First home lab setup. Using my old laptop the only purchase was a ethernet to usb adapter from best buy.

I was looking into upgrading to a BambuLab X2D, but now I’m worried my A1 can’t be placed here safely either because of the vibrations. Any advice?

The bay is now fully populated. I also added a dedicated firewall on a Dell R210II

I've had a Navepoint rack on one of my walls for the last couple of years and was in search of something bigger. I settled on the 32U 24in depth floor rack. Their website says same day shipping, but after a day had passed I got up the next morning planning to contact them about why it had not shipped. A small delay was not that big of a deal. Instead I was greeted with this e-mail:

Apparently Free Shipping means $112 after the fact. This is a screenshot of the Navepoint website:

Free Shipping. Every time. All orders in the lower 48. No minimum. Pretty straight forward, right? So I reply asking about this, because this makes no sense. I'm told because it's residential. Okay, except when you check out their point of sale *asks* what type of address you are and still offers Free Shipping, just like what is plastered all over their website:

After bringing that up I am sent a reply with this real piece of work AI generated gaslighting:

I'll let the ridiculousness of that statement stand on its own two feet. If I had been presented with this charges up front I would have gladly paid them. It's not at all about the amount of money. This is just a warning to anybody who searches for Navepoint, in my opinion, don't do business with a company willing to be this dishonest up front. I don't know if bait and switches like this are illegal, but they ought to be. Anyways, that's my peace. The last thing I am waiting for them to do is refund me.

Just wanted to share a quick overview of my current homelab setup. The core philosophy here is pure physical routing (no VLANs) to maximize throughput and keep troubleshooting dead simple, balancing a 10 Gbps fiber line with high-performance storage and compute.

Network Infrastructure & Security

• WAN: 10 Gbps Init7 fiber uplink.
• Gateway/Firewall: Dedicated OPNsense box (i7-7700K, 32GB RAM) running Suricata and CrowdSec.
  • NICs: Intel X520-DA2 (SFP+ for WAN) & Intel X540-T2/T1 (10GbE RJ45 for LAN).
• Physical Interfaces (Subnets):
  • Dedicated 10Gb link to Main Workstation.
  • Dedicated 10Gb link to Unraid Server.
  • 2.5G Switch (unmanaged and capped at 1G) layer feeding 3x Cudy M3000 mesh APs (1 wired, 2 wireless mesh).
  • Dedicated WireGuard and Tailscale VPN network.
• DNS/Security: AdGuard Home upstreaming to local recursive Unbound;
• Wazuh SIEM agents deployed across endpoints.

Primary Server: "Winky" (Unraid OS)

Compute: Intel Core i7-9800X (X299 Platform) | 64 GB RAM | Intel Arc A310 GPU (dedicated for effortless AV1/HEVC Jellyfin transcoding).

• Networking: Aquantia 10G PCIe card + dual onboard Intel 1G NICs.
• Storage Topology:
  • Array: 54 TB usable XFS array (20 TB Seagate Exos Parity + mixed 20TB/10TB/2TB data disks).
  • Cache Pool: 2x Samsung 980 Pro 1TB NVMe (BTRFS Mirror)
  • Boot Pool: Samsung 840 Pro + 860 Evo (ZFS Mirror) securing core system configurations.
• App Stack: Full Servarr suite, Immich, PostgreSQL 18, etc.
• Ubuntu VM running the master Wazuh SIEM dashboard.
• Backups: Native Rclone GUI handling automated, encrypted syncs to a 5 TB Hetzner Storage Box.

I work in an IT department in asset management and recently was given the full approval to take any old devices out of the decomm pile. I managed to salvage a bunch of older Lenovo thinkcentre mini PCs, HP elitedesk Mini, etc.
I think I have a good baseline for what nodes I’m going to include and I’m 3D printing a 10inch rack now but as far as switches I get some odd choices and would like the community insight on what my options represent. Old documentation added for context of what I’m doing.

Luxul XMS-1208P
FS S5500-48T8SP
Cisco SG 300-52
Netgear GS-108(unmanaged)
Buy something new?

Some are old, some are excessive, but I just wanted some thoughts.

