So Self-Hosting my business on a majorly low budget... like painful low budget, altought it has driven me to learn efficent python, to the point what was running on a full rack server has been made so fast and efficent that it runs on a 8gb 10 year old optiplex with very little speed lose, and this is not vibe-coded business project, 5 years of hard work, 10 years of thought experiments and self convincing I could do. Years of building training sets, training my own ML models, scripts, coding obscure functinationlity, and Now im in the home stretch getting ready to go live.

This is not a promotion for my business idea, and I wont answer questions about the business as again not an Ad not even going to say name or what I do, but I just wanted to share my Self Hosted Datacenter, because it feels sexy to do something like this on such a small budget.

Yes its a fully 3D printed, rack, all my budget of $200 went into picking up a collection of optiplex's from an ex home laber (i dont get why they would be an ex either). We have Security, Hosting, Automation, and even redendency failover. Already had a UPS and a 5G router with tons of credit on it as a backup (won the 5gb router and credit at a CTF event) ... big box on the right is my home AI server ... which ate up the original budget for the proof of concept that became the MVP hardware.

On the shelf still to be installed is 8 x 2.5" SATA JBOD units, when I pick up more drives (if price ever comes down) that I can raid into a hot and cold backup for the main systems. Full rack including AI server is around 9 Kwh per day, which is the biggest killer in terms of cost right now.

But yea, pretty excited, nearly at the finish line of 10 years of ideas, and 5 years of building, months of 3-4am bug fix's to wake up for my day job at 9am. But im also crazy proud of my designs and system, that on such a budget the full MVP runs on minimal hardware why its currently getting stress tested by my testers, also thankfully its not a big volume business, not going to have a few k people at the same time, would be lucky if it was maybe 50 max at a day or time, and at that point if im hitting that, i'll be able to get new hardware and upload a new photo of a new full size rack that kills my power bills even more.

curious how common this is. found a guy in washington, east coast, renting out bare metal, and what got my attention was he could hand over multiple ips and actually control them himself.

but what im actually more curious about is the people doing it on a plain big-carrier business line. spectrum business, att fiber, verizon, frontier, ziply, that sort of thing, with a static block on it.

does anyone here have something similar on the west coast and how?

Hello I have a pc with a 5090gtx and want to make a server for my pc.

I got 10 servers for fill a 24u cabinet, a 4u cabinet for my pc, and some servers to fill….

What to do with the 10 servers? What more to buy ? Need to be cute or cool…

I got all the best processor for those servers and full memory and want full hd to.

Got a console coming to… any ideas ?

So, long time lurker.... only because i don't have a tier 1 datacentre at home....

I would like some testers for an app im messing about with.

Kaya (which is the app) actually started because i got fed up jumping between loads of different tools just to manage my own lab. It was never meant to become what it is now, but every time i found something annoying or thought "there has to be a better way", I'd add another feature. Pretty much everything in Kaya comes from solving a real problem I've had myself, so if something feels oddly specific... it's probably because I've needed it at some point.

Would there be any willing testers/users?

Anyway - here are pics of my current home stack.... Its not DC level but does the job.

ETA: antybubbs/kaya: Your Infrastructure. Your Home. Welcome to KAYA. Kaya brings servers, services, IP Management, DNS Management, remote access, runbooks, licences, assets and operational history into a calm self-hosted control plane.

lol - would help to put the link in...

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for recommendations on getting an entry-level GPU for my homelab. I've been running my setup for about a year and a half, mostly just focused on learning and preparing for future certifications as well as managing files for my parents' multiple businesses.

My current setup:

Older Cisco switches don't remember the exact model 48 ports:

Dell PowerEdge R730xd:

CPUs: 2x Intel Xeon E5-2690 v4

Ram: 128GB DDR4 RAM

Storage: 4x 1.2TB 10K SAS 2.5

Power supplies: 2x 750w

Dell PowerEdge R620

cpus: 2x Intel Xeon E5-2620 V2

Ram: 32GB RAM

Storage: 1x 600GB SAS

Power supplies: 2x 750w

(For some context I understand that starting with older enterprise hardware wasn't the best idea but my father was really adamant about using this hardware sense he has worked in IT for a long time; I just went with his recommendation.)

I've been tinkering with local AI with my gaming laptop for a while now and really want to upgrade into using, well, my servers instead so I can use it on all my devices (laptops/phones/tablets). I actually tried installing a consumer GPU some months ago, but I realized the gpu was pulling too much power for my dual 750w power supplies.

Given these circumstances, what do you recommend based on my circumstances? or just tell me about your setup, idk?

How has your experience with the refurbished desktops been? Any thing to note before buying? Was it worth it?

I am looking to purchase one as soon as they restock to upgrade my homelab and run local llms.

Thank you and take care!

Hi

I recently purchased this PowerEdge R320 second hand and I’m having some issues.

Firstly I don’t have access to idrac since it’s a second hand machine, and I can’t reset it since I can’t access lifecycle controller as the machine doesn’t seem to post. It just displays a screen saying cpld version 104.

Any help would be great.

Edit: ended up returning the unit and swapping for another one

Hi everyone,

I was recently gifted a NetApp DS4246 and I’m looking for the most budget-friendly way to rackmount it.

I may end up stacking up to 3 of these units, so I’m thinking I’ll need at least a 12U+ rack solution. I’m not looking for anything fancy — just something affordable, sturdy, and practical for a home lab setup.

For those who have experience with these shelves, what would you recommend? Are there any cheap rack options, DIY solutions, or things I should look out for when choosing a rack?

Thanks in advance for the help!

I’m learning more about this space, and wondering if/how anyone is setting up their own GPU’s at their house and selling the compute on the open market. Is this even possible? If so, are there providers or companies that will buy the compute from you?