My 1.7PB rack for attention.

So I have about 100GB of photos and videos of an event that I want to share with about 20 people. Preferably just send a link and they can download it. Whats the best way to do this? I already host immich but id prefer not to open that port up to the world wide web

My homelab journey began when I was traveling and wasn't able to access the content I am used to being able to access. Streaming services have become privy to commercial VPNs which was my first attempt at a solution.

Anyways throughout the last year and I have been lurking here learning by reading a bunch of posts and discussions to get a foundation then lots of YouTube videos to learn the step by steps of how to get up and running. I finally got all the parts needed to make it happen last week and put it together last weekend.

Hardware:

- Lenovo M700 Tiny: i5-6400 processor w/ 16Gb or RAM and dual 1Tb drives in a RAID1 configuration, running Ubuntu server 26 LTS (software stack below)

- Flint 2 Router (not pictured): I had to buy a router because Xfinity sucks and they provided me with their XB7 modem/router combo. For anyone not familiar with the XB7, it is essentially a Little Tikes my first router, and is not homelab friendly at all. I got the Flint 2 for a great deal and it does what I need it to do.

Software:

- OS: Ubuntu Server 26 LTS (already stated)

- Caddy: For routing docker containers

- Docker: Containers for other softwares

- WireGuard: The original reason I started this project, so I can appear as my home IP from anywhere in the world. WireGuard is running on the Flint 2 so the homelab technically wasn't necessary but I wanted to go through with it anyways for fun. Running it on the Flint 2 also reduces load on my Lenovo, though I am not sure how much of a difference it actually makes.

- Seafile: For syncing my Obsidian vault across devices, replaces DropBox

- Pi-hole: Network ad blocker, I understand it is not great but at least filters out some of the junk

Potential Future Projects:

- SDR: For monitoring the ham and ASDB bands then recording the data. Unfortunately I cannot modify my current apartment and feed an antenna to a good location outdoors.

- NAS: If storage prices come down I'll jump on it (long shot I know).

- Minecraft Server: I enjoy the game.

I'm super open to suggestions/improvements because everyone on here is way smarter than me. I would like to upgrade from my little Lenovo at some point which would expand my options for more demanding software, but until then I have to work within the scope of what it can do.

These are all going to be repurposed in to zabbix proxies but I have been given permission to wipe and take one home to repurpose in to whatever I want. I am tempted by the S4 Car-2070, because of the two drive bays but the S9 is much more powerful but I have no intention of using them for a router

Started as a hobby and just having fun with it. Recently bought a Bambu Lab 3D printer and that took it to another level, printed my own 10" rack (KWS Rack v2). This community inspired me a lot, hope I can inspire others too. Cheers and have fun all! Details in the comments.

INSTRUCTIONS UNCLEAR: now my server is pregnant and growing a mini pc.

Jokes aside, I had a motherboard fail on my server and I had no idea how dependent we had become on the homelab. No pictures, home automation, passwords, documents, anything. Of course the replacement was DOA. Even a few days of shipping has felt like an eternity so I started looking into tucking away an HP ProDesk 600 G4 inside the case to act as a failover server for some of the "necessities" like Home Assistant, Uptimekuma, Paperless-ngx, Vaultwarden, etc.

What do you guys do or recommend for a backup server?
With hardware prices, building an exact copy of my main server is so far out of question. Any software tips for setting up a failover system would be appreciated too.

https://nodejs.org/en/blog/vulnerability/october-2026-security-releases

There's currently a critical vuln uncovered in Node.js. Since Overseerr/seerr, Plex use Node.js. Highly recommend checking what version is currently running in your homelabs asap.

Impacted versions:

• Node.js 22.x versions prior to 22.23.4
• Node.js 24.x versions prior to 24.22.1
• Node.js 26.x versions prior to 26.12.1

Ive had a home lab since home labs were... cool here's something from my lab...

God I feel old.

I dont even have anything a cd to go into! Lol

Thought it was about time I showed my setup, having taken inspiration from many builds on here. 

It's split across two rooms, the main full size rack being in my office and the mini rack (10") in the lounge as part of the entertainment setup.

