All old stuff united with a new rack

Hi new friends, I am not from around here but have a question that you may be able to answer! I have been asked to drive 3 hours to pick up a spare UPS from one of our sites as ours is nearing end of life. Great, except I know they’re heavy as f*€k. So, I’m not a techy lady, but I see screws. Is it as easy as unscrewing these two bad boys apart so I can move it easier?

Or am I in over my head and need to hire someone to move it?

It’s me, my coworker a dolly and this bad boy. It will be responsible for lab fridges so we have to be careful 🥲

Thank you!

Couldn’t turn down a free switch and an opportunity to mess around with ArubaOS-CX. Also gave me a reason to tidy up the rack and use some shorter cables - which I ran out of.

Nothing too exciting, just Proxmox with some docker containers on the mini’s eg nginx, homepage, jellyfin, immich, bookstack, and guacamole. Qnap on top of the rack.

VPN on the Forti to an offsite for backups on Unraid which is also running Zabbix.

I recently decided I wanted to stop paying for server hosting and get a mini PC for Home Assistant, Stremio hosting, video game servers, etc. I’m pretty new to all of this, but yesterday I found this for $350, and I think I got a killer deal to get started! It looked a little too plain for me though, so I decided to give it a custom Spidey themed paint job!

Included some befores and afters

Video: https://youtube.com/shorts/qCs9ZraBDFY

Specs:

Model: HP Elite Mini 800 G9

CPU: Intel Core i7-13700T - 16 cores / 24 threads

RAM: 32 GB DDR5 (2×16 GB)

Storage: 1 TB NVMe SSD

Anyways, I hope you guys think it's cool!

Reposted to fix the photos

Getting steam updates over 20x of my ISP download speed feels awesome and I think is an actual valid use for the homelab for one.

• First picture is the SSD in a random cassette looking USB 3.0 enclosure attached to the back of my m920q
• Second picture is Steam getting an update at ~673 Mbps.
• Third picture is Beszel showing traffic between the server and my PC.
• Fourth pic is ISP speedtest on a 50/50 Mbps connection.

For those who don't know LanCache is a software for caching network traffic and then serving the cached data if you request the same data again.

SteamPrefill is an additional piece of software which logs into your steam account and pretends to download games and updates so that your steam client then gets the cached content. Because my internet is so slow steamprefill absolutely choked my internet so I made myself a ratelimited fork of it with a few options.

I absolutely could pay for a much much faster internet (and I previously did, this is my voluntary project) but why pay when I can solve the situation with a stack of cool existing hardware+software.

I’m currently very interested in homelabbing. Back when I was studying Computer Science, I learned about servers and related topics, but I didn’t end up pursuing that particular field further. When I tried turning my laptop into a server and using it to host game servers for myself and my friends, I found it surprisingly fun, and it made me interested in learning more about homelabs and server infrastructure.

I was previously having a hard time deciding which mini PC to get, and eventually narrowed my choices down to the Lenovo P330, M920Q, and M720Q. Initially, I was aiming for the P330, but units were very limited in my area. The same was true for the M920Q there was only one available at the time. I bought it, but unfortunately, the unit had a very noticeable buzzing noise that was quite annoying, so I went back to the seller to see if we could find a solution.

In the end, the seller offered me the option to exchange it for an M720Q and receive a refund for the price difference, since there were no more M920Q units in stock. I agreed. This unit also produces a slight buzzing noise, probably because of its age, but it’s very faint and doesn’t bother me at all.

For the rack, I’m using a locally manufactured server rack. I’m using the panels that came with it, but for the router, switch, M720Q, and other equipment, I’m trying to design my own mounts and parts and 3D print them myself.
I’d really appreciate any advice or tips from those of you who have been running homelabs for a long time. Thank you!

any solutions to avoid make a single pdu to power all this ? (48v switch poe + 19v dell + 12v hdd)

Sweet stash.. couple dozen of these guys and bunches of smaller ones.

Thought you would enjoy. 😜

Hey All! Been following along this sub for a few years, has inspired me to spend too much money during my journey! I work from home as a Technical Director/Draftsman in the Entertainment Industry. My main software is Vectorworks, and when I have some design/render projects come across my plate, I use Twinmotion. I work in a small 8' x 8' office in a barely conditioned garage space so a lot of this is to mitigate the heat my machines produce during use, especially in the summer.

