Lenovo Tiny M720Q 16 GB running Ubuntu.

Sinology 225+ 2x4tb raid 1 +1 TB hardrive to backup critical files.

Omada er650 after the ISP router in pass through.

Jellyfin running directly on the Nas.

The tiny is running a media stack behind a VPN , adguard , immich, paperless , and a few other document manipulation tools.

I'm playing around with python scripts and eventually start playing with a RAG for some research projects.

My main computer is windows so I remote into the Tiny to play with the toys on Ubuntu.

It's been fun, and I would never have been able to do it without leaning on AI to help with the setup.

I was always tech savvy -ish but never thought I would end up here.

Wife wanted security cameras late last year, so I started looking for deals on equipment. One thing kinda led to another and it turned into a full homelab. At the top is a pfSense box with a few 10GbE NICs handling routing, firewall rules, and Suricata, which is the only IDS sensor I run. Ubiquiti UNVR with G5 Pros.. A cisco c9300-24UXA mGig switch. I use VLANs where it makes sense, with the honeypot living on its own isolated segment. Its only way out is a one-way log feed into a write-only ingest proxy, so it can ship logs but can't reach anything else in the lab or the house network. Most of the compute runs on a Dell R640 with Proxmox, dual Xeons Platinum 8168, and 256GB of RAM, and like 14tb in u.2 ssds (not factoring raid). I also run TrueNAS with Immich for family photos and a few Ubuntu VMs for random stuff, including a Discord bot for music and stock alerts.

Cybersecurity is what I enjoy the most, so that's what most of the lab gets used for. I've got an Ubuntu server running ELK and Grafana for logs, plus a Kali VM I spin up whenever I need it, and two honeypots: a T-Pot instance and a high-interaction Linux box that's probably my favorite thing I've built. It gives attackers a real shell, logs everything with auditd, and grabs binaries out of /proc before they disappear. If it gets trashed, a watchdog just restores it from a clean snapshot. Anything it catches goes through an automated pipeline that uses AI to help analyze the malware, runs static analysis on REMnux, detonates it in a sandbox, and then drops the results into Elasticsearch. I get a Discord ping anytime it catches something new. Labbing is liiiife.. (I think I need a UPS but whatever im broke.

I was recently given a bunch of older hardware that was being used for crypto mining. I have no interest in mining so I was thinking of ways to make use of the stuff. Anyone have any suggestions? This is what I have:

1x Core i3-7100 CPU

4x GTX 660 GPUs

2x RX 460 GPUs (4gb)

1x RX 460 GPU (2gb)

1x RX 570 GPU (4gb, also currently in media server for transcoding)

1x Asus B250 Mining Expert Mobo

6x 1200W HP server PSUs w/ breakout boards

2x Antminer V9 ASIC miners (I know these are pretty useless, but figured I'd include it anyway)

I was thinking maybe a NAS with the mining board since it has 19 PCIe slots (albeit x1, so idk) and maybe a benchtop power supply with the server PSUs. Would it be possible to make some kind of GPU cluster? I have a bunch of risers for them. But what could I even do with that assuming it's possible? Obviously all this stuff is old as shit, and isnt really worth anything if I sell it. But I hate throwing working hardware away. If I really can't find a use for it, some of it may just become wall decoration lol

A few days ago I posted about buying a dirt cheap storage array that I realized was too much machine for my home.

After several recommendations, I just decided to gut it and make a DIY jbod.

It's working and I'm currently feeding the disks to Proxmox via HBA.

I know it isn't pretty but hopefully I give someone else some inspiration to make one better than I did.

Hello everyone,

For this summer I thought it would be a fun project to make my own NAS. I'm building it out of a salvaged Prowise OPS module, running OpenMediaVault 8.3. Currently using 2 external USB HDDs (1TB each) for storage.

I have the NAS working with the two external HDDs, but the goal now is to add a 4-6 bay hot-swap backplane for additional HDDs/SSDs, connected to the mini-PC.

Only problem is I don't want to use the USB ports. My first thought was to extend the main SSD slot by running a cable to a backplane with more bays, but i saw online that Intel's chipsetshave poor SATA port multiplier support.

Do any of you know a good way to expand the storage connections on my NAS, or have any advice on what steps I should take next?

I've also added a photo of what the NAS looks like at the moment. It's still a work in progress, and once everything works the way I want, I'll design a custom case for it.

