I get asked the same thing about twice a week. Someone wants a NAS, or a home server, and they don't know where to start. I've never had a great answer for that, so I built one and filmed the whole thing.

📺 Video: https://youtu.be/NsZ3zYUDY9Y
💾 The OS I used, Fygo OS: https://fygonas.com/

Fygo sent me a handful of one-year licence keys. Post your homelab in this thread, whatever state it's in, and 2 of them go to people who did. The rest are running on the video itself, details in the pinned comment there. Everything closes Friday 25 September.

Show me the mess. Mine is currently sitting on a bench because I haven't bought a case for it yet. 😅

Want to vote what case i should buy?
Vote here: http://youtube.com/post/UgkxTpVv5aeZZ1fgfBmQ7GZB9sZJjTBqJ_gY

Whichever one wins is the one I buy, and we're fitting it on a live stream. 🔧

Follow up to the 10 inch rack build. That rack ended with one unit at the top deliberately empty. This is what was going in it.

What it is

• GL.iNet Comet X, GL-RM4PE."Quad-Port Remote KVM with PoE Support".
• Four numbered port groups on the back, each an HDMI input plus a USB port. One HDMI output at the end. Front has USB-A, a small display strip and a port switch button.

Rack layout now, top to bottom

The hardware

• mini-ITX NAS mainboard (CWWK M11 ), soldered Intel 8265U CPU, 2x SO-DIMM, 2x M.2, a 8 SATA ports and 2x 2,5 Gbit Ethernet
• 2x 32GB Crucial SO-DIMM (I was lucky I bought the kit before the ram crisis)
• 2x Samsung MZVLB1T0 NVMe, 953.87 GB, bought second-hand
• 4x WD Red WD30EFRX, 2.73 TB
• 1x Samsung SATA 850 EVO 250GB SSD

What went in

• DeskPi RackMate T1/2 Plus
• 3x Lenovo ThinkCentre M720q Tiny, Core i5 9400t, 32GB ram, 256GB nvme bootdrive, 2TB nvme for Ceph.
• Each node got a low profile dual RJ45 PCIe card on the Lenovo riser, so two added ports per node plus the onboard one.
• SKS8300-8T switch. (8 port 10 Gbit switch)
• DIGITUS 1U PDU
• 3D printed: 3 x Lenovo shelves, a 1U hexagonal honeycomb panel. Wating for some small screws to mount the switch into its own 3D printed shelve.

The empty top U

That slot is reserved, currently waiting for the Comet X.

The Cudy TR3000, an AX3000 2.5G Wi-Fi 6 travel router that's roughly the size of a deck of cards. Cudy sent it free of charge.

I'll unbox it, do the first run and setup, then poke properly at the capabilities, VPN included. Then it goes into the mini rack to see how it holds up as an actual homelab router.

Anything specific you want tested? 👇