r/minilab

This is what happens when having a friend in IT building his own homelab and telling you all the perks meets a complete newbie with ADHD searching for his next hyperfixation. Let me know what you think!

Specs:

Hardware

• Proxmox Host: Beelink SER5 Pro — Ryzen 7 5825U, 32GB RAM, 1TB NVMe SSD
• NAS: UGREEN DXP2800 — Intel N100, 8GB DDR5, 2× WD Red Plus 10TB in RAID 1 (Btrfs),
• UPS: APC SMT750
• Router/Firewall: Ubiquiti Cloud Gateway Max (CGX)
• Switch: Ubiquiti Switch Ultra 60W (GbE)
• Access Point: Ubiquiti U6 Pro
• Rack: DeskPi RackMate T2 (12U open frame)
• Rack Display: DeskPi 1U touchscreen panel (1424×280)
• Spectrum Router: for WAN from ISP
• Govee Strip Light 2 Pro: for RGB that makes the server run faster

Networking

• VLAN 10 — Trusted (homelab + personal devices)
• VLAN 20 — Guest (isolated)
• VLAN 30 — IoT (Hue, Alexa Echo devices, Govee)
• Zone-based firewall on CGX
• WireGuard VPN server (CGX-native) with split tunnel

Services

• CT 100 — Pi-hole + Unbound: Recursive DNS for all VLANs
• CT 101 — Media Stack (Docker Compose): Jellyfin, Radarr, Sonarr, Prowlarr, qBittorrent, Jellyseerr — all torrents routed through Gluetun/Surfshark WireGuard with kill switch
• CT 102 — Immich: Self-hosted Google Photos replacement
• CT 103 — Uptime Kuma: Monitors all services; pushes alerts to Ntfy
• CT 104 — Ntfy: Self-hosted push notifications; instant iOS alerts via upstream relay
• CT 105 — Vaultwarden: Self-hosted Bitwarden-compatible password manager
• CT 106 — Nginx Proxy Manager: HTTPS for all public-facing services
• CT 107 — Homepage Dashboard: main one on browser but additional one designed for the Rack 1U display. live widgets for every service
• CT 108 — Claude Code + code-server: Browser-based VS Code UI; SSH key auth to PVE host; used for homelab config management
• VM 200 — Home Assistant OS: Philips Hue (local), Spotify (OAuth), NUT/UPS monitoring, HACS, companion app; Proxmox VE + Uptime Kuma + Govee integrations

I had a few Pi 5s and some Pi 4Bs scattered around my office and a mish-mash of various network gear. Got sick of it and pulled the trigger. Custom designed a 10-inch rack with laser cut 3mm panels and 3D printed accessories. Found a couple carrier designs for the gateway and switches online. Then brushed off my CAD skills and designed some custom Pi carriers. The end result? Joy.

Got a couple U7 Pro frisbees on the way to complete the kit and upgrading my fiber connection to 2.5Gbps once those are live to get all the giggly-bits over the wifi I can.

The whole kit:
- Five Pi 4Bs (PoE, USB fixed storage)
- Four Pi 5s (PoE, NVME storage)
- Two Flex 2.5G PoE switches
- One UCG Max
- One TerraMaster D5-300C (five IronWolf 6TB drives)

equals one happy me.

The 1st picture is from two years back when I started getting into home labing. The 2nd picture is the current setup i am slowly upgrading it when I get the time and money

I am still waiting for nas drives to be in stock I am also waiting for a few things to be delivered like the patch panel, raspberry pi 4 cooler

Things in the rack (top to bottom)

ISP ROUTER

TP-LINK 8 port managed switch(TL-SG108E)

CP Plus POE switch for cameras

Raspberry pi 4 -running home assistant (you can't see it here because the mounting screws has not yet arrived)

Lenovo M700- Running Immich and next cloud

Drive rack - Currently using a 1tb SSD to store all the pictures in th future I will upgrade it to 2 4tb nas drives

Future plans

More storage

Get a KVM

Mount a display for status (currently the led is used as status led when the internet is down it glows red and when its back it turns off)

I found 2 older M73’s selling for a song on Marketplace, and thought to put them in the living room since they were small enough, but didn’t want it to scream server gear. Took inspiration from old component hi-fi systems and the classic Atari 2600. 3D printed some new faceplates that and used Oak veneer, and made matching HDD/SSD/monitor enclosures to match. The monitor is a 7-inch IPS display I scavenged from an alarm clock and used an AliExpress controller. I put in a 3 way HDMI switch in the box so I can swap between the machines. The big box is the smallest 4-bay 3.5” hard drive dock I could find, and the small box is a 2x 2-bay 2.5” hard drive dock. Minus the drives that I already, I’m in at roughly CA$250 for the build including the machines. The big cost was for the drive docks.

Everything can disappear when I slide the door closed on my TV console, but easily accessible.

I have a question. When you use setups like this, do you combine all three computers into a single system/OS, or do you use them separately? Like, one computer for storage, another for Home Assistant, and a third for something else—each one doing its own thing?

not my setup

​

Hi everyone, I’m a complete beginner. These are the machines I have—they were given to me for free by a friend (thanks Allan) after his workplace upgraded. Two of them are missing RAM and CPU.

I’d like to:

store photos (I tried Immich but couldn’t get it to recognize my pictures),

run Home Assistant,

and self-host Obico for 3D printing.

I have no experience at all—no coding or IT background. I’m learning by watching YouTube tutorials.

I’m considering ZimaOS because it looks simple and has a phone app, which is a plus for me. But I’m not sure if I should cluster the machines or keep them separate, and I don’t know how to set that up yet.

Also, I want to use multiple HDDs together externally, but I don’t know what that setup/device is called.

Any advice would be really appreciated!

i do have 3dprinters and im already printing the 10" labrax for it. such a cute rax