r/HomeLabPorn

Specs from top to bottom:
- 7" LCD touch display + Raspberry Pi 3B for showing metrics
- Ubiquiti Switch Ultra
- Patch panel
- Intel Nuc I3 8th gen (Proxmox -> truenas, homeassistant & pihole machine)
- 4x Lenovo Thinkcentre M710q, 16gb ram & I5 each (TalosOS K8s cluster + argocd gitops)
- 1x 10TB HDD, planning to expand this to atleast have redundancy, but current prices are holding me off.

Completely 3d printed Lab Rax rack with a big Noctua fan at the top

Been working on this homelab setup.
Got GitLab hosted (Pi5 with NVMe) at home along with a GitLab runner for CI/CD (Pi4).
The Pi Zero is a PiHole and serves DNS.
I am now working in an application that'll run on another Pi server (Pi5), code will be maintained in GitLab locally.
Took it apart to put it together in this neat build.
Will post again in a few weeks when it's all up and running again.

Edit: Fixed spelling and grammatical errors.

This is my first time building a homelab in the mini rack!
here is the details of the build

1. ONT Modem from ISP
2. Mikrotik hex s (old one) with omada es205g
3. Geeekpi PDU lite
4. patch panel
5. netgear gs308 + owl tree's dc to pwm to power the top and bottom fan
6. Beelink me pro with 2 seagate exos and raspberry pi with radxa penta hat
7. 300 watt power supply, glinet kvm pro and radxa's dragon q6a

The devices are mostly powered by DC cables from the 300w power supply except for the beelink NAS
I also used a 3d printed cable railing from here!

https://makerworld.com/en/models/1448527-deskpi-rackmate-cable-chase-6u?from=search#profileId-1508661

and used 3d printed top cover to add another fan in the top from here!

https://makerworld.com/en/models/954877-deskpi-rackmate-t0-t1-120mm-fan-top-panel-and-gril?from=search#profileId-923629

thank you Nomad07 and SigOS from makerworld, it makes my build cleaner and colder
I do not know your reddit usernames
if you guys are here let me know, I will update the post

I am very happy with all this turns out
it took some time to build all of this
the patch panels mostly work for my home access points
any input or questions are welcome!

as for the software, as I just completed this and only managed to do pihole, immich and vaultwarden with tailscale support
I spent a lot of time in understanding things regarding vlan and trunking as this is my first time working with managed switch
I am planning to do some linux isos download, but I am not familiar with it,
if there is any input or source on where I can start, will be much appreciated!

Thank you!

A self-hosted home server setup running on Debian with Docker Compose.
I mainly use this for Taskmanagement, Backups and DNS Adblock.
If you want every detail of it, look here: https://github.com/Knuspii/home-server

Setup:

• HP EliteDesk 800 G3 DM 35W

• OS: Debian GNU/Linux 13

• CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6500T (4) @ 3.10 GHz

• RAM: 8GB DDR4

• Disk1: SSD 128GB

• Disk2: SSD 128GB

• Disk3: SSD 128GB

• Disk2 & Disk3 = RAID1

• TP-Link TL-SG108

• GeeekPi 6,91" 1424x280 LCD Touchscreen

New to homelab, 1st server setup. (3rd redo this week)

____

Hue Bridge Pro / Yolink Hub

DiskPi Exhaust Fan w/Thermostat

Unifi Flex 2.5.Gb POE (10Gb uplink)

JetKVM's (Shadow & Echo)

OptiPlex 7050 (Echo) I7-6700 (32gb/2tb NVME/500GB SSD)

OptiPlex 5050 (Shadow) I5-7500 (16gb/256gb NVME/500 Gb SSD)

120v PDU

5v PDU (rear)

My Home lab. Mostly second hand and repurposed hardware. 2013 Mac Pro (Ubuntu Server and remote desktop), A couple Mac Mini servers, a TrueNAS server, Proxmox, Windows 11 remote desktop, a couple lenovo thinkcentres i hope to cluster together, a Dell Optiplex OPNsense router and a Cicso Catalyst managed switch for the TP-Link Omada AP's. Looks great in the dark.