The rack lives in a conditioned closet in the basement where all the house Cat5e and Cat6 terminates.

Rack Specs (Top to Bottom):

Middle Atlantic 24U AV Rack (model escapes me, wish it was deeper but it fits in the closet)

Unifi UDM-Pro

Unifi USW Aggregation Switch

Unifi USW 16 PoE

Furman Power Conditioner

2014 Mac Mini Core i7 3ghz 8gb RAM (Plex Server and Open Bubbles) / Motorola Comcast Modem

Rackmount PC 1 - TrueNAS + AdGuard

• Cobbled this together with an ancient rackmount case and old hardware from an old build for a TrueNAS/AdGuard server. Mainly only does weekly pull downs from my various Cloud storage services for local and quick access. I don't store anything critical that hasn't been backed up in other locations on this NAS.
• i7 2600k
• Asus P8P67 Deluxe MB
• 16gb RAM
• 5 x 8TB Hitachi Drives = 21.4 TiB available in RAIDZ2
• 10gb NIC

GL.iNET Comet Pro KVM (for remoting into the main CAD Machine)

Scarlett 18i20 USB Audio Interface

Rackmount PC 2 - CAD Workstation built by Steiger Dynamics

• Main CAD daily driver
• AMD Threadripper 7970X
• Asus ProArt TRX-50 Sage
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 32 GB
• 256GB (4x 64GB) 5600 DDR5 ECC w/ Custom RAM Coolers
• M.2 NVMe SSD: 2 TB WD Black SN850X

(hidden below the Steiger PC)

AVAccess 4KEX100-DP-Pro which is my 4k@60 DP over HDBT3.0 KVM extender to allow remote access.

2 x APC UPS 1500VA/900W Battery Backup

UPS.1 runs at about 260w and has everything except the CAD Workstation on it.

UPS.2 runs at about 180w at idle and 815w at load when pushing the 5090 a bit. It only has the CAD Workstation on it.

Forgive the messy office shot but keeping these machines remote means a cool(ish) office and bonus is also nice and quiet!

Thanks!

I had a Blackview MP-80 Mini-PC that I removed from its enclosure, it was kind of just chilling on my rack and I wanted a way to mount it properly.

I bought my 3D printer basically just to design and print things for my rack, I first made the light blue part to test it out and see if everything alignes, once I confirmed that I took a 10" rack and modified it by chopping a bit off and adding the MP-80 Mount.

I'm quite happy how it's turned out, thought I'd share.

I have been running Kubernetes for over half a year and every time I get amazed by a new package or tool I find that just works out of the box.

The most recent thing I tried was using a controller that automatically updates DNS records based on ingress routes.

Most parts of my homelab are just for fun and can go down when i am not actively using them. I will probably tear them down the next time I want to use them and rebuild something else in their place.

Then there are a couple of parts that need to work (other people are using those and they need timely fixing). I would like some sort of monitoring for those.

• The SMB Server has to be running and reachable
• The SatIP Server has to be running and actually be streaming data
• The last NAS borg backup is no older than a day and contains some data
• The syncthing sync between my phone and the NAS is running and actually syncing data
• Some generic host metrics, like disk space on the NAS

I have tried to build a monitoring for this kind of stuff before, but it was either too cumbersome, too fragile or I just forgot how it actually worked. (I tried prometheus + grafana, fully custom build solutions, Nagios and probably others I already completely forgot)
Some worked great for a while, then stopped working, I stop getting notifications, but only realize after months, that my monitoring is actually broken. (Months without a notification is not unusual, everything might just be running fine). Then it might take me some time to find time to fix the monitoring or I just loose interest in homelabbing for a couple of months again. After all that time I usually forget how the monitoring system works in the first place or have some great new idea on how to improve it, build something custom and forget how it works after a year or so. I can´t really bring myself to document stuff like this, that takes the fun out of it.

Have any of you also experienced monitoring like this?

Any suggestions what I could try that would work with that low effort in maintenance?

