41–45 of 45 posts
It's less than $30 with a coupon, which seems to good to be true.
A look at the Amazon 2-star reviews suggests it has good build quality but can only output 75W to 100W total, not 260W as advertised.
This feels kind of like a miniature train model, but for data centers. It's cool and all, but it offers neither storage, compute, or networking in a way that I would consider paying that price tag.
This feels kind of like a miniature train model, but for data centers. It's cool and all, but it offers neither storage, compute, or networking in a way that I would consider paying that price tag.
I think the real counterpoint is that you can built a single-box homelab using something like this: https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2024/12/26/2330 … and never need another box.
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…
Or experiment with VLANs, firewalls, QOS, and related. Sure transcoding multiple 4k video streams is intensive, but there's plenty to be learned about performance, networking, configuration management, DNS, fallover, network storage, rolling upgrades, SSL certs, VPN endpoints, and 100 other network services that run easily on today's SBCs.
Plenty to be learned with a handful of cheap linux boxes and even a RPI5 or RK3588 is quite capable. Sure not state of the art today, but home lab != hyperscaler, but just might help get you are job at one.