From a Bare-Metal SFF Firewall to a Full 22U Rack: My Homelab Infrastructure Journey
A few months ago, I posted my bare-metal HP EliteDesk 800 G5 OPNsense build here. The feedback, discussions, and advice from this community were incredible and taught me a ton.
Since then, the lab has evolved beyond desktop shelves. I wanted to build a proper, structured environment to practice enterprise networking, virtualization, and systems administration. The entire process from unboxing and torquing together the flat-pack steel rack to terminating cables and tuning clusters was an absolute blast.
1. The Physical Rack & Power Infrastructure
Chassis/Frame: 22U enclosed steel server rack (600x1000mm) with perforated front/rear doors for passive airflow.
Power Delivery: Dual PDUs (PDU 01 top, PDU 02 bottom). Everything critical is systematically labeled to keep track of load distribution and ensure maintenance doesn't involve blindly pulling cords.
Cabling & Patching: Keystone patch panel directly above the switch using slim patch leads to keep runs short, clean, and serviceable without massive cable bundles blocking exhaust.
2. Edge Routing & Switching (10GbE Backbone)
Building on my previous post, the network core is structured around multi-gig redundancy and 10GbE uplinks:
Firewall (HP EliteDesk 800 G5 SFF):
Intel Core i5-9500 | 16GB RAM | 2x 256GB NVMe (ZFS Mirror).
NICs: Intel i226-T2 (Dual 2.5GbE) handling dual WAN connections (two separate ISPs configured for automated multi-WAN failover) + Intel x520-DA2 (Dual 10GbE SFP+).
Core Switch: TP-Link TL-SG3428XMP (24x Gigabit PoE+ with 4x 10G SFP+ uplink ports).
Linked to the OPNsense box via a 1m 10G SFP+ Direct Attach Copper (DAC) cable.
Access Point: TP-Link Omada EAP650 PoE+ ceiling-mount AP.
3. Compute Cluster: 3x HP Z2 G4 Workstations
Directly beneath the switch and firewall sit three identical HP Z2 G4 SFF workstation nodes forming the hypervisor tier.
Per-Node Specs:
CPU: Intel Core i7-8700 (6C/12T)
RAM: 64GB DDR4
Storage: 1x 256GB NVMe (Boot/OS) + 1x 1TB NVMe (VM datastores)
Networking: Intel x520-DA2 (Dual 10G SFP+) connected back to the switch via 3m DACs, alongside the onboard 1GbE NICs.
4. Storage Architecture & Hypervisor Lessons: Ceph vs. Local ZFS
The Ceph Experiment: As you can see in the rear wiring shots, I originally set up full cluster storage using Ceph, isolating dedicated Ceph storage traffic onto the 10GbE SFP+ links while relegating corosync/general cluster management to the onboard 1G NICs. It was a fantastic learning experience in distributed storage dynamics, quorum, and network latency.
Current Running State: For my current 3-node scale, I transitioned to Proxmox VE with local ZFS storage pools, scheduled ZFS replication jobs, and Proxmox High Availability (HA). This significantly reduced storage write amplification and overhead while keeping failover rock-solid for lightweight workloads.
5. Network Segmentation & Environment Overview
Network isolation is handled at Layer 2/Layer 3 with dedicated VLANs:
VLAN Architecture:
Core Management: Hypervisors, out-of-band interfaces, and managed network hardware.
IoT / Smart Home: Local-control devices strictly isolated from reaching the wider LAN or internet.
Guest Network: Segmented visitor access.
Storage: Dedicated subnet carved out for high-bandwidth node replication.
Tenant / Isolated Dev: A dedicated VLAN routed through an encrypted site-to-site tunnel for a friend who needed an isolated sandbox to develop and test applications safely away from my internal systems.
Operations & Monitoring Stack:
Running a central Docker VM managing operations tooling: network operations control (NOC), centralized telemetry and infrastructure mapping, security auditing/SOC logging, and automated container lifecycle maintenance.
6. What’s Next for the Lab?
Because a homelab is never truly "done," the next phases involve:
- Bulk Storage Expansion: Adding high-capacity spinning disks to stand up a dedicated centralized storage pool and continuous security video ingestion.
- Document Management: Setting up automated OCR indexing and digital archiving pipelines.
- Enterprise Directory & Cloud Testing: Standing up directory domain services, enterprise identity management, and multi-node lightweight cloud testing.
- Security Lab: An isolated virtual cyber range for defensive auditing and offensive security experiments.
- Edge AI & Computer Vision: Slotting in dedicated hardware acceleration (GPU or edge TPU) to test small, local language models and agricultural-tech computer vision pipelines.
Massive thanks to everyone here who shares build logs, answers obscure driver questions, and troubleshoots networking issues. Happy to answer any questions about thermals, DAC compatibility, or SFF workstation rack-mounting!
P.S. If you’re wondering about the "high-density 1U server shelf" supporting the nodes at the bottom: yes, that is indeed a retired Quanta QSSC-2ML chassis acting as the most over-engineered, heavy-duty shelf in homelab history. It may no longer be crunching enterprise workloads, but its structural integrity is doing a 10/10 job keeping gravity from ruining my cluster.