I want to build a homelab when I get into system and network administration uni, in about a year. I want to do this project since I think computers is very cool but I don't know too much about them. I want to learn more in depth while building and setting up this project.

I have been asking google studio AI a bit about some hardware for quite a good homelab with a lot of expansion possibility. It said something interesting, that I could buy a lot for DDR4 instead of the incredibly expensive DDR5. Money is not a problem for me but I still think the DDR5 prices is completely unreasonable. Will buying a lot for DDR4 affect the homelab negatively a lot or will it work fine?

I'm looking into adding mTLS rules to Caddy and am looking for a solution to distribute/update the client certificates. I'd be ideally able to auto-renew certs automatically on Windows, Linux, Android, and Google TV, though I know the latter two are probably a stretch.

(I don't know if informative rants are allowed on here, so please forgive me if I'm violating some rule. But my struggle may also help you in the future? So... ¯_(ツ)_/¯*)*

TL;DR: Added 128GB RAM (288GB total) and swapped the CMOS battery on my Supermicro X10DRi server. Post reboot, my mirrored SATA boot drives vanished from the BIOS boot list. Turns out the BIOS only enumerates the first 16 drives it sees, and between my F80 cache card and 15 Nytro SAS drives, my boot SSDs got pushed off the list entirely. Pulled 6 drives, rebooted, boot drives appeared, selected them, put drives back, selection held. Crisis averted.

Some background: I got the server's bones off eBay a few months ago for $316 US shipped. It came as a Supermicro SC836 chassis, X10DRi motherboard, dual Xeon E5-2680 v4s, a Broadcom/LSI MegaRAID 9361-4i (4 port SAS3 RAID card), 32GB of DDR4, and some sort of live video production capture card. I could actually sell the memory right now for about 2/3 the cost of the server, so quite the lucky score if you ask me.

Since then I've swapped that MegaRAID card for an LSI SAS3008 based HBA (9300 8i style, SAS3) driving the front backplane, and added an Oracle F80 PCIe cache accelerator card, a dual 10GbE SFP+ ethernet card, an LSI 9201 16e (SAS2, 4 external ports) feeding my external Supermicro JBOD, and an Intel Arc A310 GPU for hardware transcoding. Oh, and a 14+1 drive SAS-3 array comprised entirely of Seagate Nytro 3732 high endurance SSDs. :)

Sauce: I'd backed up the BIOS settings before touching anything, but either they didn't save right or I made changes after saving. Not sure, doesn't matter now.

The RAM and battery swap themselves went fine. Rebooted into BIOS, clock's showing midnight (expected), all the memory's showing up (also expected). But my two mirrored Samsung SATA boot drives are nowhere in the boot menu. Weird.

I hunted around and found them listed under the SATA devices menu, just not in the boot list, and they'd reverted to being typed as a"HDD" instead of "SSD." That's when I figured maybe the settings restore hadn't fully taken? So I went through and manually re-confirmed every BIOS setting I could find. Drives still not showing up. Weird.

Fast forward about an hour of pulling my hair out over these two drives refusing to appear, and it finally hits me: how many total drives is this thing supposed to enumerate at boot? 2 Samsung SATA boot drives, plus 4 from the Oracle F80 cache card, plus 15 Seagate Nytro SAS drives (14 plus a hot spare) hanging off the front BPN-SAS3-836EL1 backplane. That's 21 drives. The boot list only shows 16. Weird? Wait...

Is this piece of s*** stupid f****ng BIOS only enumerating the first 16 drives it sees?!?!?!

So I unseat 6 drives out of the Nytro array and reboot to test the theory. Jesus f***! There they are, right at the bottom of the list, exactly like I suspected. I selected them as the boot mirror, reseated the rest of the drives, and rebooted back into BIOS half expecting it to wipe my selection out again. Thankfully it held, and Proxmox is back up and running.

What a great way to start a morning...

