21–30 of 45 posts
Holy moly these are getting expensive 1k for something that goes in the closet is wild.
This was posted a while back, it has some good resources.
Also, I learned about this device from this post and immediately bought one for my existing home server remote access: https://jetkvm.com/
The one thing I don't understand about these Pi based mini-racks is why you would build a home lab that's less powerful than your client devices. My 24 U rack exists precisely because I want on demand, large amounts of compute/GPU for compiling, transcoding, encrypting, etc. and the cloud is too expensive. If you're going to make the investment into any type of home labbing, why gimp yourself with devices that can on…
I have zero need for a portable raspberry pi cluster but damn is this cool anyway. Also, I learned about this device from this post and immediately bought one for my existing home server remote access: https://jetkvm.com/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Low power device to leave on all the time, particularly for people who don't leave their clients on all the time. Like a router, but more versatile (although with a better OS on it, an actual router may do the same job).
I feel like an m-series mac mini would be a really good fit for that - plenty of juice for when you need it, but very low idle power draw. The small size (especially for the m4 version) is an added benefit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Low power device to leave on all the time, particularly for people who don't leave their clients on all the time. Like a router, but more versatile (although with a better OS on it, an actual router may do the same job).
You can buy a Synology NAS for less than the cost of this rack and it will do everything this rack can do including running containers. You can build your own NAS and run Unraid or FreeNAS or what have you for even less.
I have zero need for a portable raspberry pi cluster but damn is this cool anyway. Also, I learned about this device from this post and immediately bought one for my existing home server remote access: https://jetkvm.com/
404 on open-source code? https://jetkvm.com/docs/getting-started/open-source
I'll mention the broken link on their Discord.
The one thing I don't understand about these Pi based mini-racks is why you would build a home lab that's less powerful than your client devices. My 24 U rack exists precisely because I want on demand, large amounts of compute/GPU for compiling, transcoding, encrypting, etc. and the cloud is too expensive. If you're going to make the investment into any type of home labbing, why gimp yourself with devices that can on…
The one thing I don't understand about these Pi based mini-racks is why you would build a home lab that's less powerful than your client devices. My 24 U rack exists precisely because I want on demand, large amounts of compute/GPU for compiling, transcoding, encrypting, etc. and the cloud is too expensive. If you're going to make the investment into any type of home labbing, why gimp yourself with devices that can on…
Doing GPU/intensive type tasks is more purpose driven than a homelab. For this, you can get a NAS with dedicated GPU for transcoding if you wanted, etc.
The call for large amounts of compute/GPU makes a lot of sense, and there's a lot of ways to get there depending on what's needed, relative to the electricity bill you're OK with if it ends up idling a lot more than anticipated.
Adding a mac mini/studio for crunching certain things might be enough for a single person or household. Adding other demands or users beyond that could change it.
I'm familiar with racks and gear, and had way too much of it when I pulled out of datacenters and went more virtual and cloud. The nice thing now is a lot of that virtualization can come home with a bit of the data center (power backups, internet backups, etc)
The one thing I don't understand about these Pi based mini-racks is why you would build a home lab that's less powerful than your client devices. My 24 U rack exists precisely because I want on demand, large amounts of compute/GPU for compiling, transcoding, encrypting, etc. and the cloud is too expensive. If you're going to make the investment into any type of home labbing, why gimp yourself with devices that can on…
I generally agree with this sentiment and have struggled to put it into words. I have a beefy Dell Precision that I bought used for $200. This is where I simulate all the things; networking, container orchestration, services and more. I have upgraded to 128GB of ECC RAM, PCIe NVMe drives, and a 24GB quadro card. All in, I have about $800 invested. It's brittle as it is also my desktop so I delay updates and what not…
Or you could just put the dell sideways on a rack shelf and be ok with it for now... while you decide what will go there.