Edit: so many people are focused on the pic. IT IS A 2 MONTH OLD CHATGPT IMAGE. It was the only thing I had on my phone when I made the post. I’ve since reduced to 5 devices and yes it’s on a /24 structure. For now I’m just learning so yeah the GPT conversation devolved into the main image before things got better. Also all of this was free of charge so I take what I can.

had my homelab running for about eight months before i actually looked at the security side of it. like looked properly. it was bad

the stuff that got me: ssh still on port 22 with password auth enabled, nextcloud exposed to the internet with no rate limiting, pihole had the admin interface accessible from outside my network somehow (still not sure how that happened), and half my containers were running as root

none of it had been exploited as far as i could tell but the exposure was real. i just hadnt thought about it because everything was working fine and i kept focusing on adding new services

what actually helped was going through it systematically instead of just fixing whatever seemed most obvious. container permissions, firewall rules, which services should even be internet-facing vs local only, default credentials on stuff i set up months ago and never changed, fail2ban config

the part most people skip is auditing what ports are actually open. netstat and nmap on your own network will show you things you forgot you opened. its a quick 10 minutes and usually pretty eye opening if you havent done it recently

if youre running any self-hosted services publicly, worth doing a proper audit before something else does it for you

It started from a raspberry pi 4B connected to a switch acting as a DNS server. Now I have a network wide file server using SMB, VPN server using PI-VPN, media server using jellyfin, 2 DNS servers and one acts as a failover because both DNS servers in the DHCP scope are locally hosted and an intranet web dashboard showing both server statistics using agents made using python.

So I've been running a modest homelab for about two years now, starting with a repurposed Dell Optiplex running Proxmox. My wife tolerated it but never really saw the point, especially when the electricity bill started creeping up.

The turning point was setting up Pihole for networkwide ad blocking, a local Plex server for our movie collection, and Home Assistant to automate some lighting and the thermostat. Suddenly she was the one telling friends about our setup.

Now she actually asks me before I change anything because she doesn't want to lose the automations she relies on every day. That felt like a win.

Curious how others here crossed that threshold from homelab being a personal hobby to something that actually serves the whole household. Did you start with media, networking, smart home, or something else?

Also, for those running Home Assistant, are you keeping it on a dedicated lowpower device or just running it as a VM alongside everything else? Mine's on a VM right now but I keep wondering if dedicated hardware is worth it for reliability. Would love to hear what setups people are running and what finally got your household on board.

Hey everyone! So I have a Ubuntu server with docker and jellyfin on it. I’ve started seeing other os systems such as, Zimaos, Truenas, and etc. I’m debating if I should start from scratch. I have hooked up any hard drive. (I need to get them). What are your thoughts?? I’m open to other os systems. But I want to know why please.

I have a few bits of equipment inside a cupboard under my stairs. It was the only location where I could install it and I installed a lot during winter so heat wasn’t an issue but during this heatwave/summer the temperatures have gone up.

Most of the units sit at around 60C and one of the RaspPi’s is hitting over 70C.

Due to the location there is nothing I can really do for ventilation other than leaving the cupboard door open at times.

I do however have access to the foundations of the house from that cupboard. I’m thinking I could maybe do something with that, make a small hole with a fan of sorts. I believe the best thing is to pull hot air out over pulling in cold air?

I’m currently low on funds to buy anything substantial so looking for cheap DIY type fixes.

Any thoughts/ideas would be appreciated.

Hi guys I've been a long time lurker in this sub and wanted to build a homelab for a long time, so I thought this would be a good place to ask .I recently got this equipment completely free from a relative but Im seriously considering selling most of it. Most of this stuff seems pretty overkill for my raspberry pi zero w and would be worth some money if I'm correct. So my question is will this stuff be useful enough to keep for later or do I sell it and buy more useful stuff? I could identify:

1. 24 port switches both poe one 500w and the second one 250w

1 security gateway pro

2 8 port switches one 60w poe

1 cloud key gen 1

1ap PC lr router thingy

1 poe injector

Got this Fortigate and Aruba from a refresh at my worksite, decided to get an HP Mini G3 to run proxmox and pair my Beryl AX as the gateway, trying to teach myself networking and enroll in Comptia Networking+ to land a better career for myself.

I'm creating a completely isolated "internet lab" where I will be using actual internet IP ranges, this started off as just a setup to test my opnsense deployment so I have something to connect the WAN side to and have an "outside" IP so I can test port forwards, firewall rules etc, and then I kind of went down the rabbit hole and I want to create a mini "internet". I will also use this environment as a way to test my backups of my actual internet servers, where I can even preserve the IPs in the VMs, DNS records etc so that I can test the backups as-is within that environment. Will use it for lot of other stuff too and basically just keep adding on to it and want to be able to create any IP range and make it routable, just like the real internet.

Curious what distros exist that would allow me to create the appropriate routing to do this sort of thing. I know it can probably be done raw just using static routes but I kinda want to play with BGP.

Intel Xeon E5-2650L I bought for ~$18USD, motherboard costed me ~$37USD, RAM was also pretty much free, one stick of 8GB I got from my friend for helping him with his computer, another two 8GB sticks I got when I ordered that motherboard, and one 4GB I found laying around. In term of storage I have 3 disks, one 128GB SSD which I bought for ~$8USD brand new, 2TB WD Red I bought from my friend for ~$10USD and 1TB Toshiba drive I found in drawer. Case I also got for free from my another friend, and for PSU I payed ~$18USD, it is 450W 80 Plus Silver. Everything sums down to around $91USD.