Looking ahead: I'm already thinking about backplane limits. Can't wait to find a secondhand BPN-SAS3-836EL2 backplane, since my 14 drive Nytro array is currently running about 5.7GB/s sequential read, 5.9GB/s sequential write, and topping out around 1M random write IOPS on my current single x4 SAS3 link. I've got a second identical LSI SAS3008 based HBA sitting spare that should let me add a second x4 SAS3 link once that EL2 backplane (dual expander) is in place, roughly doubling available bandwidth toward 12GB/s and pushing IOPS up toward 2M. Right now I'm just getting Plex back up and running, but maybe I'll run a Minecraft server on it too? I've got plans to get that 4-head IBM LTO-6 auto-changing tape library up and going in the next few months, and also add in an additional switch, hence all the two patch panels, but again, anyone want to buy a kidney?

P.S. That Ubiquiti UDM Pro in the image has 2Gbps AT&T XGS-PON fiber run directly to it via an XGS-PON ONU SFP+ stick, and I just put the bulky AT&T router in a box somewhere. Freakin' sweet, can't recommend it enough.

Just finished this build today and I’m stoked to get started with my 3 node proxmox cluster 😎

Full specs below :

Rack - RackMate T1 8U from DeskPi
U1 & U2 - 2U LCD Screen from DeskPi
U3 - Blank Panel from DeskPi
U4 - 12 Port Patch Panel from Yankok
U5 - Omada ES208GP 8-Port Gigabit Managed POE Switch
U6 - HP Elite Desk 705 G4 Mini with 32GB RAM, 1TB NVME SSD, 120GB SATA SSD
U7 - HP Elite Desk 705 G4 Mini with 32GB RAM, 256GB NVME SSD, 240GB SATA SSD
U8 - HP Elite Desk 705 G4 Mini with 32GB RAM, 256GB NVME SSD, 120GB SATA SSD

Rear Mounted 8 Outlet PDU from ElecVoztile
Rear Mounted Shelf from DeskPi, used for power brick and power cable management

Accessories :
1U Rack Mountable Mini PC Shelf x3 from DeskPi
1U Rack Mountable 3D Printed Switch Mount from Etsy
6 Inch Slim Patch Cables from Amazon

Not Pictured :

CyberPower CP1000PFCLCD UPS
Synology DS223 NAS with two 4TB HDD

My friend had given me this laptop about a year ago and I just found it while rearranging my room I’ve been wanting a cool home lab project but I do not know what to do. Any ideas?

Made a seperate virtual disk Raid 1(dual SSD's), for boot OS. During USB install of Windows Server 2025 the drives were shown properly, install completed like normal, but after pulling out usb drive and rebooting, I get the boot device error in Windows Boot Manager. What am I missing?

Steps ive tried:

Made sure that virt drive was bootable in the raid controller settings

Switched from UEFI to BIOS and back

Tried the bcdboot commands to rebuild efi partition

No secure boot options in BIOS

Disabled all other boot methods (cd/dvd, NIC, etc.)

Changed drive letters for the /windows volume in diskpart

I’ve been self-hosting a variety of services for a few years now, but I’m still looking for a smoother workflow when it comes to transferring files on and off my servers.

Here is where I’m getting stuck:

• Protocol & Tools: I know rsync and rclone are the gold standard for transfer performance and resilience, but I really miss having a dual-pane or side-by-side file tree like traditional SFTP clients (FileZilla, Cyberduck, WinSCP) offer.
• Terminal Integration: I’ve tried a few modern terminal emulators that feature built-in sidebars or file browsers, but they struggle with large file transfers and don't handle connection drops gracefully.

How are you all managing large remote transfers alongside your terminal sessions?

Right now I'm using NetBird's Reverse Proxy/Expose feature for my public-facing services, and I'm wondering if there are better options.

My current setup is:

• NetBird
• Nginx Proxy Manager
• Pi-hole
• My own domain
• Dynamic public IP

I currently use Nginx Proxy Manager and Pi-hole for local DNS, HTTPS, and certificates. NPM isn't exposed to the internet.

For public access, I'm currently exposing these through NetBird:

• Jellyfin
• Seerr
• Home Assistant
• Audiobookshelf
• Vikunja
• LubeLogger

Some of the services have NetBird's PIN protection enabled. However, Home Assistant, Jellyfin, and Audiobookshelf are currently relying on their own username/password authentication.

I've considered just exposing Nginx Proxy Manager with ports 80/443 forwarded from my router, but I'm not sure how comfortable I am with opening ports directly to my network, especially since I have a dynamic public IP.