I’ve been lurking here for a while, and after a couple weeks of tinkering and hunting for deals, I finally have something I’m proud of.

Hardware
- Dell OptiPlex 7060 Micro (used) — Intel Core i5-8500T, 16GB RAM, 256GB NVMe SSD: $150
- 2 × 6TB Seagate Expansion external HDDs: $280
- Power chord: $34

Total: $464 for a 12TB self-hosted setup.

Right now it’s running everything in Docker:
- Immich for photo/video backups
- Jellyfin
- Navidrome
- Pi-hole
- Tailscale
- Uptime Kuma
- Homepage Dashboard
- Ollama + Open WebUI
- Kopia backups (main 6TB drive backed up to the second 6TB drive)

The goal is to stop paying for multiple cloud subscriptions while learning Linux, Docker, networking, and self-hosting. I’m also planning to share my Immich server with a few close friends so they each have their own private photo backup.

I’m a grad student in Boston, so I had to do it in a budget. I picked up some part-time work recently and used that money to slowly put this together piece by piece. Seeing everything finally come online was very rewarding.

It’s my first homelab, and I’m pretty proud of it.

I’d love to hear what you’d add or improve next!

This is my first production-grade home server. 🤩

Powered by a humble 40 Mbps WiFi connection.

What started as an old laptop collecting dust is now hosting real websites and services 24/7. Instead of buying new hardware, I decided to give it a second life.

Current setup:
🟠 Ubuntu Server
🟠 OpenLiteSpeed
🟠 MariaDB
🟠 Multiple PHP versions
🟠 Production-ready hosting stack
🟠 Laptop configured to keep running even with the lid closed

So far, resource usage has been surprisingly low, and it's been a fun project to build and optimize.

It's a reminder that you don't always need expensive hardware to learn, experiment, and even run production workloads.

I'd love to hear your thoughts or suggestions for improving the setup.

Hi all,

I've had homelab stuff for a few years in various forms, but all of it was always just lying around under a desk or wherever I could find space for it, without any rack or anything. When I moved into a new place, I decided it was finally time to do it properly.

My goal was to build some kind of shelf/cabinet for it that would look nice and be more of a decoration than an eyesore. Another goal was to keep everything in one place, making it easier to move if needed and easier to clean.

Since I have some experience building simple furniture, I decided to go with laminated chipboard (I think that's the correct English term?). I designed it myself, ordered the boards, and cut openings for 120 mm fans, an RJ45 socket, a power cable, and an air intake. I also used plexiglass for the front door.

Fan speed is controlled by two controllers: one with a physical knob and another with a remote control and a small LCD showing the fan speed. The RGB lighting is also controlled remotely. Since one of the fan controllers and the RGB controller are powered via SATA, I added a power supply with a SATA adapter and splitter.

Current homelab setup:

• 2x HP 600 G3 – Proxmox
• 1x HP 800 G4 – TrueNAS
• 1x Dell OptiPlex 3060 Tiny – Proxmox
• 1x KeepLink 2.5 Gb managed switch (the cheapest smart 2.5 Gb switch from AliExpress)
• 1x D-Link 1 Gb managed switch (mostly for the management network)
• 1x TP-Link dumb switch for the Proxmox cluster link
• 1x MikroTik hAP ac2
• 3x 120 mm fans, 2x fan controllers, 1x RGB controller

My main use for it is testing backup software and configurations (I'm a backup engineer), as well as playing around with Proxmox. I also use it for some application development and storing personal data. I explained usecases more in this post.

Feel free to comment and enjoy.

