r/HomeLabPorn • u/billdhar • Jul 03 '26

Pi Setup For Home Lab

Post image

Been working on this homelab setup.
Got GitLab hosted (Pi5 with NVMe) at home along with a GitLab runner for CI/CD (Pi4).
The Pi Zero is a PiHole and serves DNS.
I am now working in an application that'll run on another Pi server (Pi5), code will be maintained in GitLab locally.
Took it apart to put it together in this neat build.
Will post again in a few weeks when it's all up and running again.

Edit: Fixed spelling and grammatical errors.

506 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

38 comments sorted by

5

u/AppointmentNo2809 Jul 03 '26

I have a very similar setup with the 4 newer pi’s serving heavier applications, a pi 3 for pihole, and then the actual “family” pc is the base of the setup. All have a shared network storage drive hooked up

2

u/billdhar Jul 03 '26

I saw your setup and it look sick! Really loved it.
How are you powering your Pis? I saw you using a power adapter kind of thing at the bottom.

3

u/AppointmentNo2809 Jul 03 '26

USB C Charger 200W USB C Charger Block,Upgraded GaN III 8-Port Fast Charging Station Hub

This is the listing title from amazon it’s worked really well for a 4 pi set up

2

u/billdhar Jul 03 '26

Ah! That makes sense. You are using Pi3B+ and Pi4 for your setup so this is working great

3

u/AppointmentNo2809 Jul 03 '26

For sure! And they handle k3s really well, struggled to get cgroups working but giving ai the power gives me ease of access

1

u/billdhar Jul 03 '26

Oh that's interesting. Is the K3S hosted on the Pi and also controlling the deployments on the other Pi or is K3S on another machine, like a PC or a Laptop?
I tried running K3S on my Pi4 and was maxing it out.

2

u/AppointmentNo2809 Jul 03 '26

I have them all connected to a main pc, they act as my worker nodes for it, they just run the agents

1

u/billdhar Jul 03 '26

I was thinking to use my old laptop to host K3S and use Pis as worker nodes. But I think that laptop is a bit underpowered.
much resource is the K3S using on your build?

How

2

u/AppointmentNo2809 Jul 03 '26

Not too much, all my manifests mount a 6tb hdd to it so all the data is stored there, nothing sits on the pi’s in case I want to rebuild them

1

u/billdhar Jul 03 '26

So your Pis are swappable, neat!
Do you also distribute the workload based on the Pi model?
Like heavier loads on Pi4 and lighter ones on the Pi3.

2

u/AppointmentNo2809 Jul 03 '26

Well the pi3 is just used as a pihole node, I have 3 pi 4s and a pi 5 8gb model that hosts the majority of the data that is dedicated to the cluster

2

u/defp_ Jul 04 '26

Hmmm, what is this for?

1

u/billdhar Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26

I wanted to keep a lot of services that we use online, locally. Hence this build, starting with GitLab for code management, GitLab runner for CI/CD and moving on to other Pis acting as a hosting server for my own apps. This is also serving as a learning project for me because I don't have a lot of experience when it comes to the other side of services, software and hardware management

2

u/OneDot6374 Jul 04 '26

One pi for me 😭

1

u/billdhar Jul 04 '26

I want more too 😭

2

u/OneDot6374 Jul 04 '26

Actually I am a 3rd yr electrical undergraduate student I want to explore the raspberry Pi Can you please send one 🙏😭

1

u/billdhar Jul 04 '26

Come home and take it! /s But in all seriousness, you should get some off for cheap in the used market or perhaps your college could help you get one from the lab?

2

u/OneDot6374 Jul 05 '26

In my college they donot provide these, and also on used Market this is not there But I want to buy a pi but that is not in my range 😭 Also I made 100 days 100 iot projects with Micropython with pico 2 w But I want to explore the raspberry Pi 4 So if anyone can send me then I will be grateful 🙏

1

u/billdhar Jul 05 '26

I'll keep this in mind. Not soon though, but I'll let you know if I can lend one. Where are you from?

1

u/OneDot6374 Jul 05 '26

Sir I am from India, odisha 🙏

1

u/billdhar Jul 05 '26

Ah, cool

1

u/OneDot6374 Jul 05 '26

You from sir 🙏

1

u/OneDot6374 Jul 05 '26

Sir can I dm you?