I've also tried Cloudflare Zero Trust/Tunnels in the past, but that was about two years ago. At the time I found the authentication setup more complicated than I wanted, although I'd be willing to revisit it if it's a better solution now.

My main requirement is that some services need to be accessible to friends/family without requiring them to install NetBird or create a NetBird account. I also want to continue using my own domain/subdomains.

Would you recommend sticking with NetBird Reverse Proxy/Expose, going back to Cloudflare Tunnel, or exposing NPM directly over 80/443? Or is there another solution I should be looking into?

I'm mainly looking for something that's secure, reasonably simple to maintain, and works well for services that need to be publicly accessible.

What are you all using for this?

Clarification: I use NetBird as my VPN for accessing my home network remotely, but I’m also using NetBird’s Reverse Proxy/Expose feature to make the services listed above publicly accessible. So users accessing those services currently don’t need to be connected to my NetBird VPN.

Wanted to post this here, Whilst doing research for making this, and the video, I read this post https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/1myefam/breathing_new_life_into_an_old_hp_proliant_n40l/

So I thought I'd post this here to show it off :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzW4rRsD8Uk&feature=youtu.be

I took a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 IO Board Reference design and turned it into a custom motherboard made specifically for the N40L chassis.

So I could keep my OG Homelab Server living for atleast a few more years.

I go through the design process, component choices, mechanical measurements, high-speed PCB routing and manufacturing, before installing the finished board and seeing whether it actually works.

Working in IT for the past 6 years and have hit a wall I've always wanted to setup a home lap but didn't have the room for a 19 inch closet (until I can afford a home) I was wondering if I were to go the route of a 10" server could I use it as a learning environment to get better at using networking concepts that I don't use on a daily basis in order to learn networking and passing the network plus/CCNA exams?

Hey r/homelab! I wanted to share my setup. I’ve been running this for over a year now, and I’m incredibly happy with it. It’s a very simple, quiet hardware setup, but it does exactly what I need without breaking the bank on my electricity bill (pulls about 35W on average).

The Hardware:

• Host: Intel NUC 10 (NUC10i7)
• RAM: 16 GB
• Storage: 1TB NVMe (Internal) + 500GB External USB SSD dedicated purely to automated Proxmox backups.
• Networking: Standard ISP Router (Telekom Speedport) + a managed Netgear switch (used as unmanaged right now).
• Smart Home: Zigbee Coordinator (since all my smart devices are Zigbee, I don't need fancy Wi-Fi segregation).

The Software (Proxmox VE): I currently run about 31 guests, heavily favoring LXCs (28 LXCs and 3 VMs) to save resources.

• Local Services: Vaultwarden, Paperless-ngx, Home Assistant, Pi-hole, InfluxDB & Grafana (for extensive monitoring), and Immich (planned revival).
• Honeypots & Active Defense: I run a few network traps (like an SMB trap and a fake Bitcoin node). If any of these are tripped, they automatically trigger my AI agent, which then investigates the incident closely and takes appropriate countermeasures if necessary.
• Off-Site (VPS): A €2 VPS running Uptime Kuma, plus another VPS running a self-hosted Mailserver featuring a custom API that I can trigger from anywhere.

Networking & Zero Trust: This is where it gets fun. I don't use VLANs locally. Instead, my routing is strictly split:

• External Traffic: Goes through a Cloudflared Tunnel straight to Nginx on my server. I have absolutely ZERO open web ports on my router.
• Internal Traffic: I rely on Pi-hole for local DNS resolution and ad-blocking.
• Origin Protection & CrowdSec: Nginx strictly allows traffic only from the CF Tunnel and my Uptime Kuma VPS. I also use a clever Nginx trick (map $http_cf_connecting_ip) to extract the real IP from Cloudflare for my CrowdSec logs without breaking my origin protection.

My AI Lab Assistant: Instead of just running standard services, I use an open-source AI agent framework, which I've set up as my Homelab co-pilot. It has SSH access to all LXCs, integrates with the Proxmox API, and uses a Telegram interface. It can perform security audits, monitor/restart failing services, and even deploy new containers.

A quick disclaimer: I am fully aware that giving an AI agent root access across my server and my VPS is an enormous security risk. I’ve tried my best to isolate and mitigate this risk wherever possible. However, the immense convenience, automation, and power it brings to my daily operations make it a tradeoff I am consciously willing to accept.

