My HomeLab Regrets...

if i could reset my home lab and start all over would i make the same choices would i choose the same hardware networking or even rack or would i rethink all of my choices and build something entirely different i built my home lab from the ground up which started with a few old pcs with some networking to a small server rack with enterprise servers if i had the chance to make some changes or even get rid of pieces of it all together would i that's a question i get asked quite a bit and i think the answer is maybe would i choose the same server rack or even get rid of a rack altogether am i happy with my patch panel and the choices to use keystones over wiring it myself would i choose the same networking equipment including my gateway firewall and even my poe switch am i happy with my one use servers the cpus the rams and even the disks and there are some who ask if converting an old pc into a server and putting it into a rack is worth it i guess i've got my work cut out for me either defending all of my choices or you learning from my mistakes before we get started i just wanted to give a huge shout out to our sponsor microcenter if you're thinking of building a new pc you should look no further than microcenter if you've never been to a micro center you're missing out on seeing a huge selection of technology in person they've got everything for custom pc builders from ssds to hard drives to power supplies to memory to air and water cooling to motherboards to video cards to processors and much much more it's your one-stop shop to totally customize your next pc build and don't worry if it's your first time building a pc they have lots of helpful and knowledgeable staff that are there to help you out microcenter has been generous enough to give a free ssd to all new customers and is available in store only so see the link in the description for details so if i could change anything about my home lab would i if i could start it all over what would i choose would i keep each of these items in my rack or upgrade and get rid of it let's take a look my patch panel i've gotten some criticism from this patch panel and many have asked why i didn't crimp all of my own wires well it's because i didn't want to crimp all of my own wires this patch panel has worked out great and works really well i'm actually considering getting another one i know i've said this before but i really wish they made a half u height patch panel so that i could put one on top of my switch and one below but overall super happy with it and not something i'm looking to replace anytime soon so i'm giving this a keep do i regret choosing my udm pro as my gateway and firewall absolutely not this appliance has been great except for the occasional bugs with firmware it's been working out nicely i even started using unifi protect camera system along with adding a lot of cameras now for my gripes as you can see i have uplinked this to my switch via 10 gig deck and you can see i have a 10 gig wham port here however nothing is attached i really wish unify would let me reassign this to a lan port so i could have another 10 gig port and that would save me from buying a 10 gig switch which is probably why they're not going to do it one of my other complaints was the lack of vpn options however they've just recently added support for a new vpn they call teleport which is actually wireguard so it's really awesome so all in all i'm happy with it and i'm giving it a key next is my switch pro 24 port poe switch this is one heck of a switch it has 24 ports all poe 16 of which are poe plus and eight of which are poe plus plus which is great for all of those poe cameras and pies i have around the house it even has two 10 gig sfp plus ports this switch is rock solid i've never had any issues with it but this is one of the few purchases where i've had a little buyer's remorse afterwards and here's why for about half the price i could get the switch 16 poe which would give me 16 ports but only half are poe but probably enough to run my poe devices around my house the other downside to that switch though is that you only get two one gig sfp ports which might be worth it if you just don't mind having a one gig uplink and the next jump up for my current pro switch is about a 50 increase in price but comes with twice the ports not only the gigabit ports but also twice the 10 gig sfp plus ports giving me four in total so if i had to do it all over again i would have gone with this one instead if you ever think that you'll need more than 24 gigabit ports and more than two 10 gig ports i would buy up to future proof yourself a little bit so keep it or upgrade it well if i didn't need to expand so quickly i would definitely give it a keep however as much as i hate to do this i'm giving it a upgraded that up or down i'll go down due to how rapidly i'm expanding next are my pair of super micro servers the 1u form factor is what sold me however it's the same decision that's so controversial one new servers typically mean louder servers less room for expansion less drives and other compromises my use case for these servers was to be a hypervisor and what i wanted most out of these servers was enough cpu cores to drive 10 to 15 virtual machines as well as enough ram and having at least four slots for drives i think i got everything that i wanted out of these servers no it doesn't have dual sockets however i was more worried about efficiency over more cores so one socket is fine with me i do wish i would have bought more ram when i first purchased it originally i bought 256 gigs of ddr for both of these servers but then had to double it in a few weeks and that's after the ram prices went up i am also okay that it only has one power supply but i'll be in a bit of a bind if that one dies out while i wait for parts i bet you're wondering about the one pci express slot yeah that's kind of a bummer but that's one of the sacrifices i had to make when going to a 1u i don't think i need 10 gig for these servers since all of their vm storage is local but if i ever decide against that i'm gonna have to fill that one slot with the 10 gignit the only other thing i would change is the solid state drives that i bought