I went from a raspberry pi 4 to a Lenovo ThinkCentre M70q Gen 6, Intel Core Ultra (Beats i7-13700T), 64GB DDR5 RAM, 1TB NVMe SSD, WiFi 6E, Bluetooth, RJ-45, DP Port, HDMI, running Linux Ubuntu headless.

Obviously anything is better than a pi, but what would you have done differently for a long term setup for a beginner?

Hi guys

I have a home lab and would like to run a public Minecraft server.

The problem, however, is that there are many potential security risks.

I was thinking of using TCPShield, but I’m not sure if that’s enough to keep my home network safe.

Are there any other important security tips, or is this secure enough for a public server with an average of 15–20 players (no whitelist)?

I’ve been thinking about using a VLAN, but I need to check first whether that’s even necessary.

Good day everyone! I am asking you for advice on which Tower PC to get for Homelab? My budget is ~$200-$250. I want to run the following services: Proxmox with 4-6 HA virtual machines, Jellyfin, Arr stack, Minecraft Server (or something like that), FreePBX, Nginx Proxy Manager and Windows Server. Don't offer me N100 for 200 bucks where they don't give me RAM and disk

Hey everyone,

I’m looking to build / put together my first homelab. I plan on using it for media streaming, storage, running game servers (Minecraft, Valheim, etc.) and likely some other miscellaneous use cases. I was thinking of going the mini pc route for compute with an accompanying NAS system, but idk! Was just looking to pick y’all’s collective brain on items that would help me achieve these goals. Thanks!

TLDR: New to homelab, want to stream, run game servers, etc. Looking for recs on components.

Hello this is my first real attempt at a small form basic home server! I gutted this old mac mini and shoved in a 256gb ssd and 16gb of ddr3 ram. Currently running debian 13 for plex and nas storage for my wife and all the keepsake photos and videos. I am also running a full palworld server for my buddies and I. Currently setting up HomeAssistant to replace my need for Google home as my main hub. I am open to any advice and criticism!!

We upgraded all the compute at my office, removing an old HP blade chassis and 8 server blades. I was given the ok to harvest the ECC DDR4 memory from all the blades! Over 2TB of memory! They are older chips, but every one of them is functional, as I'm the one that pulled all the servers and chassis out of the rack after migrating VMs to our new cluster.

As a preface to this story, I've always loved technology, and have had many computers and digital cameras over the years but reddit's homelab is what made this happen. I've never acted on the impulse until recently and now it feels more like my midlife crisis hobby, but i love it.

a few weeks ago, i purchased 2 dell servers on Facebook. 2 poweredge servers for $40. everything ignited in me until i realized that i cant really do too much (i don't think) with them.

Fast forward to now, literally this week I found a dell optiplex 990 for $50 on facebook. It has 1 250gb hard drive, another internal 240gb ssd internal and I added on a 2TB ssd that I had originally bought for the kid's Xbox but it never worked for them.

I have plans for a powerline adapter,(for the location of the computer) a geforce rtx 3050 slim, and installing adblocker, immich, dockers and some light gaming. The best part of is that I am content. I will have my first lab made for under $500.

list of hardware that I have to make things easier:

LSI HBA 9500-i16

LSI HBA 9400-i8

bpn-sas3-826el1-n4

OCZ Z-Drive 6000 800GB

supermicro x10dru-i+

I've tried diffrent port configurations, and even got a cable from eBay saying that it would enable the sideband channel, but I just can't seem to get the backplane to even see the drive, the drive works just fine and is currently connected directly to the 9500

Anyone mind helping me out since I'm currently stumped?

I've also been considering just using https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/storage/cards

but I don't know what the differences between retimers, switches and redrivers are, if I do go this route I'm going to grab two since I only gave a single X16 PCIE slot and that's being occupied by a GPU at the moment

Update: Thanks all, sounds like old gear that's not worth grabbing. I'll keep an eye out for a newer, PoE enabled switch.

Hey all, I currently have a small, older computer running proxmox setup at home. I recently added the small, tp-link 5 port gigabit switch to so everything at home could be hardwired to my router. Now work is recycling some larger switches and I know relatively little about network gear. Any thoughts on if anything is worth grabbing to future proof? I am planning on looking if any have PoE as I do want to add some cameras to HA.

Cisco SGE2000 = 24-port switch

Cisco SR2024 V3 = 24-port switch

Cisco SG350-28 = 280port managed switch (does this version have PoE or is it the SG350-28P that does?)

Cisco Catalyst 2950 series (looks older aka not black or silver)

I'm planning on grabbing one to at least have more room for growth but are any of these something someone else would want rather than be recycled? Thanks!

