For years i've had dedicated servers and vps's and i wanted the experience to host something at home, only on the local network. How hard can it be?

After some fun time researching i went for a mini pc, the Beelink mini s12 pro N100 and attached it to a dusty monitor with the included VESA bracket. What a nice addition.

This smoll cute pc has a lot under the hood and i dont think i'd need something bigger or more powerful.

So far im hosting: * Immich * Openspeedtest

But hey, before ive setlled on the above ive spent sooo mannyyy hours troubleshooting and reinstalled 10 times, tried out casaos, homarr, portainer, debian gnome and watched countless videos which software to choose to manage docker containers. (Never liked docker cuz of the time spent configuring everything and how slow it is)

||To go back to the troubleshooting part, my pc and main desktop are in the same room and i only have 1 ethernet port.. and i dont have a switch but good thing the beelink has an intel wifi 6 card right! Haha... No. TBC in the comments||

Built on a tight budget. Everything's from the used market (Except the DAS)

• P360 Tiny - Proxmox host i7-12700T | 32GB RAM | 2x1TB NVMe | NVIDIA T1000 8GB
• M720q - pfSense box i350-T4 NIC
• ProDesk 600 G4 - TrueNAS Scale 2×1TB WD SN700 NVMe (Mirrored RAID) | 500GB NVME on Wifi Slot | TerraMaster D4-320 10gbps DAS with 2x20TB Seagate Exos (Mirrored RAID)

Nothing special, all Gpu compute heavy builds. 2-8 cards per case. My networking is basic and I use 2 unmanaged switches. Idk what else to say I’ve never posted before.

Hey, this is my first homeLab TrueNas running in Jonsbo N5, Linux Server running in Lian Li A3, and a DS 220+. I am currently migrating media and services from my Synology to TrueNas and the Linux server. I spent a lot of time finding the right dimensions for the rack. It's called Sunnersta storage unit for the kitchen. my servers are perfect fit for this furniture and it is only $30 ish. It also has a nice drawer on top so I can store a bunch of tools! Anyways, I've finally finished this over a month and I just wanted to share it with you guys. Have a good day.

Hi everyone,

I’m in the process of building a 22U homelab and I need some advice about airflow. Can you confirm if the airflow in a rack should ideally be horizontal (front-to-back) or vertical (bottom-to-top)? Also, what type of fan unit would you recommend for this setup?

Thanks

From top to bottom

Used HP business laser printer, from way before they started on their bullshit. Actually gets regular use, and you can still get refurbished toner cartridges for it on the cheap. Shockingly the most reliable thing in this rack UDM Pro Pyle 9 port PDU (really handy for rebooting the modem, Comcast can suck my entire left nut. Can't wait for fiber) CODA56 Modem with a 3d printed rack mount Seagate NAS (super ancient, just a simple backup target) Cyberpower 1175VA UPS. Not great but functional enough. 2U server "Mr. Rogers", i9-10900KF I got in a trade with 64GB of RAM. Needs something better than the Intel stock cooler, but whatever. Has an Arc A380, going to make it an SSD-based media server. Runs nearly everything. 1st 4U server "Deep Thought", Ryzen 9 9900X with 64GB of RAM and an RTX 5060 Ti. Only used for local AI. 2nd 4U Server "Providence", Ryzen 7 9700X with 192GB of RAM (didn't even order that much, Amazon just messed up my order and I didn't say anything to them about it). Dedicated game server.

I got a Lenovo ThinkCentre M920q for my Proxmox server. Now I’m torn between getting a TerraMaster enclosure with TrueNAS Scale in a VM, or just buying a Ugreen NAS as an extra device.

I've just now put together my first setup for Self Hosting :)

Im running 2 Lenovo M720s and an M710

The top M720 came with Win11 Pro which I intend to use for games like FS22 that use Windows for their dedicated servers

The middle M720 is going to run Ubuntu Server maybe with CasaOS for things like a Minecraft server

And the bottom M710 is going to be my DIY Router with OPN-Sense

I'm using a 10" Digitus Rack that was recently ditched at work, I printed the Rack Ears for the Zyxel GS1100-16 and the Lenovo Adapters.

