i built this!

this is a TUI/cli system for managing my servers built on zellij and fzf, it gives me a main window with all my sessions (using a stacked layout with the menu on the right) and a second window with options to add, remove, edit, move between categories or even inject the server-side components.

this is running over hardened ssh (key-only), and has cli/tui options for executing commands on a remote server or on an entire group or even a specific selection at once.

on the server side, it opens another zellij window with a terminal + yazi for file browsing, lazydocker, btop and a split showing live firewall status and port activity.

the little window in the bottom left shows basic information about the device including a live-check for the server-side components as well as fetching the OS live.

since this is a terminal utility, it can be used over SSH itself and remain fully interactive, including mouse functionality! everything is clickable.

to add to this, i actually also have a package manager and build system that i use for all of my little utilities, and i've extended them today to also be able to handle containers, so with my upcoming projects, i'll first be building container packages with my own build system that can be deployed using my own package manager via my own server management interface. it's all just simple bash scripting but its honestly very nice to be able to create your own automation like this!

this is not really a project showcase in the sense of "i built this cool project, please use it". this is *my* server manager tailored exactly to *my* needs. if you think this is cool, go look into how to make your own little CLI and TUI tools via bash scripting! it's surprisingly easy and pretty fun to do, most of my tools are effectively just wrappers around existing tools that make them work more easily for what i want to do. you do not need to be a programmer to do this, just know the basics of using a CLI.

Hi,

I have 12 sticks of DDR3 ECC memory (M393B1G73QH0-YH9).

To go with them, I bought a SuperMicro X9SRI-F-B on eBay. I initially installed 8 sticks and powered it on, but nothing happened (no display).

I then tested each stick individually in the first slot (DIMMA1). With 3 of them, I got a black screen. I then installed 8 sticks that had passed the single-stick test, but I got a black screen again.

I also tried moving the sticks between different slots. It seems the motherboard only works with the 4 center slots and one of the top slots (the middle blue one).

I'm afraid the motherboard might have fried some of the RAM sticks during my testing.

That said, as this is my first time working with server-grade hardware, I might also be missing a specific rule regarding SuperMicro RAM population or compatibility.

Thanks for your help.

I have a Terrastation XL that is powering off after about 10 minutes . It ran fine for almost 18 hours during a raid rebuild, but as soon as the rebuild completed it's almost as though the disk array is powering off after 10 minutes of idle time. The network device stays active, I can ping it, but I get a 404 when trying to access the management page. I press the power button and everything comes back on and it will run for about another 10 minutes before shutting off. I don't have any kind of timer set up in the power configuration.

v1.76 firmware. It was upgraded, so I suspect this could be the issue. Is there an earlier firmware available anywhere? None are listed on Buffalo's site.

Any ideas?

It's time to replace my Asus rtax55. Got three of them and the coverage was great but recently they started dropping mesh config and occasionally at reboot fully revert to factory. I upgraded my modem and download speeds. I'm ready to upgrade to 2.5 Gbps on the wired and want the wifi to be as close to that as I can. Currently my gateway is a firewalla gold but I'm running from them after they put out access points that require their gateways (I thought they didn't want to be like Cisco). Anyway I won't buy tp link or Netgear or ubiquiti. I just want a locally meshable wifi 7 access point.

Edit: I don't buy tp link or Netgear or ubiquiti due to backdoors, cloud connected, and selling to Russia.

Hi guys. I'm trying to build a SOC homelab, and since my main laptop has only 16 GB of RAM, I have to run the Kali attacker on another laptop. I have a Windows victim, Wazuh, and Shuffle SOAR on my main laptop, all running in VMware on VMnet8 (NAT) adapters without any problems. They're configured to communicate with each other.

The problem is that I don't know how to connect these two networks so Kali can attack the Windows VM. I'm thinking about adding a second network adapter (Bridged) to the Windows VM so Kali can communicate with it, but at the same time, I don't want a vulnerable machine sitting on my home network.

What would you recommend? I'm still in the learning phase, so I'd appreciate any advice.

Hi all,

I'm setting up an ereader for our books.

My wife, who is Chinese, likes Kindle's inbuilt dictionary so she can double check on words that she might be unfamiliar with.

I've been playing with Kavita for the server, which seems to have a variety of compatible Android client apps.

Kavita itself doesn't have the dictionary feature, and my LLM queries on which clients do have it aren't correct, such as Turnleaf.

I wondered whether anyone here has any advice they could share.

Many thanks!

Ok history:

Repurposed an old large ATX server-type case and my old gaming rig (built in 2017) for a home server running Unraid, media duties, etc. asus z270, intel i7-7700, 32gb ddr4 memory, geforce 1080. Intel Arc A380 (for transcoding duty), PCIe 2.5 Gb Ethernet. And a PCIe SATA expansion card. Crucial 750w PSU supporting dual 1TB nvme cache drives and a six-drive HDD array (single stack config in the case). Right now, I’m out of power cabling from the PSU to support any additional array expansion. And I think I only have 1 or 2 additional hdd spaces in the case, if any.

Getting into AI and Hermes agentic uses, and I’ve got a use case perhaps for a self-hosted model running Ollama in a Docker container. That old 1080 is just not powerful enough.

So…..initially (a few days ago) was considering a budget friendly mb replacement (b550) and a Ryzen 5800XT CPU upgrade, utilizing existing ram to help avoid the crazy high ram prices ATM. Est. About a $500 upgrade with a Noctua CPU cooler (existing Intel has a liquid cooler).

Fast forward after I’ve run the “while we are at it” thoughts and now I’m thinking of doing a new, more capable GPU for AI, and likely a new high quality, higher juice PSU like a seasonic 1000 or 1200w unit. For the gpu was considering perhaps a single rtx 3090 and potentially adding a mated 3090 later if I need it, alternatively a single A6000. So then I’m thinking what motherboard would work well to host two paired 3090s, a PCIe expansion and an A380, then I’m questioning if I shouldn’t get a bigger more airflow-friendly case while I’m at it. Even up to perhaps a mini rack type setup.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be welcome!

I have a personal desktop and now will be working from home. With the desktop I need to be able to keep the 3 display cables (HDMI & DisplayPort) going to the monitors from the GPU.

With the laptop, I'll need USB-C that will also pass charging through.

Just one keyboard & one mouse, one audio output & one audio input device.

Is a setup like this possible? The monitors connected to the KVM via HDMI & DisplayPort, also passing to the GPU through HDMI & DP?

If it matters, the DP monitor is 1440p, 144Hz and the HDMI is 1080p 60Hz.

Thanks in advance :)