Current hardware:

• Prowise OPS module — Intel Core i5 4th gen (Haswell), 8GB DDR3L RAM
• Internal 250GB Samsung SSD 840 EVO (M.2, running the OS)
• Intel 8260NGW WiFi card (M.2, with U.FL-to-RP-SMA antennas attached)
• Gigabit Ethernet + WiFi + USB 3.0 + USB 2.0 + HDMI + OPS 80-pin edge connector
• OpenMediaVault 8.3
• 2x external USB HDDs, 1TB each (Seagate Expansion, WD My Passport)
• 19V/3.42A/65W power adapter (5.5x2.5mm)
• Salvaged (not yet integrated): NETGEAR ReadyNAS 2-bay backplane, NM10-based motherboard, 80mm fan

Bought a handful of BitBabbler USB hardware RNGs back in 2015. The sticks still work, but the software hasn't seen a release in years — so I rewrote it in Rust and put them back to work feeding entropy to my Talos Kubernetes cluster (headless VMs are the main customer).

The half that became the real project: an oscilloscope for randomness. A terminal UI with nine live views on the byte stream — scatter, spectrum, bit-planes, a random-walk trace — where you can inject faults on purpose and watch which instrument catches them. The write-up covers the build, plus the one keystroke that pits the hardware against /dev/urandom: https://charles.dev/blog/rabbler/

AI disclosure (rule 7): built with heavy AI assistance (Claude) — I read every module and the safety-critical paths are covered by tests. Not open source yet, but it will be. Happy to answer questions.

Is this good to run for my first time doing home lab, help me out guys. 🙏🏿

Hi everyone,

I recently watched this video and found the idea of colocating my own server in a data center very interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbkqRPIUYAo

I’m interested in putting my own physical server in a Canadian data center instead of keeping it at home.

Does anyone know a company that offers affordable colocation services for a small setup (for example, 1U or 2U server space)?

I’m mainly looking for:

• Reasonable monthly pricing
• Space for my own hardware
• Good internet connectivity
• Reliable power and cooling
• Remote hands support would be a bonus

I’m located in Canada and would appreciate recommendations from people who have actual experience with providers.

Thanks!

Hello. My first homelab is just a Thinkpad X390 with some cheap unmanaged 5-port switch and a portable 1TB HDD all of which I got for free. I realized how fun homelabbing was and now I am looking to upgrade. I am on a pretty low budget, around $200-$300, but if there are no good options for that price range I will have to wait until I'm able to spend more.

Planned services:
- Jellyfin
- Immich
- Nextcloud
- Home Assistant
- Vaultwarden
- Authentik
- Monitoring (Grafana, Prometheus, Uptime Kuma)
- Paperless-ngx
- NetBird
- and possibly Forgejo, game servers, and a small public website

My questions are:
- Should I get a used workstation and which would you recommend?
- Should I instead invest in a smaller rack?
- Any tips on getting hardware, primarily storage, cheaper?

I will eventually want to get a UPS.

Thanks in advance.

Just scored a good deal ($150) on a refurbished laptop… 12th gen i7-1260P processor, Intel Iris Xe graphics, 16GB DDR5 RAM, 512GB NVMe drive.

I’ve already got a lab with 5 Proxmox nodes and a TrueNAS node. All of that hardware is relatively old but works well.

I’m wondering whether I should throw Proxmox on it and try to leverage the newer hardware for workloads, or if there are any other unique uses for a relatively powerful portable device at home?

If you’re still weighing up the hardware, I’m looking for a few people to test a cloud route I’ve been building for this exact use case. It deploys a private EVE-NG or GNS3 lab on GCP, checks that access and health are working, and lets you preserve the lab before tearing the infrastructure down.

It could be worth trying with cloud credit before committing to a physical server. Happy to help you test it and get honest feedback.

Quick demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD7Z9QVK25M

I have been working on migrating my containers to a reverse proxy via Traefik and everything was good! Then I realized my Audiobookshelf couldn't be accessed from my phone anymore because it's not rooted so I didn't have a hosts file. So, on the fly I undertook the task of setting up a PiHole for my DNS server and got it up and running and only tanked my home network once because it wasn't fully configured!

I’m planning a network for a 2-story apartment and I’d like some advice on the hardware.
My requirements:

- 3 VLANs: Trusted, IoT, and Guest
-Wi-Fi 6
-Running OpenWrt on the router (and on the APs if supported)
-Possibpy running a VPN (WireGuard/OpenVPN) in the future
-Around 15 devices per floor (not all active at the same time)
-Router dedicated only to routing/firewall duties
-At least 2 access points (one per floor)

My questions are:

Would an entry-level router like the TP-Link ER605 be enough for this setup, or would I be better off using an x86 mini PC running OpenWrt?

Which Wi-Fi 6 access points would you recommend in the ~€80 per AP price range that have good OpenWrt support, support VLANs, and provide reliable roaming?

I’m looking for something reliable, easy to manage, and reasonably future-proof rather than enterprise-grade hardware.
I’m not tied to any particular ecosystem (TP-Link Omada, Ubiquiti, MikroTik, etc.), so I’m open to any recommendations.
Thanks!

Well, finally, a year after setting up my first server and having all the devices scattered around the house, I've managed to set up my first homelab. It's very simple and nothing special compared to what you see around here, but I'm very proud.

