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Home Lab Beginners guide

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Re: Home Lab Beginners guide

#261

Post by neilv »

hedgehog0 wrote: post #217
neilv wrote: post #152

If your homelab gear is in a non-tech-nerd living space, also think about noise, lights/displays, and otherwise being discreet. As an apartment-dweller, for a long time I had it in a closet. Once I moved it to living room, my solutions included: * For discreet, IKEA CORRAS cabinet that matched my other furniture. I had rackmount posts in it before, but got rid of them because they protruded. * For noise, going with g…

I’m a math grad student and want to play with LLMs as well, so I have been thinking about getting a 3060 or 3090, due to budget. However, I’m using a MacBook Pro from 2011, thus not very convenient for these kinds of things. What do you think the lowest budget or spending that I should have, given my “requirement”? Or would you say that vast.ai or similar websites would suffice?

You might try to find forums where people are doing the kind of LLM work you want to do, and see what they're recommending for how to do that work.

Personally, for my changing needs, my GPU server is already on its 4th GPU, after I kept finding I needed more VRAM for various purposes. The RTX 3090 seems to be a sweet spot right now, and my next upgrade right now would probably be a 2nd 3090 with NVLink, or some affordable older datacenter/workstation GPU with even more VRAM. Other than the GPU, you just need an ordinary PC with an unusually big PSU, maybe a big HDD/SSD (for data), and maybe a lot of RAM (for some model loading that can't just stream it). https://www.neilvandyke.org/machine-learning/

Re: Home Lab Beginners guide

#262

Post by mech422 »

nvy wrote: post #231
blackfawn wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Power draw and often noise on enterprise equipment is ridiculous in a home setting. I try to stick to the small form factor (SFF) or ultra-small form factor (USFF) computers whenever I can, which is what the author is using. I used to use Raspberry Pi boards for some things but always ran into problems w/ microSD cards dying, even with log2ram and buying industrial cards. I haven't had a single issue after sw…

Which x64 machines have you been using? I'm looking for a successor to PC Engines APUs

I love the Odroid H series [0]. cheap, quiet and only like 4w idle draw

0) https://ameridroid.com/products/odroid-h3

Re: Home Lab Beginners guide

#263

Post by bowsamic »

BadHumans wrote: post #207
noobermin wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is because like many things this is a rich man's hobby. See mechanical keyboards for example.

You can get into custom mechanical keyboards for under 50 dollars. I don't think you understand what you are talking about.

Don’t be disingenuous he’s obviously not referring to that part of the mechanical keyboard community

Re: Home Lab Beginners guide

#264

Post by Andrex »

mech422 wrote: post #256
Andrex wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't know ODROID was in this market, that's awesome! Definitely checking them out next time I need hardware, the H3 looks perfect.

I sound like a shill - I have no affiliation, just a customer but I _LOVE_ the H series :-) plenty of power for my needs, silent, low power ... and CHEAP! I especially love the large RAM capacity as it lets me run a lot of docker/vm/etc without swapping. Most of my stuff is idle like 90% of the time (stuff like git servers, etc) so the CPU is fine for me. I've had mine for a few years now (I had the first gen..) and…

Don't worry, I'm actually (the original?) ODROID shill!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32619740

:)

Glad to hear they never stopped doing what they were good at, sounds like they've gotten even better!

Re: Home Lab Beginners guide

#266

Post by BadHumans »

bowsamic wrote: post #263
BadHumans wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get into custom mechanical keyboards for under 50 dollars. I don't think you understand what you are talking about.

Don’t be disingenuous he’s obviously not referring to that part of the mechanical keyboard community

I'm not being disingenuous. Calling it a "rich man's hobby" might dissuade people from partaking which I wouldn't want to happen. Yes, there is a high-end to mechanical keyboards where it can get really expensive but is cooking also a rich person's hobby because there are $1000 knives? If you don't want to play in that side of the pool you don't have to. You can get a lot of mileage out of $50-$100 in mechanical keyboards.

