Dell Optiplex XE2
OS: Pfsense
NIC: Intel 4port GB nic
Cisco Catalyst 3850 upoe
Dell R430
Processor: 2x E5-2630v3 8core
Memory: 192GB
Storage: 2x 128GB SSD in Raid-1 for OS and 6 1TB SAS Hard Drives in Raid-5
OS: ESXI 8.0.3
VMs: VCenter, Home Assistant, AD Server on Windows Server 2025(Trial), ProxMox (noting currently running on it)
Unbranded Server:
Processor: E3-1225v3
Memory: 32GB
Drives: 3x 4 TB Hard Drives in RaidZ1, 1TB for Container Apps
OS: TrueNas Scale
Apps: Dashy, Plex, tautulli
Lenovo M720
OS: Windows 11
Old Custom Gaming Computer
Processor: 6300FX
Ram: 16GB
OS: Windows 10
Wireless APs:
TP-Link Deco Mesh Router turned to AP Only.
Other Equipment:
3x 8 Outlet PDUs (2 were free)
2x 24port EMS keystone patchpanels
Dual display 4port HDMI KVM
2x Asus 27" Monitors
Home lab is for play and learning when I am not burnout after working as Network Engineer/System Administrator/Tier3 Service Desk...
@brandon-lee home office. Mainly used by myself, but my daughter also has a art desk and the KVM is used for 2 docks one for my wife’s laptop if she needs to work from home and one for my work laptop for when I am on-call or need to work from home
I’m from Madagascar, and I’d like to share my little home lab setup.
Hypervisor:
- Proxmox
Specifications:
- HP EliteDesk
- Processor: Intel Core i5 (4th Generation)
- Memory: 8 GB DDR3 SDRAM (1600 MHz)
- Storage: 1 TB mSATA SSD
Proxmox Configuration:
- 1 Node
Shared Storage:
- Open-source NAS
- Raspberry Pi 4 with OpenMediaVault
- External HDD: 1 TB
Hello,
i built my homelab out of my custom PC, my wifes custom PC which i stole (she has a remote setup now so she can be in any other room) 3 mini PCs and a custom NAS running TrueNAS Scale
the two large servers i call my H or heavy servers, i only turn them on when in use as they dont run any infrastructure, just VMS.
the white and gold server has:
ryzen 3950x
amd r7 240 for the proxmox hypervisor
a GTX 2070 super for my VMS, ARCH (btw) and Windows 11
64gb trident Z royale gold
the server on the far left has:
ryzen 3700x
32 GB gskill
gtx 710 for hypervisor
rtx 2060 for vms, windows for now
also docker experiments
the three mini PCs are different models that run a ceph cluster maintaining my DNS, home assistant, and vpn, these three are all hooked up to my UPS backups for when the power goes out so we don't lose internet
these ones are on 24/7
beelink 4 core 4gb ram
ace magician 12 threads, 16gb ram
hp elite desk 8 threads, 16gb ram
1tb shared ceph storage amongst all 3
they are located behind and above the switches
for storage i have several terabytes of local storage on both of the heavy servers as well as the TrueNAS which has 8 tbs that i use for hosting my data, as well as PLEX and Grafana
my router is a PFsense re-flash of an older cisco linksys ea4500 that is down stream of my ISP provided router located on the top shelf
display to the left is an RPI powered GUI Terminal, display on the right is RPI powered grafana display
for power distribution i have the 2 UPS' battery is split up among the smaller infrastructure related devices, and surge protection for the larger devices that are not part of infrastructure
@backalleytech very very nice! So your wife is into home labbing as well? Or no? That is super cool if that is something you guys do together. Most wives probably don't share the enthusiasm that we all do for tech and home labs in general. I love the dedicated terminal you have set up as well displaying metrics. That is something I have thought about doing as well, but just never have. What are your plans for future changes or upgrades?
@brandon-lee nah i just stole her computer from her for science, shes learned to deal with whatever i do to the network, and Ive learned to keep the network from falling down when shes home (as long as it looks pretty shes cool with it). i built it for her when we got married (she wanted a red and black build so she has red lights and custom red/black cables), but now she has a little setup with her own desk and a nice laptop with a lightning dock. but if she needs to, for heavier gaming she can steam link to a more powerful VM i have setup for her.
future upgrades:
my main switch is a managed switch, I've been trying to find the time to segment and separate my network into VLANS, but finding the time has been rough.
i also plan to use the IBM think pad i have lying there as a terminal, but it doesn't have a LAN port, and i need to source a charger for it. so that's in the works.
once i move out of my apartment and get a house, alternative power sources like solar and larger UPS' will be on the list as well. redundancy for the whole network.
eventually i wouldn't mind rack mounting everything. i see a good amount of people here with fiber runs and that looks way too cool to not plan for.
i should also mention the wife knows how to keep a tech happy, for our first anniversary she bought me a 2070 super, and she buys me small PCIE cards for my birthdays.