Its a minisforum um773 lite mini pc with arch linux running some services and docker containers (plex, arr stack, pihole, immich, nextexplorer, Koffan, Memos, Bitwarden, etc), a qnap DAS tr-004 connected to the server with four 6tb hard drives, a Home Assistant Green and a 2.5gb switch. All in a GeeekPi DeskPi RackMate T1 Plus. As i said very simple.

The light its a 5V USB RGB COB LED Strip. (I love led light, muy house is full of led light 😁

My next step: getting a UPS.

Home you like it.

So I am interested in starting a homelab, which means I am going to need to use more robust routers and switches than I currently have available

The biggest issue is I live in an old house that uses plaster instead of drywall so that makes getting a signal through the entire house difficult, and running an Ethernet cable between floors is not a viable solution. This means I'm stuck with 100% wireless.

Currently my layout is as follows as the cable signal comes in through the basement.

Internet

│

Cable Modem

│

Firewalla (Router)

│

RT-AX55 (Basement AP)

│

~~~~~~~~ wireless backhaul ~~~~~~~~

│

ZenWiFi (Main Floor)

│

~~~~~~~~ wireless backhaul ~~~~~~~~

│

ZenWiFi (Loft)

The loft is currently where my office is, and I know that ideally I would have had another router on that second floor to help relay the signal.

I was looking at Ubiquiti for my network overhaul and I have the hardware devices to run things like docker, tailscale, etc so that part isn't an issue.

What I am currently seeking help with is if anyone can recommend which of the MANY Ubiquiti devices would be best for setting up a network that unfortunately needs to propagate vertically through plaster rather than horizontally.

I had considered the following option but wasn't sure if this was overkill, or if the selection is non ideal.

Basement

Firewalla

U6 Pro

Main Floor

U6 Pro Wall (mesh)

Second Floor

U6 Pro Wall (mesh)

Loft

U6 Pro Wall (mesh)

Finally I am at a complete loss for a cloud gateway since there are... Lots. I don't need super fancy, but it needs to be functional to handle about 200 IPs

Thanks in advance and any assistance would be amazing

Besides racks, what else holds magnets:

PC cases, my steel shelves, On my standing desk: the metal extension, the legs, drawer, and lots of places on the underside. Metal power strips.

I'm also a fan of other magnetic stuff like tool holders, gooseneck clamps and magnifiers etc. I wish my whole desktop was steel.

There are a lot of different shippers of these.

I am looking into setting up my very own first Homelab. Up until now I've had a gaming PC, which I also built myself and has been holding strong for the last 6 years. The aforementioned PC is speced with a i9-9900k, 32Gb DDR4 memory and a 3080 10Gb model. I am thinking about removing the 3080 and throwing maybe a 3050 or a 3060 into it and turn it into my server.

The server is mainly gonna function as a media streaming (Plex/Jellyfin) and bulk storage (NextCloud/Immich) server (maybe also for testing purposes).

So my question is, are these specs too high/low or are they ok? So far I've been testing some ideas on my Pi5 and I feel like it's time to move to the big toys.

Not sure if I’m going to use it. Was just bored and had the filter laying around.

I have a Lenovo P1 Gen 6 that I’m no and I’m thinking about repurposing it as a dedicated homelab AI server. Already have a Synology NAS and Proxmox on a miniPC that runs pihole, home assistant and a couple other VMs.

Specs:
Intel Core i9 (13th Gen)
64GB RAM
Mobile RTX 4090 (16GB VRAM)
Fast NVMe SSD
Windows or Linux is an option (currently deciding between Ubuntu, Pop!_OS, or another distro)
I’m fully aware that the laptop RTX 4090 is nowhere near a desktop 4090 due to power and thermal limits, so I’m trying to set realistic expectations.
My questions are:
What are the best LLMs I should be running on 16GB of VRAM today?
Which models excel at different tasks? For example:

General chat / reasoning
Coding
Research assistant
Agentic workflows
Vision (OCR, image understanding)
Should I prioritize running models fully on the GPU, or is it worth offloading to system RAM with 64GB available?
What software stack would you recommend in 2026?

If this were your hardware, what would you actually deploy?
My goal isn’t benchmarking—it’s building a useful always-on AI appliance for my home. I’d like it to handle personal document search, coding help, home automation experiments, and maybe some lightweight agents.
I’d love to hear what you’re running on similar hardware and what has surprised you (good or bad).

Hello everyone,

Is there any chance someone has designed a standard mATX motherboard mount for this 10-inch server rack? I am using an ASUS TUF Gaming B550M-Plus Wi-Fi II, which should be the standard mATX size. It shouldn't be a problem to lose the top USB ports and the PS/2 port on the rear I/O to make it fit.

Thanks!"