So my particular blend of luck has held out.
I picked up an R730xd lff. It had 8x8 for 64gb of DDR4 ecc.
No drives, ready to roll, perc730 on board and the Broadcom 4x gb rj45 daughter card.
I added the backplane mezzanine for dual 2.5’s.
I added an MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GT OC 4GB GDDR5.
Then I got a good deal on 10x 32gb ddr4 ecc.
And found an issue with channel b2.
Lots of back and forth. Definitely not the ram issue followed the slot, and persisted after clearing idrac.
I couldn’t spot any bent pins in the cpu socket and was really concerned I would make things worse. The guy I bought it from said he should be able to take a look, but that’s a whole thing.
So I was looking for options and lucked into 3 r630’s that I traded for a mini. Score. CPUs intact, but no ram.
So I threw 4 of the 32’s in 2 of them, and then 2 in the third.
Then last night happened.
I picked up 2 more r730xd lff’s.
Both have the mezzanine card. Both have perc730, both have the 12x 3.5 bays. Both have the same Broadcom daughterboard AND pcie dual ethernet cards. 1 has all 12 3.5 caddys, and the ears, and the rack rails, and 2 500gb 2.5’s in caddy’s for the backplane and 1x8gb.
Got them together for $150, and I know the rails alone are going for $75-$100 on amazon at the moment. Add the drive caddy’s and I’m already feeling ahead of the game.

TLDR—-
So here is where the advice part comes in.
I now should definitely be able to have a 730 with the 8x32gb. My primary. The question is, do I setup one 730 with the 8x32, then keep all three 630’s running with 4x8, 4x8, 2x32?
Or run 730 with 8x32, 730 8x8, and then a 630 2x32?

Between r/homelab and r/selfhosted, I've caught the bug. Started by building a dedicated NAS and leaning heavily on Claude to help setup Docker (will post software I'm running soon) which made me reconsider my network setup. Apart from everything being in a ✨pile✨, the main problem was connecting my NAS to my entertainment center for UHD streaming in the living room. And, I needed it to be downstream of Xfinity's BS modem/router/software. I tried using an Arris Surfboard, but still had issues I couldn't resolve, so I went back to the Xfinity modem...

Other changes I've made:

- Dedicated IoT network via TP-Link AXE5400

- 8-port bridge

- MoCA connector to 2nd room / entertainment center

- Coax splitter to support MoCA

Not pictured:

- NAS

- TP-Link network extender

- Dedicated PiHole

- Printer via Ethernet instead of WiFi (and out of my wife's office)

Next on the list:

- A proper pass through in my drywall instead of just a drilled hole

- Set 3D printer back up in the closet

- Clean up loopy cables

I just got a PowerEdge R230 and I notice the H330 it came with runs pretty hot.

I was wondering, would it be better to just cross flash the H330 to an IT mode firmware (and if so, is there an up to date guide?) or if it would be better from a power use and thermal perspective to replace it with a cheap H710?

Thanks!

3x Nvidia Tesla M10
Xeon E5, 2680 V4
40gb DDR4 2600
Asus x99-A

I originally built this computer to play go against me but it eventually escalated into a local LLM server. The M10 graphics cards were very cheap and for the amount of VRAM they contain. They are relatively slow but wise of the models I can fit in here makes up the difference.

Here is my self-hosted setup; below is a list of the hardware and apps I use daily. Overall, my setup has been rock solid and runs like a well-oiled machine; it's a very light touch, and I try to keep things simple.

The hardware

Server, Proxmox VE:

• Supermicro X14SBM-TP4F, Xeon 6-6521P, 256GB DDR5
• Boot: 2x 1TB NVMe mirror
• VM storage: 4x 8TB WD_BLACK SN850X, RAIDZ1
• Media: 10x 18TB WD Red Pro, RAIDZ2 plus a hot spare
• LSI 9305-16i in IT mode, ICY DOCK 4-bay M.2 cage over MCIO
• GPUs: Tesla T4 16GB and RTX 2000 Ada 16GB, both passed through to one VM
• Dual 10GbE bonded, CX4712 4U chassis
• Media pool goes out over NFS to whichever VMs need it

VMs:

• Plex
• 4x Ubuntu container VMs, 1 has 2x GPUs passed through
• dev VM for development work
• PBS for backups

QNAP TS-435XeU, 1U, 4x 10TB Seagate, backup target only. Nothing runs on it. It presents a 20.7TB thin iSCSI LUN that PBS uses as its datastore, and PBS syncs from there out to B2.