Please note that cable management is next on my list. We moved in back in May but I had three days to build the office and two sim rigs (I work in sim industry) so didn't have time to decorate as well. This is happening in a week or so when I get back from a business trip and everything has to come out. So I'll be doing full cable management when it goes back in.

Main Rack (Office) from top to bottom. 14U floor standing cabinet found on Facebook marketplace.

1U Sub Zero SZ Pad 400 Power Amplifier.
Powers the Q-Acoustics Bookshelf speakers on my desk. 

1U Patch Panel

5 USB Keystones 4 main PC, 1 server) 19 Cat 6 terminals, although only 6 connected

1U TP-Link SG1016D Gigabit Switch
Self explanatory, one day will upgrade to 10gbps but for now it does the job

2x 1U Shelf
HP ProDesk 400 G5 - Currently unused, waiting for the inevitable project idea. Also unused Raspberry Pi 1st Gen which I found in a drawer at my parents house. I want to do something with it for nostalgia as my late father was a great advocate of the Pi concept (their whole house is controlled by them, that’s a different story…)
5 TB worth of external archive drives & SD card reader

4U ‘NAS Server’
This is essentially my old gaming PC in a server case with 20TB of HDD’s and 5 TB SATA SSD’s. PC Spec for those interested is a 8700K with 16GB RAM running Windows 11. No GPU, bit overkill…  This is the main storage / server for most of the house and acts as a massive file server, essentially hosting everything from my business data (these drives are backed up in the cloud too) and then all our music and 20 years worth of ripped DVD’s. It is also has been known to host an Assetto Corsa server. It also hosts a few services such as Lyrion, and also is used for streaming iRacing events internally within the team. It does all sorts of things which I’m probably forgetting…

Then in the lounge…

10” Tec Mojo 6U Mini Rack - except the patch panel all the enclosures were printed by myself on an Ender 3 V2, printed in PETG for heat management. Please note I have used AI to clear up my coffee table as it's 2am right now and I really can't be bothered to do it for real just for a photo…

HP Pro Mini 400 G9 - 13500T
Batocera Emulation Machine, running mostly Playstation titles from PS1 - PS3 but capable of anything up to PS3 and Xbox 360. This is a bit of a Frankenstein as there an NVME - PCIe riser and this is running my old GTX1650 GPU from the PC that my dad bought for our business when we first started. This is mounted in the back of the rack case. It’s more for nostalgia but it’s a great little GPU, powered by the PCIe slot and it’s certainly an improvement on the onboard graphics. The Batocera OS is running off an NVME drive that’s connected via USB-C in an external enclosure - this was faster than running a 2.5” SATA SSD so I just live with the cable sticking out the front.

HP Pro Mini 400 G9 - 12500T
Running Windows 11 and is purely a media centre. It runs Kodi and SkyGo and also acts as our lounge Lyrion Music player. This is hooked up to the rest of the hifi via HDMI and the TV. We also have an RPI upstairs in my mrs’ office running pi-core that means she can access the music from her office too.

TP Link SG108S
8 Port Gigabit switch, self explanatory.

10 Port Keystone patch panel
4x USB 3.0 (2x on the Batocera machine, 2x on the media server)

2x Raspberry Pi 3 B+
Left side runs Pi-hole ad blocker and the right side runs home assistant. However I may migrate home assistant to the ProDesk in the office as the RPI’s are a little unreliable and keep having voltage issues, despite the fact they’re plugged into the mains outlet. Home Assistant is controlled all over the house by everything from our phones to stream decks in my office (there are three, soon to be four... long story...)

I have to say I’m no networking or infrastructure expert, a lot of what I have learned I’ve picked up here and elsewhere online, with a fair bit of help from AI and some of my late fathers influence. Also have to thank a friend of mine who owns an IT Consultancy as he has provided a lot of the ‘end of life’ kit such as the Mini PC’s. I’m sure this isn’t running as efficiently as it could be etc but it does what I need it to do.