not the brand or the price or the speed but the capacity i have four one terabyte drives in each of those servers and have them configured in a raid z2 this only gives me half capacity so i only get about 2 terabytes of usable space that sounds like a lot but when you have 10 to 15 virtual machines on each server it runs out really quick i'm also happy with the efficiency and performance of the 14 core 24 thread intel cpu that i bought so would i choose this again if i start it all over thumbs up definitely going to keep these next up is my pc conversion i'm not going to focus on what's inside because it could be anything but more on the fact that i sunk money into an old pc converting it to a rackmount server this one's a tough call because it's a lot cheaper to just keep your old pc and the old case and it's pretty much free but there is something to be said about having your entire system interact with everything else easier for cable management networking and even battery backup i will say though what you get in convenience in racking you end up paying for in cable management within the case it's kind of a rat's nest in there but most of it is my fault since i've been using this as a test bed for a few things but its primary use case is a local backup of all my data a second local copy if you will also this will end up housing some of my video cards if i ever move plex out of my one use servers and a case like this gives you plenty of height to do that so this is definitely a key for me disk shelf oh my disk shelf i was fortunate enough to pick this up before all the chia farmers wanted this and i got a really good deal at the time but it does draw a lot of power i could almost power another server with the cpu and components with the same wattage this shelf has worked out wonderfully over the years housing all of my video footage but i think i overbought at the time not knowing how fast my storage would grow nor how much power this thing would draw that being said i got this really cheap and it's working great so this is a tough call but if i were in the market today for different storage i hate to say it but i would give this say upgrade it based on how much power it draws and how much space it takes up still really awesome though this is my empty slot i would definitely give this a keep unless you find something to put it in and then i would say upgrade it it's an empty slot next is my ups this trip lite ups is one of the most affordable ups's that you can rack and mount on the market it's worked out great for me the last few years and has saved my data and network a few times however it only gives me 10 minutes of run time before it shuts down now that's barely enough time to run down there and power everything off safely they do sell another model of this that allows you to connect additional batteries however that model was sold out when i needed to make a purchase so i kind of settled on this one so what rating do i give it well based on my current consumption and the fact that it can't connect additional batteries to it this one's a really tough call i don't think i'm gonna spend any more money on batteries in the foreseeable future and i might be able to save some power by removing the disk shelf at some point so for me this is a keep with a caution but willing to upgrade it in the future can i do that can i choose both yeah i can these are my rules last but not least is this rack this 18u rack is great when i bought it my intention was to limit the amount of space that i have in my rack so i won't be tempted to outgrow it i didn't think about the fact that it would be nice to have a few more slots just in case for expansion even if it's for another system that's not running 24 7. i think this is the perfect rack for anyone who's thinking about building a server rack and will give you plenty of space however being that i'm in the industry now and creating content it would be nice to have at least six more units space famous last words right so while i always recommend this rack to everyone because of how affordable it is and the build quality for me i would have to say that this one is a upgrade it so i can put more equipment into it hopefully this gives you some ideas and some guidance on my choices over the last few years while i don't regret any of the decisions i made knowing what i know now i would probably have leaned more towards efficiency and capacity something that i think we're all looking for in our home lab and just because i gave something an upgraded rating doesn't mean it won't work for you these are all great products so i hope you learned something today and remember if you found anything in this video helpful don't forget to like and subscribe thanks for watching and i thought like hey that's uh we we we could do something for for people that are in the homeland community because there is a lot of of stuff to learn there's a lot of change going on right now with with either people shifting to the cloud or back from the cloud or hybrid cloud or going to kubernetes or not doing kubernetes or doing whatever and i just kept thinking like i i i had this idea but i i it was not fully baked this was an idea that i honestly thought about for six months and i was like how can i do this how can i do this and i thought you know what being the procrastinator i am i'll do it at my 100k video because that gives me time uh and then that gives me you know the hundred and hundred i thought well why not and i'll give back um so i started i kicked it down the road basically procrastinating

Channel: Techno Tim

Views: 123,731

Keywords: homelab, home lab, technotim, patch panel, server, home server, upgrades, homelab regrets, homelab reviews, unifi, ubiquiti, 10gbe, 10g, micro center, patch, patech panel, firewall, router, switch, poe, network, poe++, poe+, disk shelf, netapp ds4246, pc conversion, rack mount, rack, empty slot, ups, switch pro, gigabit, 10 gigabit, server rack battery, universal power supply, tripp lite, supermicro, super micro, efficiency, efficient, disks, nas, power supply, homelab tour, pci, home lab tour, udm

Id: yCquqeM7UO0

Length: 11min 46sec (706 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 25 2022