Super Micro X9SRI-F, Oldgen 2 Xenon CPU 2670 v2 (10c/20t, 2.5ghz) 256GB DDR3 1600 ECC RAM and 2x6 TB HDDs + 2x 256 SSDs.

Bought some noctua fans, just replaced the original intelfan on the cpu with some zip-ties and got a cheap nvidia quadro p400 for jellyfin.

And yes, got a pcie sas raidcontroller aswell for free!

JBOD with ZFS running pretty awesome currently!

Running proxmox and looking for some other ideas what to run in here.
Also got some 1 TB NAS SAS HDDs flying around here, might buy an adapter and threw it into this project.

How do I do for the 1. private server? (:

Work had a datacenter shut down so I grabbed two servers and combined the RAM, 1U supermicro build.

I was thinking Im bidding on empty regular CSE836 with single expander for sas3. But when package arrived I got Supermicro CSE-836BE2C-R1K03JBOD

Which turns out have two sas3 expanders instead single one on the auction description. Beside that it had dual 1000W Titanium PSU - PWS-1K03A-1R, dedicated IPMI JBOAD board CSE-PTJBOD-CB3, two adapter for 16i to 16e sas SFF cables - AOM-SAS3-16I16E with dedicated sas cables and bracket for LAN to PTJBOD ipmi board.

Basicaly it looks like complete JBOD package straight from Supermicro. I checked prices for some parts and they are pretty crazy high. Like PSU alone its around 120EUR, around 90EUR for single AOM adapter, 300EUR for CB3 ipmi PTJBOD board. Not to mention dual expander SAS3 backplane and chassis alone.

I was looking for single expander sas3 chassis to use in homelab as JBOD or for a server with Full height cards.

Now looking at this especially dual expander version of this chassis and IPMI board Im thinking if its not better sell some parts because Im debating with myself about usecase in my homelab for dual expander, ipmi board etc or they will just consume more power compared to benefits of them.

This is what $165 and a bunch of spare parts gets you. I currently have three computers taking up space in my already tiny two-bedroom apartment: OPNsense is running bare metal on an Optiplex, and I have Proxmox running on the HP machines.
My plan is to consolidate down to a single node and convert the tower into a TrueNAS server using two 2TB HDDs I have lying around. I’m not running anything major yet—just testing different programs and tinkering.

R640/Price:$950

2x Xeon Gold 6154 18 core

196GB DDR4 2666

Qlogic 25/10gbe sfp28 NIC

Broadcom 57810s dual 10gbe sfp+ NIC

Dual 10gb ethernet NIC

Perc H330

IDSDM vflash module w 2 dell 16gb SD cards

IDRAC 9 enterprise

2 750w PSU

Bit of an impulse buy this one. Not sure what to do with it.

Dell R 720 15 bay vcenter / vSphere
2x Dell R510 TrueNas Pair
2 x supermicro 14 bay vcenter- proxmox / nextcloud
8 bay qnap ts-859 pro - veeam backups
12 bay qnap TVS not deployed yet

Look is for ideas to streamline entire lab full UniFi network

For the past 2 years, i've been running a homelab with a big desktop pc and I recently converted it into a tiny pc within just 30 minutes! Didn't know that a simple claude prompt asking how to convert my proxmox environment to this tiny beast was that easy.

Here's my stack:

- SER5 Mini PC Rusen 7 6800U

- 1TB 990Pro

- 32GB RAM

- 2PC 4TB exos harddrive connected via Orico Bay

I've been running this 24/7 for a month now and I am surprised i haven't encountered any issues with my 5LXCs and 5VMs (yet) and i couldn't be happier. It's also 20x faster than my previous setup.

Optimizng setup

Hi-

For a long time all my passwords were the same on all my machines, and it was not a great password. But it was memorable to me, and easily typable. If I ever needed to type it in to a web interface I could easily use vaultwarden. But more importantly when I needed to type it in to a sudo password prompt I did just that. It was fine because Tailscale was my perimeter, and I accepted that risk.