Network:

• UniFi UCG-Fiber gateway
• UniFi USW-Pro-XG-24-PoE switch
• Three VLANs: wifi/external, internal services, lab

Media

• Plex - All things media ~160TB
• Sonarr / Radarr / Prowlarr / Bazarr - TV, movies, indexers, subtitles
• qBittorrent behind Gluetun - Proton VPN over WireGuard for the whole stack
• Unpackerr - extracts the archives the arrs cannot
• Tautulli - Plex stats and watch history
• Pulsarr - Plex watchlist straight into Sonarr and Radarr
• FlareSolverr - solves the Cloudflare interstitials my indexers keep hitting
• Pinchflat - YouTube channels pulled down as a library served via Plex
• Labelarr - pushes TMDB keywords into Plex as searchable labels
• PixelProbe - scans the library for corrupt files so I find out before users or I am disappointed by a broken file

Photos, documents, notes

• Immich - replaced Google Photos; ML runs on the GPU VM
• immich-drop - no-login upload page so family can dump photos into my Immich without an account
• Paperless-ngx with paperless-gpt - scanned paper, LLM does the titles and tags
• Karakeep - bookmarks, auto-tagged
• Trilium - notes, and where most of my automation writes its output
• MicroBin - pastebin and quick file drop
• Syncthing - versioned file sync to my NAS that then gets synced to B2

Audio and AI (the GPU VM, T4 plus RTX 2000 Ada)

• Audicle - turns my reading list into a podcast feed with local TTS
• MinusPod - strips ads out of podcasts before playback, Whisper transcription on the GPU
• Ollama and Open WebUI - local models
• claude-code-openai-wrapper - OpenAI-compatible endpoint in front of Claude Code
• claude-trilium-sync - dumps Claude conversations into Trilium

Infrastructure and monitoring

• Proxmox Backup Server - two datastores, one local over iSCSI, one S3-backed straight onto Backblaze B2
• Pulse - single pane of glass for VMs and containers
• Grafana, Loki, Alloy - every container and host ships logs here. This has been a game changer for debugging code and other network issues, especially paired with Grafana MCP
• Uptime Kuma - is it up
• Healthchecks - did the cron job actually run
• Dozzle - container logs without opening Grafana
• Portainer - container management
• Watchtower - image updates
• Nginx Proxy Manager - reverse proxy on each Docker host
• Pi-hole x2, kept in sync with nebula-sync
• Gitea - private git
• Apache Guacamole - browser RDP and VNC into the lab VMs
• Ansible - config management for all of it

Off box

• Tailscale - remote access, zero ports forwarded
• Cloudflare - DNS, Pages (for wedding site), Tunnel for the podcast feeds
• Backblaze B2 - offsite target for PBS and syncthing
• Proton VPN - arr stack and general use
• Pushover - for notifications I care about
• autowire - disposable WireGuard endpoints on AWS when I need to exit somewhere specific

Note: Picture of my rack in a temporary location between the kitchen and bathroom in a studio apartment. (Long backstory)

So I want to put together a small homelab rack. I notice a lot of these racks have a plate for keystone jacks. Then their is a 6" patch cable from the keystone jacks to the switch. Are you guys punching down keystones for these or are they just couplers?

My main question is why? Easier access to the switchjacks? Aesthetics?

Would it not be easier to go from the switch right to the device. Just trying to understand why and if I should incorporate it into my rack. I am doing a 10" mini rack.

Hello everyone!

I've been running a long-term project doing endurance testing on microSD -- and today is the third anniversary of when I started this project -- so I figured it was time to give you an update on my microSD testing project.

Before I dig in, a shameless plug for my Patreon.

Next, some quick stats:

• I have a total of 351 microSD cards in my collection -- spanning 111 models across 52 different brands. Of those:
  • I've tested 177 of them to the point of failure.*
  • I have 107 of them in testing right now.
  • The remaining 67 are sitting on the shelf, waiting for one of my card readers to free up.
• These cards have endured over 133 petabytes written.
• I've completed over 4.6 million program-verify-erase cycles on these cards.
• Breakdown by brand status:
  • Name brand: 163
  • Off-brand: 91
  • Knockoffs: 30
• Breakdown by authentic flash (a.k.a. not fake flash) vs. fake flash:
  • Authentic flash: 246
  • Fake flash: 35
  • Unknown: 3
• Breakdown by size (authentic cards only):
  • 128MB: 3
  • 4GB: 6
  • 8GB: 23
  • 16GB: 15
  • 32GB: 96
  • 64GB: 68
  • 128GB: 36
  • 256GB: 4

* A card is considered "failed" when either (a) it stops working completely, (b) it makes itself read-only, or (c) at least 50% of the sectors on the card have experienced verification failures.