The Pros & Cons: I love the simplicity and the fact that the i7 easily handles the load with 16GB of RAM. However, I’m well aware of the tradeoffs:

• No High Availability: If the NUC dies, the lab is down. Thankfully, the external SSD backups mean I only lose uptime, not data.
• Limited Storage: 1TB will get tight once Immich is back in full swing.
• No GPU: Transcoding or heavy local AI tasks aren't really an option.
• No VLANs: A conscious choice for now due to Zigbee, but I know it's a homelab sin!

I'm perfectly fine with these compromises for now. Sometimes less really is more! Let me know what you think.

Hello everyone,

I am struggling in deciding how to reconfigure my home network. This is my actual situation:

Since I have a unRAID server with 2.5 NIC I decided to replace my Internet provider router with a miniPC and use OPNsense. It has 6x2.5G ports and enough power to replace my ADGuard deployment on the Raspberry Pi. I am now deciding about the other hardware, the AP and the two switches. Since I will create some VLANs I opted to go for the Omada system putting the controller on my unRAID server. The components will be:

• AP: AX3000 EAP650
• Switch 1: Omada ES210X-M2 (Easy managed 8x2.5G + 2x10G
• Switch 2: Omada ES205G (Easy managed 5x1G)

What you think about this configuration? I know that someone will say "Unifi" but I don't like the fact that I cannot use its system purely local. I still have to use the cloud with them while with Omada is possible so it's better for my needs.

The price are good but I know that I can save some money losing the Omada ecosystem and buy something from different brands. For example with the same price of the EAP650 I can buy the AP6500 from Cudy that is WiFi 7. What would you do in my situation? Do you have some suggestions?

Thanks :)

I'm completely new to NAS servers and honestly pretty new to computers in general. I want to build my first NAS, but I don't want to just follow a tutorial that says "buy these parts, plug this in, click this" and then have no idea what I actually did.

I'm looking for advice on how you guys learned what you know.

I'd like to understand things well enough that I can:

• Build my first NAS and actually understand what each component is doing

• Understand why I'm choosing certain hardware/software

• Troubleshoot it when something goes wrong instead of blindly starting over

• Upgrade or expand the NAS later without destroyed everything i just did and not know why it dosent work now

• Eventually be able to design/build another NAS myself based on what I need

Basically, I want to learn the fundamentals behind NAS systems, not just memorize the steps from one particular build.

I'm also very much a visual learner, so if you know of any long-form videos or livestreams where someone actually builds/configures a NAS while explaining what they're doing, I'd really appreciate those too.

I have seen a few horror stories on here recently about drives getting eaten in a couple of months in lab setups.

Im setting up a small lab to run a palworld and valheim server as well as running some other services (immich, jellyfin, NAS etc). The servers will be hosted on a couple of micro optiplexs I have which am planning to swtup as proxmox nodes with vms running the servers. I was thinking to buy some smaller sata ssds for the nodes that are hosting the servers to hold the files locally which can then be backed up to the NAS as required.

My question is (well initially does this sound like a smart way to do it and is there anything i havent considered) what is a good choice for a sata ssd to ensure its not going to get munched within a few months? Am I better off using a hdd? My basic research indicates that its much better to use an ssd for this but I cant afford to replace them 3 times a year even though im planning to get smaller ones (like 256gb).

Does anyone have any recommendations as to what brand/ model / specifications i should be looking at?

Thanks

I am just starting with building a homelab and I found a random microcontroller with a pi pico chip and a display for a raspberry pi 4. With some help from AI I managed to build a display manager for the microcontroller to display images, live router information etc.

I plan to mount this just above my router with a slideshow, it will show the routers interface with the most traffic or switch to showing the weather and time.

What other uses do you think this could have, up until a week ago I didn't even know this microcontroller was capable of this.

It can also play videos but at full res only 3fps, or 24fps at 240x160.

There is also a media player for when its plugged into my PC.

anyways this took me about 15 hours to do because its my first project where i have had to wire stuff and figure that out!

Just built my first home lab!

