It all started a few years back when I bought my first switch from FB Marketplace (basically Craigslist). It was a cheap, dumb gigabit switch. And then it grew into what I can only describe as a new addiction.

My homelab has gone through a bunch of evolutions since then, as the addiction kept growing. it is hard to resist adding more and more gear filling every single empty spot in the rack.


My very first lab

It was simple, just a mini PC, a dumb switch, and a MikroTik router (RB750Gr3 to be exact). That’s where it all began.


My first rack

As more gear came in, things started to get messy and disorganized real quick. So I decided to buy my first rack. Technically, it’s an audio rack, not a real server rack, but I wanted to keep it small and simple since my room didn’t have much space left.


My first “real” server hardware

After getting that rack, I saw the empty spot inside it... and yeah, my impulsive thought just popped out, “Why not fill it with a real server?”

So I bought my first real server hardware: a Dell PowerEdge R210 II. I was so happy when it arrived. The seller was even kind enough to include a VGA cable (since I didn’t have one). You know how rare VGA cables are these days everything’s HDMI now.

Disappointment

Then came the disappointment. Before buying the R210 II, I did a bunch of research, watched videos, read forums, even asked around about how loud a 1U server really is. Everyone said this model was “pretty quiet for a 1U.”

But man, when I powered it on for the first time… it screamed. After the BIOS screen, the fan did settle down, but it was still nowhere near “quiet.”

Back then, I was living in a tiny 4x4 rent room. My rack was right behind my desk, also right next to where I slept. So yeah, that server ended up being unused for almost a year. I only powered it on when needed, using WoL (Wake on LAN) for testing.

Guess that was my first lesson: 1U servers are almost always loud.


My first micro PC

After that, I learned my lesson. I wanted something small, quiet, and power-efficient, something I could use as my remote workspace. So I bought a Dell OptiPlex 7040 Micro, specs: Intel i7-6700, 32GB RAM, and 250GB SSD.

At first, it had this weird issue, it would randomly go blank, still hot, NIC LED still on, but not actually powered off. I had to unplug it every time to reset it. Turns out, it was just a BIOS issue. Once I updated the BIOS (yeah, had to use Windows for that part), everything worked fine ever since.


I bought a 20U rack

A couple months after I moved to a new place, a bigger one, I was just scrolling through Facebook Marketplace (as usual) and saw a few 1U servers sitting there for months. Nobody even bothered to look at them.

And then that wild thought popped into my head again, “I think I need a bigger rack.”

So yeah, I pulled the trigger and bought a 20U open rack. And that’s how it became my current lab ever since.

List of hardware from top to bottom:

  • TP-Link T1600G-52TS : my core switch
  • MikroTik RB450Gx4 : my main router
  • Dell OptiPlex 7010 USFF : i5-3570, 16GB RAM, 240GB SSD
  • Dell OptiPlex 7040 Micro : Intel i7-6700, 32GB RAM, 256GB NVMe SSD
  • Lenovo ThinkCentre M720Q : i7-8700T, 32GB RAM, 256GB NVMe SSD
  • 2× Gigabyte : Intel E-2234 / 64GB / SSD 256GB / HDD 4×4TB : my twin server scream machine
  • 2× Dell R210 II : E3-1240 v2 / 32GB / SSD 240GB / HDD 500GB
  • Dell OptiPlex 7010 : i7-3770 / 32GB / 6TB HDD, 4×2TB, 256GB SSD : I recased it into a rackmount case
  • 2U DIY server : E3-1231 v3 / 32GB / 256GB SSD

Other hardware I considered is IoT.

  • Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Rev 1.2 / BCM2835 4x 1.200GHz / 1 GB / 32 GB mmc
  • Orange Pi 3 LTS / 1.800GHz / 2 GB / 32 GB mmc, 8 GB mmc


Thanks for reading!