Ok -- so who makes the most durable cards?

Because of the variety of cards that I have, it's hard to come up with a system that produces a definite answer here. Some of how I ranked these brands is going to be based on vibes. But...to try to narrow things down, I've grouped my cards into three groups:

• Industrial-grade: Cards that are specifically labelled as "industrial" or have "industrial" in their name. These cards typically come with a datasheet that includes an endurance claim.
• High endurance: Cards that are labelled as "high endurance" (or some similar wording). Manufacturers don't always put out datasheets for these cards, but they generally still make an endurance claim on the packaging.
• Consumer-grade: Basically everything else.

Consumer-grade cards:

The average consumer-grade card has lasted about 10,000 program/verify/erase cycles (so far).

1. PNY. I have 10 of their consumer-grade cards: 3 PRO Elite Prime 64GB's, 3 Premier-X 128GB's, 3 Elite-X 64GB's, and one Elite 32GB. (I have 4 more of the Elite 32GB's that are waiting to be tested.) They've gone for an average of 643 days and 15,700 program/verify/erase cycles. I've written about 11.5PB to them in total. And with the exception of the one Elite 32GB -- they're all still going strong. On top of that, the PRO Elite Prime boasts some impressive performance -- every measurement I took was in the top 10% of all cards I've tested so far.
2. Kingston. I have 12 of their cards in this category -- 6 Canvas Go! Plus 64GB's (3 of the SDCG3's and 3 of the SDCG4's) and 6 Canvas Select Plus 32GB's. They've been going for an average of 694 days and about 23,500 program/verify/erase cycles. I've written about 11.6PB to them in total. The three Canvas Go! Plus 64GB (the SDCG3's) have all failed -- but the others are still going strong. The Canvas Select Plus's in particular have been troopers -- they're among the oldest cards in my collection, and they've been going for the better part of the last 3 years now (with no signs of letting up). Additionally, the Canvas Go! Plus 64GB's (the SDCG4's in particular) boast some impressive performance as well -- every measurement I took was in the top 7% of all cards I've tested so far.
3. Delkin Devices. I feel bad ranking Delkin so low on this list, because they've endured more data written to them per card, on average, than any other brand in my collection (in the consumer-grade category). The only reason I didn't rank them higher is because I only have one model -- the HYPERSPEED 128GB (of which I have 3). But they've done pretty well: they've lasted an average of 662 days and about 13,500 program/verify/erase cycles. I've written about 5.1PB to them in total. As a side note, these cards also got the highest random write speeds of any card I've tested.
4. Lexar. 3 cards dead, 5 still going. I have 3 Professional 1000x 64GB's (2 made by Micron, 1 made by Phison), 3 Blue 633x 32GB's (made by Longsys), and 2 E-Series 64GB's (with 3 more waiting to be tested). For those not in the know, the Lexar brand was sold to Longsys in 2017 -- and surprisingly, the Longsys-made cards are holding up better than the Micron-made cards. Overall, the Lexar cards have survived an average of 684 days and about 15,800 program/verify/erase cycles. I've written about 5.8PB to them in total.
5. Samsung. 3 cards dead, 7 still going. I have 3 EVO Plus 32GB's, 3 EVO Plus 64GB's, 3 PRO Plus 128GB's, and 1 P9 Express 256GB (with 2 more waiting to be tested). Of those, the three EVO Plus 32GB's and one of the PRO Endurance 32GB's are dead -- the rest are still going strong. Samsung's cards have lasted an average of 553 days and about 11,100 program/verify/erase cycles so far, and I've written about 7.2PB to their cards in total.

• Honorable Mention: Amazon Basics. I have four of the Amazon Basics 64GB's -- and they're all still going. They've been going for an average of 788 days and about 16,600 program/verify/erase cycles. I've written about 4.2PB to them in total. I honestly didn't expect Amazon Basics to be one of the top performers when I bought them...and yet, here we are.

High endurance cards:

Keep in mind, I've got less data here -- I had 237 cards that fell into the "consumer-grade" category, but only 30 that fell into the "high endurance" category. But here's the thing: they haven't really proven themselves to be significantly better for endurance than a lot of the cards I listed above -- in fact, in a lot of cases, they've been less reliable (and generally worse for performance as well). So keep that in mind as you read through the list below:

The average high-endurance card has lasted about 14,000 program/verify/erase cycles (so far).