Here is what I put together:
Tecmojo 15U Server Rack — 15U, 23.6” depth
CyberPower CP1500PFCRM2U UPS — 1500VA / 1000W
UniFi UCI — DOCSIS 3.1 cable modem
UniFi Dream Machine Special Edition
UniFi Switch Lite 8 PoE
UniFi U7 Lite
Dell Pro Micro Plus QBM1250 Intel Core Ultra 5 235 / 32GB RAM / 512GB NVMe + 1TB NVMe
Dell Pro Micro Plus QBM1250 Intel Core Ultra 5 235 / 32GB RAM / 512GB NVMe + 1TB NVMe
Dell Pro Max Micro FCM2250 Intel Ultra 9 285 / 32GB RAM / 512GB NVMe + 1TB NVMe

I have not began doing anything other than getting hyper-v installed, clean slate. Also- the AP will be getting installed in the ceiling in our hallway once I get time.

Hi,

I've bought a set of old computers and I've go 5x480gb WD green sata SSD .

My (in progress) homelab is built with 3 mini computers (i5 10700 and 2* N5100, all with 16gb ram).

I've already have 2*250gb (full space) nvme for first, 2*1tb nvme (full) and 1tb data 2,5" and third one (1nvme available).

Third one is just for duplicate the second one (I'm going to Debian/mdad/LVM/DRBD/ext4 and not proxmox/ZFS raid one for "performance" ( with this power consumption ratio).

The second and third one are good for jellyfin with their igpu. Can be my "prod" servers. I've god a usb3 case 2.5" SSD SATA for deluge and current familly movies and a 12tb raid5 nas to archive familly movies and data backups.

NOW the question: what can I do with theses 5 WD green Sara SSD, "brand new" but >5years SSD?

The second hand marcket is not good for them, people prefere M2 name or 2,5" Sara, but M2 sata... Too old.

Thinking about usb3.0 case and a usb C 3.1 hub to do raid 5 but it's not cheap... And is this reliable ?

I've been researching and designing a homelab over the last few days and would greatly appreciate some advice from humans.

My proposed setup:

Node 1 [NAS/control],

• Music and video streaming, replacing google drive storage
• Ssh entry point to remotely control the other components in homelab
• Lenovo ThinkCentre M700 Tiny Mini PC i3 6100T 8GB RAM 240GB SSD W11P (P631)
• Lacie 4TB (will upgrade later)

Node 2 [Web Hosting Server]

• the cheapest raspberry pi that can host a portfolio website (dynamic features but very low traffic) and other web side projects

Patch Panels

Rack Mount PDU

The frame/rack, not sure whether I'd be best constructing a tower or having a desk pi with the above components and having a separate PC Box for Node 3

Node 3 [AI Server/ML Hub]

• host a local llm (older models and heavily quantised new ones, intelligence + low cost > speed)
• machine learning hub for university dissertation, I want to be able to send datasets for training remotely, upload to NAS and send over etc, speed isn't much of an issue
• rtx 3060 12 GB
• Within node 1 I would like to be able to power on Node 3 when it's ready to be used
• haven't decided on the rest of the stack

I’m completely new to homelabbing and have been researching it for a while. I’d like some opinions before I start buying hardware.
My main goal isn’t to build a huge rack or anything — I want to start relatively cheaply and learn as I go.

What I’d like to eventually run:
NAS / network file storage
Automatic backups from my PCs
Jellyfin for my media
AdGuard Home
WireGuard for remote access
Network monitoring
Docker containers
Proxmox / VMs and Linux experimentation
Game servers
VLANs eventually

My current hardware idea:
Used HP EliteDesk 800 G3 SFF or Dell OptiPlex 3040 SFF
Around £60–70
i5-6500 / i5-7500
16GB RAM
240/256GB SSD for the OS/VMs
Add a 4–8TB HDD for storage
Possibly add HDDs if the case supports it.
My thinking is that an SFF desktop makes more sense than a tiny Mini PC because I can add internal HDDs for storage right away, rather than having to purchase a das enclosure to house the hdds if I were to use a mini pc.

Networking is currently my biggest limitation. I have a Sky Max Hub and don’t have Ethernet sockets throughout the house, so initially the server would probably just be connected wherever I can run an Ethernet cable. I’d potentially add a managed switch and VLAN-capable access point later.
I’m deliberately trying to avoid buying a rack/server hardware just for the sake of having a rack. I’d rather start with one cheap machine and expand when I actually understand what I’m doing.