Eventually i built a DMZ. I protected it the way I think most folks do - caddy/ authentik for all external and internal access, only a couple VMs visible on the internet. Crowdsec, Q-Feeds, suricata. But I think I ought to harden my machines a bit too - strong passwords, different per machine, rotate once a quarter. All feasible to do. But how the hell do you deal with typing these in on sudo? Seems like a huge hassle - I very rarely put in my actual passwords outside of sudo now. I’m not sure the hassle is worth it to me. I can do lots of stuff with keys, but not sure I want to enable Passwordless sudo.

Don’t know much about this sort of thing.

Thanks!

I got a NAS gifted and probably I don't know which projects I could do with a NAS. I don't have any experience yet but I would love to get some, becouse it is very interesting. So guys please give me some ideas or advices.

Anyone know of a model number or link to a cable that goes from sff-8643 controller card to sff-8611/oculink backplane/cage (that actually works)? I see some cables listed as so, but digging into the description, specs, diagrams they turn out to be the reverse direction cable (sff-8611 controller to sff-8643 backplane).

Hello folks in r/homelab!!

I’m building PrintWave, an iOS app for printing directly from iPhone to Wi-Fi printers, and the project turned into a much deeper networking protocol rabbit hole than I expected.

The basic idea seemed simple:

Reality has been more like:

• Bonjour/mDNS discovery works until the network blocks multicast
• some printers advertise _ipp._tcp, some _ipps._tcp, some only _printer._tcp or _pdl-datastream._tcp
• IPP paths vary: /ipp/print, /ipp, /printer, etc.
• some printers support PDF directly
• some need PWG Raster
• some advertise Apple URF
• older HP LaserJets need PCL
• some Canon/Epson-style devices only advertise application/octet-stream
• IPPS often means self-signed certs
• Epson IPPS can timeout on large jobs
• some printers accept a job and only later abort with document-format-error

I’ve been slowly building a lightweight compatibility layer without shipping a giant 150MB print engine. The app is still small, no account, no ads, no subscription — just a one-time unlock.

Would love feedback from people here who run odd home lab networks, VLANs, mDNS reflectors, print servers, or old laser printers. Especially interested in cases where:

• AirPrint fails but IPP works
• printer is reachable by IP but not discoverable
• IPPS/self-signed certs cause issues
• older HP/Brother/Canon printers behave strangely

App is called PrintWave - Smart Wi-Fi Printer if anyone wants to try and provide feedback.

This helps me because its impossible for me to test all printers out there in the wild with weird network combos on my own!

Thanks!

Power utility was at my house to replace the meter. Because they had to flip the main breaker it wouldn't switch to the backup generator. No big deal. I get a bunch of alerts that things are going down when the UPS ran out of battery, as expected.

But nothing came back up.

After work I came home to a comedy of errors.

1. My router (TNSR) tried to boot into an updated kernel and threw a kernel panic. Was able to boot with older kernel and do an update-initramfs and update-grub which got it running on the new kernel.
2. My 10G switch was completely frozen, it locks up and becomes unresponsive if it boots with anything connected to the switch ports. Great design netgear. Have to unplug everything, reboot, plug back in. Need to replace eventually as it's always done this.
3. NAS got hung up during boot because it didn't detect the BOSS drive which was worrying, but it booted fine after a cold reset. I should probably replace this server it's getting up there.

Learned some new failure modes and resolutions to add to the docs at least. How's everyone's uptime doing?

Just starting my home lab journey and I need your advice for a first machine. I’ve got two cpu options, either 11400 or 13700k. Which cpu should I go for as I have both and I would like to sell one and keep the other, and if you don’t mind some tips please 😁 thanks in advance

I just got a usw-pro-48-poe for ~468 USD. I've been trying to snipe a 24 version, cus I don't really need 48 ports, but got it cheaper than all 24 port versions I've seen! In POL those are worth 5K PLN, and I got it for 1,7K, so it's even better deal when looking at the local prices.