I recently upgraded my home network from 1G (Peplink Balance 20x + EdgeSwitch 10xp) to fiber 10G uplink + 2.5G LAN, with a new N100 pfSense firewall to a 10G × 2.5G LAN PoE switch:

• Replaced Zabbix with Checkmk RAW.
• Removed the 2u cooling fans and went with passive cooling using 1u vents.
• 3u down is my new N100 powered pfSense box (gray).
• 5u down kept the Peplink Balance 20x because the Wi-Fi signal is insanely powerful!
• I got rid of the keyboard shelf that took up 1u previously. The keyboard is now connected by a coiled USB cable.
• The old 1u keyboard shelf is used for the switch (top right).
• To the left of the switch, a storage area for a flashlight, USB sticks, paper clips and other things.

- Full timeline and more details here.

Hey everyone,
I'm looking to get into the hobby and just found this local listing for an HP Z240 Workstation priced at €65 (plus about €10 shipping).
Here are the specs:
CPU: Intel Core i5-7500 (4 cores, 4 threads)
RAM: 8 GB
OS included: Windows 11 Pro
Price: €65
I plan on wiping the drive and installing Proxmox to run various Docker containers and experiment with self-hosting.
Before I pull the trigger, I wanted to get your advice:
1. Is €65 a fair price for these specs in Europe?
2. RAM Upgrade: It currently only has 8 GB of RAM. Should I immediately upgrade it to 16 GB or 32 GB for Proxmox/Docker, or is 8 GB enough to just start messing around?
3. How is the power consumption on these HP workstations when idling? (Electricity costs are pretty high here).
4. Will the i5-7500 hold up well for a few basic containers and lightweight VMs?
Would love to hear your thoughts! Thanks!

Started this as "I'll just add a managed switch" and somehow ended up tearing the whole thing down and rebuilding into a 42U StarTech rack. Sharing the then/now because the difference still makes me laugh.

Photos 1–2 (NOW): Pro-Max-16-PoE core + Pro-24-PoE leaf landed on a proper Cat6A patch panel, AdGuard stats up on the rack-mounted display, room labels actually legible (MyL, Kiara, Eliam, Eslie, Lvng Rm), and the bottom half is breathing — UniFi UPS, switched PDU, NAS shelf with actual airflow instead of gear stacked wherever it fit.

Photos 3–4 (THEN): the old open-frame cabinet — TP-Link unmanaged switch, TL-SX3008F 10G aggregation, cables routed wherever they'd reach, Mac mini and NAS just sitting loose on a shelf, ARRIS modem hanging off the wall with a rat's nest behind it. It worked, but every troubleshooting session meant tracing cable by hand.

What changed under the hood:

Core/leaf switching: UniFi USW-Pro-Max-16-PoE as core, USW-24-PoE as leaf for bulk PoE/cameras. One gotcha worth sharing — that inter-switch trunk is hard-capped at 1G since the leaf is the standard Gigabit model, not the Pro version.
Routing/firewall: Firewalla Gold handles all VLAN policy and routing; UniFi stays strictly switching/WiFi.
9 VLANs segmenting trusted devices, IoT, kids' WiFi, guests, cameras, NAS, voice assistants, security, and AV.
AdGuard Home for network-wide DNS filtering, dashboard rack-mounted for at-a-glance stats.
UPS-backed power chain — UniFi UPS → switched PDU → all critical loads, replacing the old surge-only setup.
Real cable management this time: structured patch panels instead of "however the cable reached."

Next up:

A Dell PowerEdge T420 going in as the "main brain" — Proxmox host for Home Assistant, AdGuard, Frigate (with a Coral TPU), Immich, primary ZFS storage, and eventually a local LLM.
A small side project with my kid: turning a retired Dell OptiPlex 7060 Micro into a mini homelab box — Ubuntu Server → SSH → a Minecraft server, as a hands-on way to learn networking basics.
A 10G fiber run out to a garage cabinet build (gaming PC, consoles, AP — all on their own VLANs), and closet cooling, since cramming all this into a former coat closet generates more heat than you'd expect.
Happy to answer questions on the VLAN setup, the switch gotcha, or the cable management glow-up.