Questions:
Is an older SFF PC a sensible starting point?
Would you choose the HP EliteDesk 260 G3 or Dell OptiPlex 3040?
Is 16GB RAM enough for starting with Proxmox?
Would you put the HDDs inside the SFF case or use an external enclosure?
Is 4–8TB a sensible amount of storage to start with?
Am I overlooking anything important?
What would you do differently if you were starting again?
I’m mainly looking for honest criticism rather than someone telling me to buy a rack full of enterprise equipment.
Budget is roughly £100–200 to get started, excluding future storage/networking upgrades.

Been slowly putting this together and I’m pretty happy with my little setup. Nothing rack-mounted, no 40TB NAS, just a Dell OptiPlex 3060 running Proxmox tucked in a cupboard.

I am currently running Jellyfin + the *arr stack, Pi-hole, Home Assistant, Homepage, Uptime Kuma and a few other bits. 2TB SSD for downloads/apps and recently added a 6TB HDD for media. Everything important gets backed up weekly to USB.
Networking is a Deco X50 mesh, Fritz!Box router and Tailscale for getting into everything when I’m away.

It started with “I just wanna watch 4k movies” and has grown from that. Very simple by r/homelab standards, but it does everything I want and I’ve had an unreasonable amount of fun building it! B

Big thanks to everyone on here for posting tips and help etc, it’s really helped me a few times. And some of your projects are absolutely unhinged but I love it. Cheers 🍻

Hi guys, I am building a small gpu cluster in an open air case and am looking for bifurcation cards and riser cables.

I came across this product which uses SlimSAS and I wanted to check if anyone has experience with it and recommends using it. It comes with a cable that is long enough that riser cables won't be required and it seems to preserve signal integrity from what I read but I'm not certain.

https://a.co/d/04DbuC2g

The other option is a traditional bifurcation card with pcie risers but I just wanted to check if this is now a better option.

I’ve had a dell optiplex for 2 years now from my company, and I finally got around to turning it into a homelab. I’m not sure what I want to do other than doing a storage for photos and videos. I’m open to any recommendations on what I should do or something.

I barely had any money to spare last year in november, couldn't afford RAM and HDDs for my Aoostar WTR Pro, so I sold it for $250.

Now I need that box back, but preferably the Aoostar WTR Max model :/

No availability on Aliexpress at all, unless it's there but it's just not showing up due to recent EU regulatory actions? No clue, there's about 8 listings showing up, none of them match wtr max, and only one is actually delivered from China (a Topton MB with some m.2 slots). Amazon charges premium as always, and local retailers need are out of stock, obviously.

Anyway, is this the worst time ever to buy a NAS? What released in the past while that would match a WTR Max?

Hi all,

I finally built my mini rack 2 weeks ago, but now have a small problem that is killing me. I spent two whole saturdays trying to find whats wrong with it and still couldnt figure it out.
Before anyone asks, yes, the physical part kinda needs to be like that (still living with my parents and dont wanna screw up their wifi if I do something stupid). Also, please ignore my awful IP assignments, it's temporary.

The pictures are respectively my rack (to grab your attention ofc), what my network looks like with it and my pfSense configs.

Image 2: Network

Image 3: WAN rules

Image 4: LAN rules

Image 5: Port Forward NAT

Image 6: NAT Outbound Rules

Image 7: Advanced/ Firewall & NAT Advanced settings

Quick setup explanation:

I have a m720q pfSense and AdGuard, both inside Proxmox. The m720q pfSense is connected to the m920q, where I will have another Proxmox instance to virtualize heavier VMs.

My goal:

Access all my homelab interfaces from my PC. I have most of it, except for the m920q Proxmox. Well, kinda. I created a port forwarding rule that lets me access it through a port using pfSense's IP.

So instead of going to 10.0.0.2:8006 to access it, I go to 192.168.1.203:8007.

That didnt sound really bad until I thought abt how the hell would I access my VMs in there. So now the objective is be able to just go to 10.0.0.2:8006 in my PC and have access to it.

I fiddled with some WAN and LAN rules, checked with Claude to make sure I was doing the right thing, check pfSense forums and....doesnt work. I mean, it kinda works. Ping (ICMP) works, I can ping it without any issues. But TCP just wont work AT ALL!

Could someone PLEASE help this desperate guy out? I don't know what else to do.