Here’s my beautiful unemployed-for-too-long-have-no-money-dont-care-about-looks lab :)

Hey it’s more than good enough to run all this ¯_(ツ)_/¯



Did some one ask for dust cos I got plenty! Also have one desktop with 30TB of memory, separate small form for HA and Pihole, networking equipment, cooling fans and a UPS all packed into one (un)tidy cupboard. The door doesn’t quite close but enough to hide it from my partner!

Here is my combination lab and workbench. I have been busy trying to buy/sell/trade computers that I have become significantly behind on cleaning as I go. I also just got the network rack:

I haven’t had time between work, hustling, and home maintenance to finish getting the cabling managed or the NAS:

The goal is to get the NAS in the rack, UPS to the items in the rack, the 3D printer under the bench, and the monitors on the wall and off the bench. Then I’ll start in on plastic organizers for the bits and parts that clutter my bench.
Oooh I like :D Kernel panic?!! BAM! BAM! BAM! in the punching bag!
Stupid BAM Broadcom BAM Legacy BAM Wireless BAM Drivers BAM
Did someone ask for jank, dust, and cables?

Hey, shock-absorbing floor, stable structure to put the servers on, and a UPS. I bet that’s much better than the vast majority of us (1st thing I buy when I get a job is a UPS).
This looks like an after-work special. Nice setup. That APC is awesome. I need to get a new one.
Dust and jank, you say?

Takes no space anybody cares about so it works in my book
My wife did say she didn’t like seeing all the stuff just out like that. I reminded her it was a small compromise compared to spending over $100/mo on streaming services.
I would post mine but it’s too messy for now
The home server under my desk. Very professional, as you can see.

Oooh that’s neat.
Buco seems to be having a good time. 9/10, unsure how Eaton feels.
The Eaton unit is a UPS that’s connected to the whole setup. It works really well, I can recommend it.
BEHOLD! THE MOTHERBOARD!

“Beware of the leopard.”
Wow!
When I’m rich I will also get a NAS/multiple drive enclosure (and fill it, hence the “rich” condition).
This has got grit! I love it.
Just cleaned mine up a bit recently!

PC on the left, RPi for simple stuff and an Odroid HC4 as my media and backup server.
Not pictured: another RPi dedicated to HomeAssistant, a magic mirror, and networking stuff.
Also not pictured: my workbench tools on the upper shelves, which have not been tidied recently.
I’m too lazy to take pictures, but I have a synology sitting in an Ikea Kalix and an older laptop mounted to the other side of the wall (that the kalix is against), which is a bathroom in my garage.
We had contractors working last summer and let them use the garage bathroom. After the 3rd day I overheard a few of them developing conspiracy theories for why we have a closed laptop mounted to the wall and with fans that would occasionally cycle up.
Haha i have a raspberrypizero screwed to a wall in the garage that turns my regular doorbell into a smart doorbell through a relay I plugged into the GPIO, plugged into a numpad to arm/disarm cameras, and into a little camera that takes a picture when a wrong code is entered, ran by a little python script I wrote. I’ve heard very similar comments lol.

I remember looking at Sysracks racks a while back when I was trying to find sound-absorbent enclosed racks (which they do make, though I didn’t get one; wasn’t willing to pay for it, as they come at a very large premium). They were one of the very few companies making them. I don’t think that those particular ones are the sound-absorbent models, but their name stuck in my head.
I got this because it’s almost fully enclosed. Most of the noise comes from an open rear door which this doesn’t have, and an open front door which this sort of has. It’s not very loud when the hvac is set to a reasonable level, even though it’s pulling air through 4 fans on the top.
I have additional sound deadening material if I need to apply it but I’m not there yet.
I’m eyeing 3-5 more 1U servers though so maybe I’ll need to do it.
I have additional sound deadening material if I need to apply it but I’m not there yet.
That’s probably a pretty good idea in terms of cost. I checked earlier when I made the comment to see what the price difference these days was, and IIRC a non-isolated 18U is ~$800 and an isolated 18U is ~$1800. They aren’t putting anything like $1k of sound-absorbing material into the rack.
Man, GTFO with that hot mess… I’m jealous really. I’m getting a chub just thinking about it.
Is this the “before” shot? There’s 190 spare ports. I’m all for leaving room to expand, but that’s a lot
Unpowered free 48 port switches are cheaper than block off plates.
Can’t argue with that!
How can you hear the DJ tunes over the server fans?
Can’t hear either over my tinnitus
Same. Thirty years later and I still have it D:
Oi thats too clean for this thread. Get out of here! /s Nice setup.
Business in front…
So clean, I’m jealous
Hey you know what, screw it, see for yourself how it performs: apps.lorteau.fr
BTW I’m really liking asciinema, I think it’s a great idea.
Edit: OMG it’s so annoying how lemmy just rewrites img links - https://share.southernlights.fr/u/northernlights/2026-04-08_19-04-1775678390.mp4

