State of the Lab

Long overdue, let’s go thru it.

Hardware

NAS

This is a Dell R720 that I convereted to a R720xd (12x3.5", 2x2.5" in the back) running TrueNAS SCALE. I picked up a new network module for that dual 10gig but I’m also running a 25gig card in it. It’s got 256GB of DDR3 which will be overkill once I move most of my container hosting off of it. Plan is currently to look into perhaps Rancher and use Garage to facilitate all that app hosting, some pruning of my datasets and figuring out what I want my local storage to look like. I have a disk shelf hooked to it with a bunch of random drives in it but those are currently powered off because running a dozen or so 15k RPM drives from 2012 isn’t really nice.

SuperMicro Dual Node Machine

This was a Tegile mixed flash/spinning rust machine in a past life. Each node is dual CPU with 128GB RAM. 16 disks exposed on the front in a 3U config but they’re in multipath and I don’t know that I want to get into that. Currently unused and powered off but I think these would make nice netboot/ipxe boot systems for when I just need CPU cores and RAM. Definitely a good opentofu target / maybe they just run proxmox? I have some SATA DOM modules in them… Eh, heavy power usage so they’re off for now.

Workhorse

Currently this is running an AMD 5900XT CPU (of course they did some naming overlap; basically like the 5950X with lower boost) and 64GB of non-ECC DDR4. Dual Arc B70s in it for my local inference setup, though I’m having some trouble spanning across the two. Waiting on some upstream patches and fiddling with local custom builds of Intel’s stack when I’ve got the spare time.

On order for this machine is an AsRock Rack ROMED8-2T and an Epyc 7502P. RAM prices are wild but I found 256GB of DDR4-2400 hiding in my basement so I’ll have a very capable system that I can most likely offload everything from my NAS to and look at a lower power storage solution. The sheer amount of PCIe on the board is going to be a ton of fun and I expect that I’ll just toss in whatever cards I’ve got lying around. I do have an Instinct MI25 that I never got working under TrueNAS…

At a minimum having full x16 on both B70s should be a benefit. Dual 10g on the board is also a boon as I can just run a teamed link to my core switch and call it done.

Automatic Ripping Machine

I have my bluray drives mounted in a rack case with…a Ryzen 5600. Handles ingestion of personal media and runs a dockerized Automatic Ripping Machine. Could consolidate into another machine but for now it exists just fine. Should run it intermittently instead of being on 24/7 and idle… need to configure Wake on LAN as well.

pfsense box

Dell R210, still chugging along. Had a kerfuffle last year around Thanksgiving where an update evicted my boot completely, thankfully had a backup. I think I had run the system so long that for some reason the BIOS -> UEFI conversion broke. Rather than try and piece together the boot drives again I just started from scratch and restored my backup. As an aside, hiding the disk images behind a login wall and “free” checkout system is frustrating as hell, especially when needed in an emergency. Pulling that over my cell data plan and getting everything running after was made more frustrating by not just being able to download a bootable ISO.

Networking

I finally gave up and just switched to Ubiquiti. I was tired of running EOL Cisco gear, being unable to find firmware updates, etc. so I opted for a Unifi Pro XG 24 and a Pro Max 24 PoE. Two U7 Pro XG run over 10g PoE injectors. While it’s not the best system I was able to get things running where I’m comfortable and I’ve got plenty of 10g copper capacity to handle most of my stuff. I wish there were more 25g options on the market but that was just excessive for me.

Services

I’m continuing to move more of my stuff into my own hosting domain. Still running Plex (until the pain of that drives me to Jellyfin, even while being a Lifetime subscriber), expanding to Immich, bookstack, copyparty, etc. It’s basically the same stack everybody runs but they are all pretty common needs.

While I don’t want to be beholden to Cloudflare I might consider some tunnels and caching there so I can run more “directly” from home. It is either that or set up a small VPS / colo node and run things out of there.

Future

I’m at an inflection point right now - I hate having my hobby become a job and DNS breaking reminds me of that every time. Given the expansion of my stuff at home it might be time to consider moving to more minimal, power-efficient machines and reducing my footprint or just doubling down and moving fully into orchestration solutions and automatic provisioning of resources. Still thinking that over as the balance of “from scratch setup” and “it’s nice to have these things” doesn’t have a clear victor for me just yet.

I imagine that will change as I slowly inch closer to moving into the woods and making furniture, emerging only to sell my wares.

Bonus: Unused Stuff

I have a PowerVault TL2000 that is waiting for me to decide I should use a tape library. LTO4 drive, SAS connection.

An Intel Xserve that is just sitting around. Rack rails are impossible to find full kits of, and I’m missing two little mounting brackets. Ugh.

Dell R610, should’ve sold years ago but have been sitting on it like an idiot.

Dell R420, used to be my Satisfactory server. Can sell this one for sure at some point.

Uptyma KVM switch - this burnt out somehow within a month or two of purchase. Not sure how, not sure why. Might crack it open. VGA only is limiting especially as a lot moves on to HDMI/DisplayPort/some combination.

(If you see anything that you want ping me - continental US easiest for shipping at reasonable rates.)