My homelab, which also happens to reside in my HVAC closet in our basement, consists of the following hardware:
In the rack, top-down
- 24-port patch panel with Monoprice thin patch cables going to the switch
- Cisco 3750X 48-port PoE switch
- On the shelf from left-to-right is my pfSense firewall, Lutron Hub, and AT&T fiber modem
- Dell R720xd - this is my "new old" server running Unraid and currently has almost all of my data on it. It has 2x Intel Xeon E5-2670 CPUs in it, 128 GB of DDR3 RAM, and 12x 2 TB hard drives alongside 2x 128 GB SSD drives for cache, and finally an Nvidia Quadro P400 used for Plex/Jellyfin transcoding
- HP ProLiant DL360p Gen8 - this server is rarely ever turned on and I plan to sell it sooner than later; it's running Proxmox and has 2 or 3 VMs on it but I only power it on as-needed and haven't needed to do so in almost a year. It has 2x Intel Xeon E5-2640 CPUs, 64 GB of DDR3 RAM, and 4x 800 GB drives (I think?)
- Dell/EMC Avamar Storage Node - this is my "old old" server which previously ran Unraid and all of the drives have since been migrated to the "new old" server. It has 2x Intel CPUs in it and 96 GB of DDR2 RAM. I need to sell or recycle this one too. 🙂
- Other notes: the unsightly blue cable hanging down and plugging into the switch is running through the drop ceiling on the finished side of the basement to a 4x RJ45 wall jack feeding the connection upstairs to the rest of the house - this is accomplished using some 2.5G MoCA adapters, but I need to figure out a better way to go about the presentation. I also plan to eventually get a short Monoprice thin patch cable that's red in color to plug into port 47 of the Cisco switch and port 20 of the patch panel to signify that the connection is to the firewall.
On the stand
- This is my "new new" server that I built recently in a Fractal Node 804 case. It's running Proxmox VE as the base OS with several LXC containers and an Ubuntu VM running Docker/Portainer and TrueNAS as the NAS OS with the SATA expander PCIe card being passed through to it. The card has 8x 4 TB drives attached to it. The mobo is an Erying motherboard from AliExpress that has an 11th gen Intel Core i7-11700B CPU and 32 GB of DDR4 RAM with the aforementioned 8x 4 TB storage drives.
Miscellaneous
- Mounted on the wall in the HVAC closet is an old monitor connected to a VGA KVM for switching between servers
- Upstairs in my office are the 2x Dell OptiPlex 7050 Micro computers that are also running Proxmox VE with a few LXC containers running. They have Intel Core i5-6600T CPus and 32 GB of RAM. These will be moving to the server rack eventually when I sell/get rid of the 2 rackmount servers and can install another 2u shelf for them to live on (hopefully alongside the mini PC being given away) 😎
- I'm also already noticing the limitations of the Fractal Node 804 case and the Erying mobo used because I want to install a GPU for doing local AI stuff but there are only 2 PCIe slots, and the SATA expander card occupies the one that would fit a GPU...so I'm already weighing my options for selling this hardware and building something else that will accommodate a GPU and proper RAID controller in IT mode instead of the SATA expander card.
- I'm also considering switching back to Unraid as the NAS OS because it's "simpler" to me than TrueNAS, uses way less RAM, and allows for mixed size drives. I got my start in homelabbing using OpenMediaVault and then Unraid, and watched SpaceInvaderOne's videos and wanted to "challenge" myself to learn to use TrueNAS, but now that I'm using Proxmox with VMs and LXC containers and essentially just need my NAS to be a NAS and not run any unnecessary plugins or Docker containers, TrueNAS seems less necessary.
@jeffricica Looks awesome, I want to go through your notes in more detail a bit later and see what I can learn. Thank you for sharing!
Hi, here is my setup!!
I have fallen in love with the idea of a miniature yet powerful lab so I been sticking to SFF devices.
Here is my kit:
- Two nodes that make up my XCP-NG cluster
- HP Prodesk
- Dell OptiPlex
- pFsense router (beside the unifi switch)
- 8-Port Unifi switch (managed)
- Unifi AP
- TrueNAS - All flash NAS (beside the two stacked nodes)
- USB attached HHD/SSD enclose (retired as TrueNAS does not play nice with it)
- CyberPower UPS
- What I am running:
- XCP-NG as the hypervisor with Xen Orchestra for management
- 3x Docker host (too many containers I lost count 🤣)
- Linux vms for coding, scripting and IaC practice
- TrueNAS Scale for storage and redundant virtualizations (also host my home media)
- I use ansible for provisioning, configurations and patching
- Have been considering in introducing Terraform locally as well however a bit limited on resource availability but it's a 2025 goal.
@project_mini_hero Great setup! Also, I like the fact that you are representing XCP-ng. I believe you are the only one that has posted an XCP-ng setup. I really like it, just haven't had the time to delve more into giving it a serious look. What took you the XCP-ng route over Proxmox? Just curious as more seem to choose Proxmox over XCP-ng.
@brandon-lee Honestly, when I started my lab I ran a single EXSI node but when the "great switch" was initiated by broadcom I switched.
I found XCP-NG to be more user friendly plus it's less involved to cluster/pool nodes. Also, it had a built in tool that handles migrating from EXSI to XCP-NG. Another upside was that Xen Orchestra basically does practically everything vSphere does under one plain of glass.
I would recommend it to anyone and with the new UI changes coming I am excited:
I do plan to virtualize Proxmox when I have more resources but I am an XCP-NG fan, especially looking at the new UI coming to Xen orchestra.