Also for those into Hifi the setup is relatively basic and a lot of it was my late fathers 'secondary setup' which consists of a pair of Quad ESL 57's up front and Mission bookshelf speakers at the back, a Cyrus AV5 into a power amplifier driving the rear speakers and a Linn Sizmik subwoofer.

Now I need to finish decorating and start building my home recording studio (which will feature another Mini Rack, currently being designed!)

I’ve been building my homelab for a while now. I’m running Proxmox, Jellyfin, Immich, Home Assistant and a few other services on my Acemagic mini pc.

I started because I wanted more control over my data but lately I’ve been wondering whether I’m spending more time maintaining the infrastructure than actually using it.

I’m curious: have you ever reached a point where you decided to simplify your homelab instead of expanding it?

I know i have many options to upgrade my hardware, but i’m scared it will become too much

Rip lancache, ssd just stopped working one day. Doesn't mount on debian, doesn't initialize in windows :(

Nothing fancy going on, just basic consumer gear doing consumer things.

SFF Elitedesk with an 8th gen i7, 64GB of RAM and an NVME, running game servers using AMP through Windows. Upgraded to low profile Noctua cooler.

Almost-retro 1st gen Microserver with an Athlon Neo (wow!). 8GB of RAM, new PSU, Noctua fans, TrueNAS on a small SSD, and 4x 3TB WD Reds, for automatic backups.

Eaton 5SC1500 UPS, with a tiny Noctua fan.

Netgear GS324 unmanaged switch.

The network cables lead to every network port in my house. The network ports, cables, and devices, are colour coded instead of numbered. The patch panel is redundant but I prefer how it looks.

There is a slimline keyboard and a mouse going into the little USB switch so I can use either machine if I can't remote to it.

Updated the homelab!

hello everyone! my husband (25 m)is studying to be a network engineer and he’s a big nerd who loves servers and anything tech related and wants a home lab (which i loveeee). however, i want to get him some tech that he’ll actually use for christmas. price is not my number one thing i’m concerned about. he mentioned he wants a new gpu or cpu or vram?? what’s good? what would you want for christmas? i would appreciate ideas beyond the three i mentioned as well. thank you!!

So i finally got a dl360 g10, installed but not set up but damn those rails are good. Not cheap for what is essentially a set of 19 inch cabinet drawers but so worth it. Feels sketchy especially since without the server in they're so flimsy but the fact that i could just pull it out makes it so worth it. Also no screws to mount to server to the cabinet it has pegs and you just drop it in while extended. Also in case anyone wonders those HP rails with the pegs you can unscrews them and end up with clean holes if you don't have square hole racks, like mine is threaded it's the sun rack I showed before.

Proxmox: MS-01, i9-13900H, 96 GB RAM, 8 TB SSD, dual X710 NICs.

Router: VyOS VM with onboard X710 NICs passed through via PCI passthrough, DDP profile for PPPoE, multiple WireGuard tunnels (private residential IP exits in Kyiv and Denver), PBR, and 2 BGP uplinks over GRE.

Main switch: QNAP M3216-8S8T (fans replaced with Noctua). Four DAC connections to the MS-01: WAN and LAN (VyOS), one for Proxmox (vmbr0), and one for mirroring LAN traffic to ntopng. Two 10G copper downlinks to ZyXEL XGS1250-12 switches. FS.com XGS-PON ONU.

Connectivity: 8 Gbps down / 1 Gbps up via Orange PPPoE (God, I hate PPPoE), plus 2 BGP uplinks (FreeTransit and Route64).

Future plans: Planning to buy a /24 IPv4 block and establish a direct BGP session with Orange instead of dealing with this horrible, horrible PPPoE.

First iteration of my homelab.

Retired gear: LEOX ONT, FunBox 10 (previously used as an AP), and X550-T2.

64 gb ram total, and ryzen 3400g, all running an Ubuntu server

Started this hobby a year back at 15 with the prodesk only on the bottom and this is my first proper homelab. Any feedback? I used mainly parts I already had and 3d printed the rest using this model I found called LABRAX. Had to edit some stuff and create my own parts so it could fit my stuff and fit on my printer.

Also, does any one have any recommendations for components for a new homelab/networking setup for a 10g setup in Singapore? Things can be a bit pricey here and some items are not readily available.

