I recently bought an Eaton Ellipse ECO 1200, thinking it would fit perfectly inside my 10-inch rack. Unfortunately, it doesn’t.

Looking back, I probably should’ve gone for the ECO 600 instead of the 1200. Now I’m not really sure what to do with it.

My original plan was to keep everything neatly organized inside the rack, so having the UPS sitting underneath or next to it isn’t exactly what I had in mind. It just looks a bit awkward to me.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Are there any UPS models available in Europe that actually fit inside a 10-inch rack?

I’d really prefer to keep everything inside the rack rather than having the UPS outside.
What would you guys do in my situation?

Everything started with an old laptop... And then it snowballed into this masterpiece!

The 3D model is the KWS v.2 Rack

Using my old MSI gf63 8rd laptop as my main Docker host and an Optiplex 7010 with a 12500T for my game servers

Also the DAS at the bottom for my Jellyfin media

I recently got a used Lenovo M720q (i5 8th gen, 8GB RAM, 256GB NVMe) and figured this would be a good excuse to finally build my first proper homelab.

I'm new to homelabbing specifically, but I'm not completely new to this stuff. I'm comfortable with Linux, the terminal, basic networking, and generally tinkering with tech, so I'm looking for something where I can actually get my hands dirty and understand what's happening rather than just clicking through a web UI.

My main goal is to learn networking, selfhosting, security, and server administration by actually building and breaking things.

What I'd like to run

My rough idea so far:

Router/firewall: plug it into dorm/hotel Ethernet and create my own network

Pi-hole: DNS/ad blocking

Syncthing: sync files between my laptop, phone, etc

Hugo website: I have a personal website that I wanna selfhost

Gitea: private Git server

Minecraft server ofc

Maybe PhotoPrism: if the hardware/storage can handle it

Maybe Remote access: securely access my stuff when I'm away

Hardware

• Lenovo M720q
• i5 8th gen
• 8GB RAM
• 256GB NVMe
• PCIe Ethernet card (no pcie riser yet)
• USB Wi-Fi adapter (I'll get the missing wifi antenna later)

This is going to be portable, too. I'll be moving it between my dorm and home every semester, so I'm trying to design things in a way that doesn't depend too heavily on one specific network.

What am I missing?

Since this is my first homelab, what are some services/tools/concepts you'd recommend learning?

I'm particularly interested in: Networking - DNS/DHCP - Firewalls - Linux/BSD - Self-hosting - Backups - Monitoring - Remote access - security

I'm not really interested in installing 30 containers just because I can. I'd rather have a smaller setup that I actually understand and can troubleshoot.

Storage

The 256GB NVMe seems pretty small once I start thinking about photos, Minecraft, Git repos, backups, etc.

Should I get an external USB SSD now, or just start with the NVMe and add storage when I actually need it?

OS / setup

I'm currently considering FreeBSD, partly because I want to learn something new and understand what's happening under the hood.

I'm also open to other approaches. I've seen people recommend Proxmox, Debian, OPNsense, etc., but I'm not sure what makes the most sense for what I'm trying to learn.

If this were your first homelab with this hardware, what would you build?

And if you've done something similar, what do you wish you'd known before starting?

Finally started documenting my homelab.

It’s a small 3-node Proxmox setup with 10GbE networking, Docker-based services, monitoring, authentication, media automation, and some Terraform/Helm work for rebuilding and testing infrastructure.

The goal of the repo is to document how everything connects (hardware, networking, VMs, containers, storage, DNS, and monitoring) instead of just listing what I run.

Still a work in progress, and I’d love any feedback or suggestions.

https://github.com/Johnr708/XDark-Minilab

Above is my current lab. I have a zimaboard 2 firewall device(it needs a 2 10gb sfp card will order soon) patched to two qnap switches, one POE one not. I have a total of 4 open 10gbe open. Plenty of POE for my planned camera setup, and my already aquired PIs. However I have hit a road block. What to do for storage?

I was initially leaning toward the DXP6800 Pro from ugreen, then I was given a 18tb SAS drive....
Thats a lot of free storage, I can't ignore.
So do I engineer a way to mount my old gaming itx MOBO ram CPU into my rack with 4 or 8 drive bays running a LSI with m.2 to 10gbe, or just get the ugreen?

If I get the ugreen what do I do with the itx board?(it has a rtx p4000 quadro)

also in inventory tesla t4(planning to use these for transcoding)

Ideally I have a few drives dedicated to security footage(2 wd purple probably) then 6 drives for nas plex purposes.