<![CDATA[DoTheNeedful Forums

<![CDATA[DoTheNeedful Forums - Homelab]]> https://dotheneedful.online/forums/ Sun, 05 Apr 2026 14:43:21 +0000 MyBB <![CDATA["promised.lan"]]> https://dotheneedful.online/forums/showthread.php?tid=21 Wed, 12 Mar 2025 03:29:53 +0000 misteradamx]]> https://dotheneedful.online/forums/showthread.php?tid=21 Rack
It's a Panduit cabinet. Its massive, but it only cost me $75 and has all the panels. It even came with keys and some extra PDUs (that I intend to sell, eventually). If we ever move or buy a house, I'll likely just sell it and get a smaller one.

Network
I run a UDM SE, which I upgraded to from an Erlite 3. It does everything I could ever need and then some. I have one camera currently, will be adding more now that the weather is nice.

Additionally, I have several switches around the house and I also run a Rasp Pi 5 8GB with a POE hat.

Storage
QNAP TS-231P on the left. Two 6TB Seagate Ironwolf drives. Not super pleased with the QNAP product, I much prefer Synology for what I need. This serves as my media storage.

Synology DS213J on the right. It's two 3TB Ironwolf drives. It stores my projects.

Server
Cisco UCS C220 M4s. This was surplus'd from work, it ran our CUCM for awhile. We had two but my boss got the other one. I have two 512GB SSDs with Proxmox installed and then there's 6 2TB SSDs for storage in PVE. I have a few VMs on it. I also added a second CPU and added more RAM.

32 x Intel® Xeon® CPU E5-2630 v3 @ 2.40GHz (2 Sockets)
96GB RAM

Despite being a 1U server, I have the fans in quiet mode and even if they ramp up a bit, it's still no longer than what's normally going on downstairs so you barely notice it.

Here's my VMs so far:

Minecraft
Plex (Windows VM)
LubeLogger (LXC)
Tandoor (LXC)
Zabbix
Homebox (LXC)
Homepage (LXC)

The two that get used the most, besides Plex, are LubeLogger and Tandoor. LL is for tracking vehicle maintenance and upgrades. Tandoor is recipe storage.

pending project:
I have a Unicom S-1604 R4 at work that I will probably bring home and use for something like TrueNAS so I can consolidate the Synology and QNAP.

]]> Rack
It's a Panduit cabinet. Its massive, but it only cost me $75 and has all the panels. It even came with keys and some extra PDUs (that I intend to sell, eventually). If we ever move or buy a house, I'll likely just sell it and get a smaller one.

Network
I run a UDM SE, which I upgraded to from an Erlite 3. It does everything I could ever need and then some. I have one camera currently, will be adding more now that the weather is nice.

Additionally, I have several switches around the house and I also run a Rasp Pi 5 8GB with a POE hat.

Storage
QNAP TS-231P on the left. Two 6TB Seagate Ironwolf drives. Not super pleased with the QNAP product, I much prefer Synology for what I need. This serves as my media storage.

Synology DS213J on the right. It's two 3TB Ironwolf drives. It stores my projects.

Server
Cisco UCS C220 M4s. This was surplus'd from work, it ran our CUCM for awhile. We had two but my boss got the other one. I have two 512GB SSDs with Proxmox installed and then there's 6 2TB SSDs for storage in PVE. I have a few VMs on it. I also added a second CPU and added more RAM.

32 x Intel® Xeon® CPU E5-2630 v3 @ 2.40GHz (2 Sockets)
96GB RAM

Despite being a 1U server, I have the fans in quiet mode and even if they ramp up a bit, it's still no longer than what's normally going on downstairs so you barely notice it.

Here's my VMs so far:

Minecraft
Plex (Windows VM)
LubeLogger (LXC)
Tandoor (LXC)
Zabbix
Homebox (LXC)
Homepage (LXC)

]]> <![CDATA[Anyone else that *doesn't* homelab?]]> https://dotheneedful.online/forums/showthread.php?tid=18 Tue, 11 Mar 2025 17:31:15 +0000 mistiry]]> https://dotheneedful.online/forums/showthread.php?tid=18
I do maintain a small footprint of VPS systems in the cloud, used to run things such as this website, the IRC bot, my wife's business stuff, and a few other personal things. But at home, there isn't much at all anymore. My wife and oldest have a laptop, I have my PC and my work laptop. A couple of tablets and such floating around. After my move last year, I'm even running on the ISP-provided WiFi6 router. No servers, no raspberry pi's. I did have a few cameras, but have not yet remounted any here after the move.

What I find is that I'm completely free from dealing with tech issues when I'm not at work. Aside from small things that everyone has to deal with - these are computers after all - I am not spending my nights or weekends dealing with some self-inflicted issue with my homelab setup. I spent countless hours doing such in the past, but I just don't see it being worth it for me anymore. Instead of spending non-working hours fixing the same kind of things I get paid (or used to get paid) to fix, I can spend it on hobbies. Gaming. Family.