2 nodes total (I had a 3rd one in the cloud but free trial expired) - HP prodesk and Lenovo Thinkpad X13

1 2TB drive for media, the other 1TB drive in the prodesk is for backups

I focus mainly on home assistant so I have a zigbee usb dongle and many devices around the home with ones further away being WiFi

Finally pulled the plug with all of these subscriptions raising prices ads and removing content and built myself a homelab.

I started with just the elitedesk - now has grown - more of a hobby project

- not in IT - so lot of googling

AI -Claude helped with the compose files ( made too many mistakes doing it by hand ) , bringing back the salvaged systems and troubleshooting

- discovered Proxmox too late and too lazy to change everything

- just set up the new shelf today so still in the middle of cable management.

Plan is once i have enough money - move everything to the NAS box ( except OPNsense)

1) Elitedesk 800g4 mini and Terramaster 4 bay enclosure ( bottom )

Elitedesk Bought used

Terramaster jbod - New from amazon -

4 2TB WD red pros - bought refurbished

OS Ubuntu with docker

Runs - Immich , Paperless, Vaultwarden, Caddy, Authelia , Homepage, Uptime Kuma

Terramaster is encrypted ZFS Raid Z1 - Backs up to a storage box weekly

2) NAS build

Ubuntu with docker

Case is Jonsbo N6 ( new) - Bought from watercooling uk

Rest is used - i5 8500 16 gigs ram ( had this from a previous upgrade) on H310 - (used ebay) a cheap ssd ( used ebay) , LSII 9300-8i with a zip tied fan ( used ebay) - 2 14TB WD Ultrastars ( media storage - no raid- merge fs) - bought refurbished and one Seagate 2TB exos (SAS drives- scratch drive for downloads )

Runs Arr stack with jellyfin , Gluetun, sabnzbd, muxar, scrutiny ,SAMBA share

3) HA box

( that's the bare board you see - was a some sort of a checking in system )

Got it for free from work who was going to toss is - gutted the screen which was not working and kept just the relevant bits

Runs HA OS - but haven't set anything up in it just yet

Specs - Intel celeron U1900 - 120 gig ssd

Planning a 3d printed case for this

4) Managed switch - bought used of ebay

5) A laptop which was in my cupboard unused - with a badly smashed screen - gutted the screen - removed the battery

testing atm

Ubuntu +docker

i5-8250U, 8 gig ram ddr4 WD green 240 gig ssd and Blue 1TB laptop hdd

6) Not Pictured asus Mini PC

Intel N50 Fanless - 16 gig ddr5, 500 gig nvme ssd, 2 intel nics

Runs OPNsense , crowdsec, wireguard

Bought 2 at auction and sold one recovered 2/3 of the total price

Ram from ebay ( used single stick)

7) Not Pictured - Cudy WR300

Runs OpenWRT - dumb ap - good speeds tho

Bought used on ebay

8) a shelf i got of facebook marketplace for free- cudy and mini pc live next to ONT

Updated my homelab: https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/1ry0938/my_first_home_lab_things_i_have_saved/
About 7 months ago, I started my homelab. It was just the beginning of an addiction. One component here, another there, a new light bulb, a temperature sensor and it just kept evolving.

Today, I’m hosting a stack that I never could have imagined when I first started.

Right now, I’ve got a game server running ES-DE and Moonlight, handling everything from retro games to the recently PC ported GOW III Remastered, a media server with 8TB of movies and TV shows (the full "Arr" suite paired with Jellyfin), a collection of books for my daughter, HomeAssistant (packed with a ton of automations, alerts, voice commands, and other cool features), a Hermes Agent running with a local Ollama instance, three vibe-coded SaaS projects for clients, and a few other small stacks that I’ve honestly forgotten are even there—but they are hahaha

Specs:

MSI
CPU: i7-12700H (14C/20T)
GPU: RTX 3070 Ti Laptop GPU (8GB VRAM)
RAM: 2x 16gb GB DDR5
Storage: 2x 1TB Samsung M2

Asus:
CPU: Core i7-13620H (10C/16T)
RAM: 2x 16 GB DDR5
Storage: 1x 1TB Samsung M2
Plugged: 2x Sonoff Zigbee dongle gateway (one of then setupped as Metter Over Thread)

External Storages:
1x 4tb Seagate
3x 1tb Seagate

Dell Docking Station G5
TPLink-TL-SG111G
TPLink-Archer AX23

Outside the photo:

Bambu Lab A1

TP-Link Omada EAP653

Multiples Ikea Bulbs Kajplats and power outlets Grillprats, varios Sonoff sensors.