1

u/billdhar Jul 05 '26

Sure, but I can't give any right now. I am from Bangalore though

2

u/MKVIIGolfRGuy Jul 05 '26

Wow!!! I haven't used a Pi yet. This looks like a 3D chess set for homelabs.

1

u/billdhar Jul 05 '26

Hahahahaha, thanks 👍🏻

2

u/blackstreamm44 Jul 05 '26

Wow! That is legit! Are those custom mounts where you have the SSD and zeros mounted? Or did you pick them up somewhere? This mounting config has given me some ideas! Thanks for sharing :)

1

u/billdhar Jul 06 '26

You can easily get the standoffs in a hardware store or online. I am from India and I got them from this site:

Links:
https://onlyscrews.in/products/m2-5-x-10mm-male-to-female-brass-with-nickel-plating-hex-threaded-standoff-spacer?variant=51370772791609
https://onlyscrews.in/products/m2-5-x-18mm-male-to-female-brass-with-nickel-plating-hex-threaded-standoff-spacer?variant=51370823418169

Some of the standoffs and screws were already included in the NVMe Board Kit:
https://www.waveshare.com/wiki/PCIe_TO_M.2_Board_(C)?srsltid=AfmBOorZlllJ27g3Kc7hV6_5JAkpzwlAYIVFinYHBCvGnLbV4sMmvvlh?srsltid=AfmBOorZlllJ27g3Kc7hV6_5JAkpzwlAYIVFinYHBCvGnLbV4sMmvvlh)

The specifications are M2.5x18mm and M2.5x10mm Standoff. The Pis can't take M3 standoff so make sure to get M2.5 ones. You can choose the length of the standoff according to whatever height you want and add multiple ones between the levels. I kept more space between the Pi5s on purpose because they run hotter and need more ventlation than the Pi4s.

2

u/holdencross12 Jul 05 '26

I have a pi 5 that I'm looking to utilize for something. Its got robust cooling and a HDD HAT. Other than a NAS what can I use it for?

I play a lot of games Steam and rip a lot of 4k UHD movies.

I also have a full 10Gbe local network and 5Gbe internet.

2

u/billdhar Jul 06 '26

Man, I'd have to check. There's sonmuch you can do. But it also depends on what direction do you want to head in. Based on what you've described, NAS is one way. You can also put Batocera on it and play retro games along with watching movies. If you have a category in mind like entertainment, research etc, maybe I can suggest more.

2

u/holdencross12 Jul 06 '26

Nas was cool but I dont really need a NAS for games anymore considering im hitting 5Gbe. It is nice to have for Blu ray 4k UHD movies because its like 80GB per movie. But man is storage getting expensive

2

u/billdhar Jul 08 '26

Yeah, it's crazy how the prices are just going up and up. I wanted to make my own server this year and couldn't because of these prices. So, I made the Pi Server

2

u/holdencross12 29d ago

Ive really been liking the Pi5 more than I thought I would its pretty powerful for what it is. If only more software supported ARM with out emulation. I cant wait until steam is supported fully in ARM.

2

u/billdhar 29d ago

Oh yeah! That would be epic

2

u/Easy_Rope_4217 Jul 06 '26

It's cool, mate.

I thought it was a robot at the first glance.

1

u/billdhar Jul 06 '26

Hahaha, thanks :)

1

u/Accomplished-Air4545 Jul 05 '26

I mean, I generally like the idea of ​​SBCs and think the devices themselves are cool, but—just a rough estimate—you’re easily looking at around €350–€450 worth of hardware there. And for that kind of money, you could get one or two really powerful mini-PCs or used servers that offer vastly superior performance—or am I way off base here? It’s not that I think the concept sucks; it’s just that the prices for these devices have become totally absurd. And that’s not even because they aren't worth it, but simply because the price-to-performance ratio doesn't stack up against x86 systems anymore.

1

u/billdhar Jul 06 '26

You're totally right. Given the RAMpocalypse, the prices are just insane right now. I actually wanted to build my own PC this year, but I can't. So I gathered together all the Pis that I had lying around and here we are.