homelab

After building my homelab from the ground up on the software side, I decided it was time to finally restructure and organize the hardware side. Until now, I had been hosting everything on different nodes scattered around the house, and it was becoming a hassle to manage. What better way to fix this than by organizing everything inside a proper server rack?

Initial draft

Before diving into the build, I wanted to make sure I did it right. That meant carefully planning everything—components, ports, measurements—to ensure I could fit everything neatly into a single server rack without it being too large for my space. I settled on a 9U case, which provided plenty of room for my existing devices while also allowing for future expansion.

draft

Components

After creating my draft, I could go and find all of the components I needed. I took a lot of inspiration from Jeff Geerling’s minilab github repo which focusses on building small but powerfull server racks.

Server rack

Networking

Hardware

  • HP Prodesk Mini
    • i5-10400T
    • 40GB RAM
  • HP Prodesk Mini
    • i3-10105T
    • 32GB RAM
  • Dell Optiplex 3080 micro
    • i5-7500T
    • 32GB RAM
  • Synology NAS - DS923+
    • 3x 4TB Seagate IronWolf NAS HDD -> running in SHR
  • Raspberry Pi 4
  • Raspberry Pi 3B

Creating small UTP cables

I wanted the cables running from the switch to the patch panel in the rack to be as short as possible for a clean and organized look. However, the shortest pre-made cables I could find online were 15cm, which was still longer than I preferred. So, I decided to make my own. It took a few tries to get back into the rhythm of crimping and testing, but in the end, everything turned out great.

cables cables2

Very happy with the outcome!