I do still lose some time on personal projects, like the IRC bot and website and these forums, but it's pretty minimal and I enjoy it. And if you enjoy homelabbing, I say go for it!]]>
I do maintain a small footprint of VPS systems in the cloud, used to run things such as this website, the IRC bot, my wife's business stuff, and a few other personal things. But at home, there isn't much at all anymore. My wife and oldest have a laptop, I have my PC and my work laptop. A couple of tablets and such floating around. After my move last year, I'm even running on the ISP-provided WiFi6 router. No servers, no raspberry pi's. I did have a few cameras, but have not yet remounted any here after the move.

What I find is that I'm completely free from dealing with tech issues when I'm not at work. Aside from small things that everyone has to deal with - these are computers after all - I am not spending my nights or weekends dealing with some self-inflicted issue with my homelab setup. I spent countless hours doing such in the past, but I just don't see it being worth it for me anymore. Instead of spending non-working hours fixing the same kind of things I get paid (or used to get paid) to fix, I can spend it on hobbies. Gaming. Family.

I do still lose some time on personal projects, like the IRC bot and website and these forums, but it's pretty minimal and I enjoy it. And if you enjoy homelabbing, I say go for it!]]> <![CDATA[PwnLab - Just a little somethin']]> https://dotheneedful.online/forums/showthread.php?tid=9 Tue, 11 Mar 2025 01:05:52 +0000 pwnhoax]]> https://dotheneedful.online/forums/showthread.php?tid=9
I placed quotes because up until recently I put everything on a rented box from OVH. Suited my needs well, but with a $300/mo spend and needing to cut costs I knew I needed to cancel it at renewal.

Hardware

Hypervisor:
Dell Optiplex 7090 SFF
Core i9-10900 2.8GHz 10-Core
112 GB DD4 Non-ECC RAM
1TB SK hynix Platinum P41 M.2 (OS/ISOs/"Fast" VMs)
2TB Samsung 990 EVO M.2 (VMs) - This took the place of the SSHD as performance was soooo much worse than I expected
2TB Seagate FireCude ST2000LX001 SSHD (VHD Archives, VM Config Files) - Mostly replaced by Samsung Drive
OS - Windows Server 2022 Standard w/ Hyper-V Role

NAS:
Synology DS1621+
AMD Ryzen V1500B 2.2GHz
20GB RAM (Stock was 4GB)
500GB SK hynix Gold P31 500GB M.2 (Caching)
5x TOSHIBA MG03ACA400 4TB 7200 RPM SATA Enterprise Drive
All drives in single array using Synology Hybrid Array with 1-drive fault tolerance.

Raspberry Pi 4 Model B
Broadcom BCM2711, quad-core Cortex-A72
4GB RAM
32GB MicroSD Card
AURSINC Shari PiHat - Portable SA818 Ham Allstar Radio Interface

Networking
(the most boring part)
ISP Provided CR1000B
Dell EMC X1026 26-Port (24 Gigabit, 2 SFP)

Services

Hyper-V
IceCast Server/Client - Window 11 - Used to pipe audio from VM direct to IceCast Server that MusicBot can pick up.
Nginx Proxy Manager - Debian 12 - Reverse proxy for publicly facing services
MusicBot - Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS - Discord and Teamspeak MusicBot running SinusBot (It works but the project has not had updates recently)
KASM Workspaces - Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS - Runs KASM Workspaces (https://www.kasmweb.com/)
Farming Sim 25 - Windows Server 2025 Standard - farming Simulator 2025 Dedicated Server (why can't they make a linux version)
DokuWiki - Debian 12 - Documentation Wiki running on Apache
Plex - Windows 10 - Hosting media on local network

NAS
Synology Active Backup for Business for VMs
Document & Pictures storage
"ISO" Repository
Former Container host for piHole and Unifi Controller - removed with recent reconfiguration

Raspberry Pi 4 Model B
GMRSLIVE - Allstar node for GMRS specific use-cases creating a private internet-connected repeater.

Backups

NPM, MusicBot, and Farming Sim 25 are backed up to Synology daily via Synology Active Backup for Business
Important Documents and Pictures off-sited to BackBlaze B2 Bucket via Cloud Sync

To Do

Finish (start) documentation
Expand storage on KASM
Re-deploy an "ISO" retrieval stack

I am sure I might have missed something.

Let me know your thoughts, concerns, or questions!]]>
I placed quotes because up until recently I put everything on a rented box from OVH. Suited my needs well, but with a $300/mo spend and needing to cut costs I knew I needed to cancel it at renewal.

Hardware

NPM, MusicBot, and Farming Sim 25 are backed up to Synology daily via Synology Active Backup for Business
Important Documents and Pictures off-sited to BackBlaze B2 Bucket via Cloud Sync

To Do

Finish (start) documentation
Expand storage on KASM
Re-deploy an "ISO" retrieval stack

I am sure I might have missed something.

Let me know your thoughts, concerns, or questions!]]> <![CDATA[Homelab Projects]]> https://dotheneedful.online/forums/showthread.php?tid=2 Sat, 08 Mar 2025 19:53:27 +0000 gibby]]> https://dotheneedful.online/forums/showthread.php?tid=2
Anything cool going on in your homelab? Want to show something off? Drop it here!]]>
Anything cool going on in your homelab? Want to show something off? Drop it here!]]>