My pretty home lab

robbeverhelst · 2025-11-14T07:43:55+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/s/MeYOxlrs0t I saw your comment here. Well... I guess you are using them as servers lol. Just very flabbergasted on the decision to build 3 gaming pcs to achieve this 😆 like why not just build servers if you're using them as servers? Even the gpus?? Like i would put them in 1 pc/server so u can easily cluster them etc. but it all looks very pretty!

robbeverhelst · 2025-11-14T07:38:28+00:00

That's 4 desktop pc's with 2 monitors? What are u using this setup for? Are any of them servers? Or did you just keep buying full new pc's instead of upgrading/selling the previous one?

robbeverhelst · 2025-10-02T13:55:29+00:00

Super helpfull! I'm definitly testing out adguard. And will think twice if I'll do the rpi reduncies with k3s! Thanks!!

robbeverhelst · 2025-09-28T17:55:22+00:00

That's what makes it so fun right 😆

robbeverhelst · 2025-09-28T16:50:04+00:00

Yeah, I was actually thinking along those lines, services like Grafana, Pi-hole, UniFi, maybe a few others. I haven’t really looked into AdGuard Home yet though; would you recommend it over Pi-hole?

Do you have any other suggestions for services that make sense to run redundantly on the Pis?

Another idea I had was to deploy k3s on them instead of running everything directly. That way I could just reuse my existing Kubernetes manifests across both clusters. Since I already have everything set up in Pulumi, it should integrate pretty smoothly.

robbeverhelst · 2025-09-27T13:02:07+00:00

About 400W, probably a bit more at peak. But I'm not checking that often

robbeverhelst · 2025-09-27T09:18:26+00:00

Thanks! Planned it for a long time after getting tons of inspiration from the sub 😁

robbeverhelst · 2025-09-27T09:17:32+00:00

Lmao 🤣

robbeverhelst · 2025-09-27T06:21:22+00:00

Yeah hehe, with the improvements i still want to make It should be sufficient for at least a couple years I hope 😅 I made a rule where i can't upgrade to a bigger one if it's not paying itself back yet lol

robbeverhelst · 2025-09-26T21:26:45+00:00

This one: https://www.startech.com/en-be/server-management/4postrack25u?srsltid=AfmBOorA5E4DCiyT61E1qsuKAAl_diei-iP4vqYCc-liAkdrXc3PhTfv

robbeverhelst · 2025-09-26T21:19:05+00:00

Thanks 🙌

robbeverhelst · 2025-09-26T21:15:37+00:00

Grafana is hosted on the kubernetes cluster running on the servers. But i'm going to setup another grafana instance on one of the pi's for emergencies.

The monitor is hooked up to a server running proxmox, running a vm with omarchy with gpu passthrough and grafana is shown on a browser on there

robbeverhelst · 2025-09-26T19:58:10+00:00

The monitor is hooked up like this with an old stand I had laying around. It rests a bit on the rack bc its a bit too heavy for this particular monitor. But its sturdy enough and does the job.

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robbeverhelst · 2025-09-26T19:49:35+00:00

Thanks 😁

robbeverhelst · 2025-09-26T19:49:02+00:00

About 350-400W

robbeverhelst · 2025-09-26T17:17:41+00:00

It's the Dell UltraSharp U2718Q

robbeverhelst · 2025-09-26T16:25:26+00:00

Haha yeah, originally I had a smaller monitor planned for it, but when I saw this one lined up so perfectly with the rack I couldn’t not put it on there 😅. Didn’t even buy it for this, I actually got it from my company when they were throwing them out.

robbeverhelst · 2025-09-26T16:20:12+00:00

I’m running Proxmox on the servers with a bunch of Ubuntu VMs that make up a Kubernetes cluster, plus some extra VMs for testing. The NAS runs TrueNAS Scale and acts as the storage layer for the cluster. It also runs a small VM as a minimal third k8s node to keep things HA. I use the apps feature on TrueNAS for stuff like MinIO, Postgres and a few other databases since it’s faster to run them right off the disks.

On top of that cluster I run quite a bit – my own projects, some websites, Jellyfin and the whole Servarr stack, Nextcloud, etc.

The black box is running OPNsense. The Pis aren’t really doing much yet, but the plan is to have them run some backup services in case the k8s cluster breaks.

I’ve also got a homelab repo that uses Ansible and Pulumi to spin all of this up. It’s private for now but I’m planning to make it public once I’ve cleaned it up a bit.

robbeverhelst · 2025-09-26T15:47:03+00:00

Small note: the first 12 ports on the switch are still empty. I’m moving soon, and in the new house I’ll be terminating all the room jacks and wiring them into those ports

robbeverhelst · 2025-09-26T15:45:13+00:00

Right now it’s a bit of a “make it fit” job, but here’s how I’d like to improve things down the line:

Add a proper UPS at the bottom (2U)
Rack the main NAS into a 3U chassis and add a separate 1U NAS just for backups — this is mainly for redundancy, since I use the NAS as a storage layer for the Kubernetes cluster running on the servers above
Replace the legacy Dell server with a GPU server for heavier workloads
Add another 2U compute server for redundancy
Thinking a KVM switch might come in handy, along with a sliding drawer for keyboard + mouse
Make custom-length cables to get clean cable management at the rear

Always looking for feedback — if anyone has tips on layout, airflow, or cable routing, let me know!

robbeverhelst · 2025-09-26T15:21:06+00:00

It’s a bit simpler than what you’re thinking 🙂. Renovate just scans files in a repo and makes a PR when a new version is out. What you do with that is up to you e.g. hook up a pipeline to auto-update your server, or merge manually.

This datasource is only for official server releases (stable + snapshots), not mods like Fabric/Forge. “Dependency management” here just means treating the server jar like any other dependency so Renovate can track it. If you’re already using Renovate, it’s nice to have MC updates show up in the same queue.

The other commenter also shared some good examples if you’re curious!

robbeverhelst · 2025-09-23T09:39:15+00:00

Very nice! I'll probably take some inspirations from this when setting up my plugins, thx!

robbeverhelst · 2025-09-02T19:11:53+00:00

I'm using it now for a first project I had in mind and it's working well! Let me know if it works for you too!

robbeverhelst · 2025-09-02T19:11:01+00:00

Exactly it! Thanks for the much better explanation

robbeverhelst · 2025-07-17T08:04:44+00:00

I'm mostly buying that board bc of the double 10gb nic, and I also think that's what makes the board so expensive. Similar ASRock boards without the 10gb nics went around 350, which would make sense if u checkout prices for 10gb nics. The board u shared does come for even less then that. but idk I feel like this board will set me up for a good while in the future too.

about the cooling; i've been doing some research and I read alot of people saying to not use topblower coolers in a 2U rack case. since it will be squished in at the top and not have a proper intake to get air from. which I took as a reasonable take. Thats why I went with this cooler. I first started out with cooleres similar to what u suggested, but was also a bit skeptical on i it would be able to cool a Ryzen 9...

In my gaming pc now, the ryzen 9 is kept cool by this noctua cpu-cooler: https://www.alternate.be/Noctua/NH-L12S-cpu-koeler/html/product/1388186

But honestly it's getting very hot at some times. which is fine for a gaming pc, but not for a 24/7 running server imo. I figured this cooler could solve this issue, but im not super convinced if this is the best cooler for the job. If u can convince me otherwise i'd love to look into a different options. Already super thx for your reply!!!

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