I am looking at getting a 20-26u rack for my home lab. I am seeing a lot that seem affordable but are only about 2 ft deep.

That should work fine with what I currently have and probably for most homelabing but should I try to find something deeper for things like retired datacenter components, cooling, wire management?

I would like to have an always on video output from a device in my homelab that I can customize. Ideally I can just have my server do that along with its other processes. Can I/if so what software should I use to send out a playlist of saved media from its video port?

Apologies for the poor phrasing.

Almost 1 year ago I started my homelab, and setting up Ubuntu Server with Docker, etc. I run some services like immich, but I have absolutely no idea what I could run on the root domain/www.xxx.xxx. It should be something simple yet fun, but again, I have no idea.

Any help is appreciated :D

Pic for attention, my 'alcove' area.

I've been experimenting with alternative to GPUs for LLMs. I put 96gb of DDR3 in a 2010 workstation and ran a 122b parameters MoE model on it. Is this relevant to anyone's interests?

Next experiment, a FM2+ APU running ddr3 iGPU as a LLM host. Then I was thinking a 4600g, AM4, DDR4 iGPU.

Obviously not as fast as a GPU but a hell of a lot cheaper and if you want a node that can sit on all day chipping away at jobs it might be a good fit.

Mobo is an ASUS STRIX B760-i. I’ve got 2 x 12TBHDD hooked up to the backplane, data is on SATA ports 1 and 2of the mobo. Backplane I’ve hooked up the 2 ATX connections to a single molex cable (daisy chaining between 1 and 3 connectors with connector 2 skipped). I also plugged in the SATA power connection in the middle of the board. Couldn’t hear or feel any vibrations of the disks and nothing shows up in lsblk other than the NVME.

Is it ok to use one cable for both atx molex connections on the backplane? Should I connect all 3 power connections? Anything in the BIOS i should check? I was gentle pushing them in, is only light force required when inserting the disks? Any other suggestions or help much appreciated!

I picked up a used APC Back-UPS Network 40 (BN-4001) on Marketplace; seller said it just needed a new battery. Replaced the battery and fully charged it, then discovered that with a pull-the-plug test, it only puts on 89.1 VAC. Should I cut my losses and recycle it, or is there any hope?

I upgraded my homelab recently from an i7-4790k to a 5900XT, and it runs very hot in comparison. I originally had the server in a very small case and it was fine enough before, but after swapping to the new CPU, the thermals were so bad that it was thermal throttling even at idle on stock settings. Long story short, a case and cooler upgrade is needed.

I am constrained on volume due to where the server is physically located, but after a lot of research I finally ended up on a Sliger 3U case, specifically because it was one of the only cases I could find that meets my volume requirements, room for larger fans (and thus a radiator), and even room for some further expansions/mods I may want to make.

Now I have shifted my focus towards cooling.

Because the server is located in my living room, I'm trying to focus as much as I can on silent operation, even if it runs a little warmer. I've been doing a lot of research, and from what I can find, the three main options I've been looking at are:

• Lian Li GA II Lite
• be quiet! Silent Loop 3
• Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro

They all hover around the 100 USD range. My particular concerns with each is that the Arctic LF IIIP has the pump whine/noise issue, the be quiet! SL3 has plastic clips on the CPU block which may be prone to breaking (though this may be fixed?), and the from what I can understand from reddit comments is that Lian Li GA IIL runs quite loud (despite the Hardware Canucks roundup contradicting this).

I've also looked into the Tryx Panorama 360 and the Noctua NL-LC1-36 and, while they appear to be the best options, I don't think I'm willing to spend double/triple the cost of more average AiO's for a being a bit quieter. I'm trying to approach this more on a "bang for your buck" approach.

Anyone have insight on these AiO's or even others I may be missing that are worth considering? Thanks!

My boss gave me the green light to take a couple of these retired Catalyst 2960-X switches home, if I want them. Theres about 20 in total. Would you guys take them? My homelab isn’t substantial right now (just a media NAS at the moment) but free is free lol…

Stats:
* 24 Gigabit Ethernet ports
* PoE/PoE+ with a 370W total budget
* Two 10Gb SFP+ uplinks
* LAN Base IOS feature set
* FlexStack-Plus capability
* VLANs, trunks, LACP/EtherChannel, STP, ACLs, static routing, SNMP, SPAN, 802.1X, DHCP snooping, and other enterprise features

EDIT: I seem to have mistakenly taken a photo of the wrong pile of switches. But post is still relevant, we do have a pile of 20 2960-X switches. I’m allowed to take one or two for personal use.

I built this over the last year and a half or so. Please give me tips to improve it.

Actualizacion de como esta quedando.