Re: Home Lab Beginners guide

#267

Post by mech422 »

blackfawn wrote: post #209
mech422 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The down side to the old enterprise servers is the power draw. I had 2 Dell blade server chassis and 1 HP blade server chassis that used Xeon based blades. The electric bill was UNREAL with 10+ blades running at once. I do use Dell PowerConnect manged switches from EBay, but tbh for what I do, TP Link switches work really well and are cheap. They support VLANs, MAC Lans, SNMP, SSH/Web configuration, etc etc - basical…

Agreed. Power draw and often noise on enterprise equipment is ridiculous in a home setting. I try to stick to the small form factor (SFF) or ultra-small form factor (USFF) computers whenever I can, which is what the author is using. I used to use Raspberry Pi boards for some things but always ran into problems w/ microSD cards dying, even with log2ram and buying industrial cards. I haven't had a single issue after sw…

Yeah - I skipped rPi because back when I started replacing stuff ARM still had some gotcha's with stuff that hadn't been ported. I do use the rPi's for the 3d printers though.

I've found the TP Link stuff to be good for home switches. cheap, quiet, and basically fully featured/managed. Stuff like SNMP, VLAN/Mac Lan, port mirroring/monitoring, etc. Also SSH and web interfaces... I have 2-3 currently, 1 per room feeding back to the PowerConnects (NOISY) and haven't had a single issue in 3-5 years of use :-)

Re: Home Lab Beginners guide

#268

Post by mech422 »

tombert wrote: post #226
mech422 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I really like odroid H2/H3 units (0). Much cheaper then Nuc's, DDR4 SO-DIMMs up to 64G, very low power draw, and X86 based so no compatibility issues. No where near as powerful as desktops but more then enough for running basic home lab stuff. I used to use a half rack full of Xeon based Dell and HP blades - but the blade chassis are huge/heavy and the power usage was HUGE! 0) https://ameridroid.com/produ…

How much is "huge"? My HP Proliant idles around 175W, and even running Folding@Home it only peaks at around 300W. Considering that I used lots of incandescent light bulbs throughout my house, each about 60W, 175W doesn't really seem that bad to me. Granted, this is one server. If you have a bunch of them running at high load all at once then of course that can get pretty pricey power-wise.

The Dell chassis has a 2500w powersupply for 6 blades. The HP chassis has a 3000w PS for 8 blades..

I actually ran 3-4 extra circuits to the computer room to run it all...

Re: Home Lab Beginners guide

#269

Post by mech422 »

gorkish wrote: post #185
mech422 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I really like odroid H2/H3 units (0). Much cheaper then Nuc's, DDR4 SO-DIMMs up to 64G, very low power draw, and X86 based so no compatibility issues. No where near as powerful as desktops but more then enough for running basic home lab stuff. I used to use a half rack full of Xeon based Dell and HP blades - but the blade chassis are huge/heavy and the power usage was HUGE! 0) https://ameridroid.com/produ…

One additional NVMe slot and 10GBe nics would make the H3+ an object of absolute perfection. So close, and yet so far.

Heh - maybe in the H4 ?? :-) Though you can prolly stick a 10GB nic in the PCIE slot ??

Edit: Oh shit...just checked, it does NOT have a PCIE slot..I was sure it did :-(

Re: Home Lab Beginners guide

#270

Post by arh68 »

tonymet wrote: post #142

I'll go against the grain and recommend running your lab on Windows 11 Pro and Hyper V (often included with reclaimed PCs). Hyper-V is a very capable hypervisor and Windows hardware compatibility is excellent. Remote mgmt can be done over RDP, SSH or WMI Nearly everyone has a spare PC lying around collecting dust, and within an hour it can be running a dozen VMs . Reclaimed HP & Dells are cheap and include a Windows…

I absolutely agree. Windows Pro + Hyper-V + Linux = super good. And I'm a Mac guy, if anything.

Remote Desktop is really good, too. I use it all the time from my MacBook (though I mostly SSH, naturally). WinSCP + midnight commander are all the extras I need.

If you have enough memory/CPU on your workstation/gaming machine, Just 1 PC works great.

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