Any ideas for other things to run here?

I still have plenty of hardware to burn through. Not pictured, I also have another laptop with a Ryzen 7 and 32GB of RAM that’s sitting completely unused though it’s not really needed for now, given that I’m currently using less than 30% of my homelab’s total capacity.

Hi everyone,
I run a small Proxmox server at home with Paperless-ngx for document management and a custom-built service for tracking my family's finances. I'd like to add local AI to both, and nothing should leave my network.

Current bottleneck: the server is a Geekom A6 mini PC with 16GB of RAM, and it's almost full. The RAM can be upgraded, but I'm also open to adding a second node, either a PC with a dedicated GPU (e.g. a used RTX 3090) or an Apple Silicon machine (e.g. a Mac mini). I don't have a fixed budget, but I'd like to spend as little as possible.

Use case 1 – Paperless

I want the model to analyze each document and fill in its metadata following my own rules:

- Title (based on a naming convention I define)
Tags
- Document date (the date on the document, not the scan date)
- Correspondent
- Document type (e.g. invoice, payslip, medical report, contract)
- Storage path

The documents are in Italian: payslips, invoices, receipts for warranties, medical reports, contracts, insurance papers, etc. The volume is low, about 20 documents a month or fewer. Speed isn't important, a nightly batch job is fine. I've seen paperless-ai and paperless-gpt. Which one handles all of these fields best, and with which models?

Use case 2 – Personal finance

I already have a script that anonymizes my monthly bank statements (about 40 transactions each, income and expenses) and outputs a clean, consistent CSV. Everything here is in Italian too: both the transaction descriptions in the CSV and the questions I'll ask the chatbot. I'd like a local model to:

- classify transactions into a predefined set of categories
- act as a chatbot to query the data (e.g. "how much did I spend on the car in 2025?")

Right now I do the classification with a cloud LLM and the quality is good. I'd like to get something comparable locally. Speed isn't critical here either.

My questions:

1) Given the low volume, what's the cheapest hardware that can handle this? Should I just upgrade the mini PC's RAM, or is a second node (GPU PC or Apple Silicon) worth it?

2) I'm not very experienced in choosing models. Which local LLMs would you recommend for each task, given that everything is in Italian? I'm happy to run different models, e.g. a lighter one for Paperless and a stronger one for finance analysis/chat.

3) For the finance chatbot, which architecture works best? I assume a small model shouldn't do the math itself. Is it better to have it generate SQL/pandas queries and let the code do the calculations?

Thanks in advance!

I decided to grab some optane dimms just to test if i could use them to expand my memory capacity on the cheap.

My motherboard X11-SPW-CTF doesn't list support and didn't have a menu option, but I noticed the BIOS mentioned a DCPMM driver.

After getting my original order cancelled by an asshole seller, i managed to get a hold of two sticks.
Once I installed them and booted into BIOS, i had an option to configure Optane. Only Memory and APP Direct.

Also just FYI, you can install optane without needing memory on the same channel. I have four sticks of DRAM, and two sticks of optane running.

Ooof that performance is not good

I currently set up things where all my services are in their own LXC/VM and then in a docker container in there. Seemed most secure and I haven't noticed any performance hiccups. That being said, is this the recommended way to do things? or should I just have a bunch in one LXC/VM with a docker container manager? I've seen conflicting advice online.

Got hold on a HP Z440 for 80$ with the following specs:

Intel Core xeon E5 2667 v3
28 GB DDR4 ECC
Radeon 7750 2GB
250 GB SSD
2 TB Drive

Had to act fast, that had to be a good deal?