Nothing fancy myself as well. Not unemployed but I don’t necessarily wanna spend a lot on something I’m really just cutting my teeth with so far.
The central hub is up top, a Bosgame P4 Mini with 16GB DDR4, 512GB NVMe and a decent last-last gen Ryzen 7. It’s enough to run Jellyfin, HA, and PiHole all through Proxmox. Been rock solid outside of a planned power outage Peco was doing (and actually did it this time!)
I also have Jellyfin connected to an 8TB RAID1 NAS that resides upstairs in our shared space, and HA connected to the basement tech, mostly lighting and the TV and PC.
Bonus battlestation pic (not really lol)

booooo! /s looks awesome bro. It’s too clean tho.
Yeah I think I have a before picture on here somewhere. It was less messy, but I’m not quite ready for a rackmount or other system. I’m not even sure I need to jump to that level lol. Unless you’re talking about the 2nd pic, oh it can get messy. I cleaned up a bit so it wasn’t too gnarly. Shoulda changed my background too, I usually go for greenery or abstracts.
Hey this looks how my setup would look like if I had the energy to clean :) https://lemmy.today/post/39171225
I spent too much time trying to get a configuration in which I could fit both the MiniPC and Router/Modem in the cabinet. This fixture came with the house, so I’m not complaining. I think I should swap out the surge protector (not even sure if it is one lol) for something more streamlined. And as for the mounted switch? That’s $2 velcro strips at Walmart :P
nice
Such professional. Much clean.

Not pictured: my raspberry running adguard. It’s tucked behind a TV, because it also runs Kodi.
That 95% unused switch 😱
Such electricity waste. Much unclean.
The used 48 port was cheaper than the used 24 port.
You call it waste, I call it reuse.
But you seem to only need a 8 port at most 🤯
It is a MANAGED switch, my guy. A simple 8 port switch would not work here.
I have multiple VLANs running.
Also, one of those connections is a 10gbe DAC to the big machine which is my NAS and main server.
Not too many 8 port managed switches out there with an sfp+ 10gbe port for 50 bucks, which is what I paid for that Brocade switch in my picture.
But hey, if you feel like buying one for me, I’ll happily take it, and start using it instead.
Not too many 8 port managed switches out there with an sfp+ 10gbe port for 50 bucks
Easy to get these days actually, with 10gbit sfp+ and 8x 2.5gbit, managed switches. About $60.
But my actual argument was that your 48 port switch eats electricity like crazy. That aint a cheap switch at all.
The only brand new, 10gbe managed switches that I can find for less than 60 bucks are off-brand chinese junk. No thank you.
As far as electricity cost goes? After doing that math, it might cost me a dollar fifty a year to use. That machine sitting on the bottom is a much bigger chunk than the switch itself, as it has 6 7200rpm SAS drives in it. Plus it’s a Xeon E3 CPU.
Those drives, each, use as much electricity as that switch does, even before considering the CPU itself.
Let’s be real here.
Pictures like these could make the news and people would have no idea what this stuff is used for but it looks menacing, news could be label it as wild rogue this or that and the common person would know no different and totally believe it. Feels like swatter bait for the posters. Definitely on a list atleast. Nice setups. Keep it jank. Keep it secure!
Let’s be wildly paranoid lol
✅ Rackmounted
❌ Professional
What front end are using for your apps? Looks nice.

heimdall
they posted further down that it’s heimdall