The Lenovos are just a hair too long to fit cables in the back so I stole some M6x40mm Studs off work and used short M6x12 Screws because my Rackscrews were too long.

Because I live in Germany the Eaton 5S 550 is honestly never going to get used but I got the 5 finger discount at work so Im using it anyway, had to buy the IEC C14-C5 cable but they still work wonderfully

If you have any Ideas for me please let me know :)

Hi everyone!

I’ve been a longtime lurker in this sub and it’s honestly amazing how creative and ambitious so many of the setups posted here are. What started as a fun side project of reviving and repurposing old hardware (laptops, desktops, peripherals, etc) turned into a homelab development project. This post is to share my progress thus far.

Tbh, I’m learning a lot as I go along, and while most components of this homelab have a distinct purpose, a lot of this project came about from pure curiosity and just tinkering, reading, and learning about what is possible with a homelab in 2025.

I don’t want to bore you all, but for those who are interested, here’s a brief description on what everything is used for at the moment, from left-to-right:

Lenovo Yoga 2 13 (replaced HDD with a 1TB M2 SSD) running Ubuntu 22.04, used for lightweight, web-based tasks like email, browsing, note taking, and very light dev work.

2020 Zephyrus G14 (Ryzen 9 4900HS model with RTX 2060 Max-Q, and upgraded to 40GB RAM), used as my primary gaming rig at the moment. I mainly play Valorant at 1080p, and this lil guy pushes 144 FPS and I’ve optimized thermals such that CPU/GPU temps don’t exceed ~72 °C. I’m also an active musician, so this laptop also doubles as a portable DAW machine. Music stack is mainly Reaper, FL Studio, and Guitar Pro, although many of my collaborators use Logic Pro.

In the back left corner, a decade plus year old desktop setup that I’m in the process of converting to a NAS that will manage a local music library and a local Git server (likely through Gitea or similar). Motherboard is ASRock P67 Extreme4, CPU is i5-2500k and 32GB RAM, GPU is GTS 450 (only for video out, but I think I might just remove it and make it headless. Case is an old Rosewill Challenger-U3 which has a ridiculous amount of drive bays and space for airflow. I’ll likely be maxing out the SATA ports on the P67 mobo and setting up a RAIDZ1 ZFS setup, along with a separate cold storage mirror. I’m still figuring out the particulars, but I’ll likely go with Debian for the OS.

On the right, I have a prebuilt OriginPC Neuron from 2019, sports an MSI Z390M Gaming Edge AC mobo, i9-9900k, 64GB RAM, and an RTX 2060 Super. This is my main dev workstation which I’m also developing a PKM library on.

Then there’s a Dell OptiPlex 5070, which I recently acquired. Sports an i5-9500, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB NVMe, and a 1TB SATA SSD. Still figuring out what to do with it, but I’m thinking I’ll max out the RAM at 64GB and turn it into a Proxmox server. I’m thinking of adding a low-profile GPU, but I’m still considering my options there. I might keep one drive on there booting Windows and try to turn it into another light gaming rig. I’m considering a GTX 1650 LP, an RTX 3050 LP, or an RX6400 LP for GPUs.

Lastly, on the very right I have an old Dell OptiPlex 790 that I’m using as my dedicated pfSense machine. I’ve thrown in an Intel i350-T4 NIC, a 240GB SATA SSD, and 8GB RAM. I might switch to a fanless machine for router duties in the future and turn this machine into a hardware testing machine, but for now it’s killing it as my pfSense firewall.

Then in the center I have my LAN switch, which is a TP-Link TL-SG108PE.

I guess I’m just sharing, but thoughts? Comments? Questions? Suggestions? All welcome.

Cheers r/homelab, you all helped me down this rabbit hole. I’m digging deeper every day and it goes way deeper than I ever imagined.

Fractal 804, i3 8100, 8gb RAM, some mods (led, orange stripes), neat cabling, quiet cooler, wd red (more disks coming soon). My white furry QA engineer has inspected and approved my project

Looking for tips on how to organize smaller components into a 19” tray.