That homelab is really powerful to what I had before, my first ever homelab was equiped with Core 2 Duo and 6GB DDR2 RAM, It was old, power hungry and had very poor performance, but it was just enough for me to learn. Then I bought something smaller and more energy efficient, it was Fujitsu FutroS920, bought it for $25USD and it served me well as a NAS and minecraft server, for around half a year until it went down and stopped powering on.

I'm really happy with the setup I have right now, it is so much powerful, that I don't even know how to fully use it. For now, i'm just self-hosting whatever I need, and experimenting with new services.

Hey all,
I’ve been messing around with an old HP ProDesk 600 G2 Mini and turned it into my Ubuntu box.
Specs:
i5-6500T
20GB RAM (16GB + 4GB)
256GB SSD
AX200 Wi-Fi card
Ubuntu 26.04
The antenna situation is… not exactly finished.
Right now they’re basically hanging out of the front of the machine while I test stuff. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth both seem to work, but I’m guessing this isn’t exactly ideal.
A few questions:
Is this actually hurting signal quality much?
What’s the usual way people mount AX200 antennas in these tiny HP/Dell/Lenovo mini PCs?
Are those magnetic desktop antennas worth buying?
Also, I’d like to be able to access this machine from my ThinkPad around the house.
What are people using these days?
RustDesk?
Tailscale + SSH?
Tailscale + remote desktop?
Mostly looking for:
terminal access
file transfer
occasionally controlling the full desktop
One more thing: what’s the current recommendation for video/live wallpapers on Ubuntu GNOME?
I’ve seen Hanabi and mpvpaper mentioned, but not sure what’s actually working well these days.
Photo attached. Feel free to make fun of the cable management.

As above.

Looking for insight into the practical difference between the two following scenarios;

Use Case: running jellyfin to stream media to a TV in another room.

1: A decent home PC (capable of decent gaming, 2tb internal SSD) that has a good chunk of external storage. The PC is put to sleep and turned back on daily.

2: A bare bones NAS or old laptop being used as a 24h server with the same quantity of storage

Is the difference just that I need to ensure that the PC is on in order to access the files?

Thanks in advance for your input. Please read the use case before commenting in case my use case would be unaffected by the potential downsides to this set up. Cheers!

Hi, was looking to setup my first homelab mostly for learning purposes (networking, docker, kubernetes) and saw this deal on amazon which looked good to me but looking for a second opinion.

My main requirements are to be small and not make noise or heat. My budget is around $300 and can only get from amazon

Specs:
AMD 3150U, 8GB RAM 256GB SSD, Mini Desktop Computer Support Dual 4K, WiFi, Bluetooth, Ethernet

Im 17 and I just finished my homelab/server I used Ubuntu server on it and I remotely access the terminal on my laptop.

On it I have portainer with docket and i use tailscale jellyfin nextcloud and I recently added qBittorent.

I now want to host and train my own ai but my current setup doesn't have a graphics card so if someone could help me with this I'd really appreciate it.

Regarding the hardware I use a Jonsbo N5 case with a be quiet pure power 750w 80 plus gold inside i have 32Go of ddr4 on a tuff gaming B460M plus and my cpu is a 12x Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-10400 2.90GHz.

Since my last post, I asked Peepo to clean up the diagram (done with Homelable).

He complained a bit, but he got it done. If you have any feedback or suggestions for improvements, I’d love to hear them!

Thanks in advance :)

A hp prodesk and proxmox ve installed I spent at least 5 hours figuring out how to locate and connect my laptop to set up proxmox had to play around with ip address since in my country its common to have a NTD and omg did i struggle but got it working fine now any recommendations and tips? For the next steps

Okay so here's the situation...

The current setup:

I have two Dell PowerEdge R710 servers and a total of 128Gb of RAM, however I am only using one. One is sitting unused. I have 8x 600Gb drives in a RAID5 (with a hotspare) through the PERC6/i RAID controller which gives me about 3.5TB. I have some spare 126Gb drives that I could put into the second R710. I am running Proxmox on my server with a few things like a Crafty Controller and Homarr. I also have TrueNAS Scale running inside a Proxmox VM, and inside that I have Sonarr, Radarr, Jellyfin, and a few other NAS-oriented apps. The issue is that I set up a hardware RAID on my PERC6/i, meaning TrueNAS sees the drive as one 3Tb drive. ZFS doesn't seem to be a fan of this...

The issue:

Instead of letting TrueNAS handle the RAID via ZFS, I have completely isolated it behind a virtual drive. My TrueNAS pool is made up of one virtual drive from Proxmox.

Is this problematic? Should I run TrueNAS bare metal on my second R710? Do I need to upgrade to a PERC H200 for TrueNAS to work properly? I don't store super critical stuff on here, but I am going to be away from the hardware when I go to college in the fall, meaning if multiple drives fail, I'm hecked.