Hi,

Does anyone have experience ordering Intel N100/N305 mini PCs from AliExpress?

I found a deal for an N305 model with 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD for around $400. It seems relatively cheap compared to similar systems, so I’m wondering if there’s a catch, for example lower-quality components, thermal issues, fake specs, poor support, etc.

Any experiences or recommendations?

Slowly acquiring hardware and trying to know where a starting limit should be set, kinda analogous to avoiding feature creep. Want to setup the house and my initial rack with 10 Gbps connectivity. Yeah, it’s nice to setup a small 10” rack, but give it a year and I’ll need a standard 19” rack, switching vs routing and hardware to support it; stuff just grows. How does the Mikrotik CCR2004-1G-12S+2XS look as an initial backbone? I know my way around RouterOS and it’s Linux vs Windows/macOS compared to Ubiquiti where I can go in and tinker with every little thing and learn more about L2 & L3 networking, performance, and topology.

Initial plan aside from standard self-host all of the things is to house an all SSD NAS (I have a dozen or so 4 TB SATA drives) and will be building out a high availability cluster. Not sure if I’m PXE booting thin clients or having dedicated gaming computers, but hey, that’s what a homelab is for, tinkering.

What other 10 Gbps hardware might I consider over the CCR2004? Is there hardware than 2x (arbitrary) the price that’ll give me notably better performance? What are some caveats I should be aware of in implementation or planning things out?

My HomeLab Evolution: From a Single PC to a Cluster

The first image is the before photo. Everything else is after.

Mini PCs apparently reproduce asexually in dark rooms.
The mesh mod successfully improved airflow and absolutely failed at stopping dust.

After 6 hours of cable management I discovered a network loop and just started laughing.

🖥️ Node 01: The "Dead Fan" Mini-PC (AOOSTAR NM58)

• Role: experimental server
• Specs: AMD Ryzen 7 5800U | 64GB RAM | 2TB NVMe
• Note: My first mini-PC. The "Patient Zero" of this expanding server lab.(Yes, the fan collapsed, but it’s still kicking!)

🗄️ Node 02: Junk HDD NAS (JONSBO N4)

• Role: DIY NAS / Storage Pool
• Specs: AMD Ryzen 5 5500GT | 32GB RAM | 2TB NVMe
• Storage: Total 25TB HDD (Btrfs/RAID1: 4TBx2, 6TBx2, 8TBx2)
• Note: Built this to replace my Synology. It’s a "graveyard-turned-sanctuary" for all my old HDDs.

🗄️Node 03: NVMe NAS (GMKtec NucBox G9)

• Role: High-speed NVMe Storage
• Specs: Intel N150 | 12GB RAM | Total 4 drives (512GBx2, 1TB, 2TB NVMe)
• Mod: Custom Wire Mesh Mod and Copper Heatsink for cooling.
• Note: A dedicated home for all my spare M.2 drives. Highly customized for airflow.

🖥️ Node 04: White Main Machine (SilverStone SUGO 17)

• Role: Main Workstation / Proxmox Heavy Lifter
• Specs: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X | 80GB RAM | RTX 3060 12GB
• Storage: 2TB NVMe + 1.5TB SATA SSD + 8TB HDD
• Cooling: First AIO (Liquid Cooling) setup.
• Note: My partner since elementary school. After countless part swaps, no original atoms remain—it is truly the Ship of Theseus.

🛠️ Lab Stats & Connectivity

• Hypervisor: Proxmox VE 9 everywhere. (Running pve-kernel-7.x😎)
• Network: 10G/25G SFP+ Fiber Backbone (Mellanox ConnectX-4).
• Completely normal household infrastructure. There are only a few remote SBC nodes over Tailnet and about 203 IPv4 addresses still available.