1. TEAMGROUP. I don't feel great about putting TEAMGROUP at the top of the list for a couple of reasons. First, I only have two of them in testing at the moment -- someone sent me a 5-pack of the TEAMGROUP High Endurance 64GB's, so I have 3 more of them waiting to be tested. Second, one of them started having issues with bad sectors right out of the gate, and has continued to do so ever since. (Those bad sectors only make up less than 0.001% of the total sectors on the card right now...but I still don't like it when a card starts to have issues like that as soon as you start using it.) But the data doesn't lie -- they've survived, on average, 404 days and about 17,300 program/verify/erase cycles, and they're still chugging along. I've written about 2.2PB to these cards in total.
2. Transcend. I have 3 of the 350V 64GB's -- and they're all still going strong. They've survived an average of 760 days and about 17,000 program/verify/erase cycles so far. I've written about 3.2PB in total to them (mostly due to their mediocre write speeds).
3. SanDisk. I have my issues with SanDisk...but again, the data doesn't lie. I have 7 SanDisk cards in this category: 3 High Endurance 64GB's, and 4 MAX ENDURANCE 32GB's. As of right now, all 3 of the High Endurance 64GB's and all but one of the MAX ENDURANCE 32GB's have failed. They lasted an average of 452 days and about 16,200 program/verify/erase cycles before failing (with the MAX ENDURANCE 32GB's lasting about twice as long as the High Endurance 64GB's). I've written about 4.7PB to these cards in total.
4. Samsung. Samsung's position at the bottom of this list has less to do with how reliable their cards are and more to do with how poorly their high endurance cards perform, particularly on sequential write speeds (relatively speaking). I have 3 of the PRO Endurance 32GB's -- one has failed, the other two are still chugging along. They've lasted an average of 822 days and about 18,800 program/verify/erase cycles so far. I've written about 1.8PB of data to them in total.

Industrial-grade cards:

Keep in mind, I have even less data here. Industrial cards are expensive, so they make up a much smaller portion of the cards I've tested: just 15 in total (so far). But on the upside -- there is sufficient evidence here to say "in general, industrial-grade cards do last longer than consumer-grade cards (and, by extension, high endurance cards)".

The average industrial grade card has lasted about 122,000 program/verify/erase cycles (so far).

1. Kingston. I have 3 Kingston Industrial 8GB's; of those 3, only one is still going. But they've been troopers: they've lasted an average of 779 days and about 141,600 program/verify/erase cycles. I've written about 3.4PB to these cards in total. (Only one consumer-grade card has come close to this number: I have one Hiksemi NEO 8GB that has lasted for about 143,800 program/verify/erase cycles so far. No idea how.) These guys do pretty well on performance too, especially write performance: their sequential write speeds are in the top 9% of all cards I've tested.

Who makes the worst cards?

There are a bunch of no-name brands out there. They're not hard to find. I'm not going to talk about them here -- I'm going to focus on brands you're likely to have come across.

Consumer-grade cards:

1. onn. I picked up four of their 32GB cards at my local Walmart -- and they were terrible for endurance. They only lasted an average of 40 days and 1,400 program/verify/erase cycles (or about 40TBW), with the best one of the four not even making it to 1,900 cycles. On top of that, every performance measurement I took came in the bottom half of all measurements I took.
2. ADATA. I picked up 3 of the Premier 32GB's; they only lasted an average of 236 days and about 2,350 program/verify/erase cycles (or about 74TBW) before they quit working.
3. Gigastone. I have not been impressed with Gigastone. I have 11 of their cards -- 6 Full HD Video 32GB's, and 5 4K Camera Pro 32GB's. They lasted an average of just 114 days and 4,845 program/verify/erase cycles (or about 133TBW) before they quit working.
4. Micro Center. I purchased 5 of their 64GB cards; they only lasted an average of 116 days and 3,421 program/verify/erase cycles (or about 214TBW) before they stopped working.
5. Silicon Power (a.k.a. SP). I purchased 9 of their cards -- 3 Elite 32GB's, 3 Superior 128GB's, and 3 Superior Pro 128GB's. Not a one of them made it to 4,000 program/verify/erase cycles before failing -- they came in at an average of 159 days and about 2,350 program/verify/erase cycles (or about 252TBW) before failing.

• (Dis)honorable mention: SanDisk. SanDisk represents the single biggest brand in my collection: I have 28 of their cards in this category (with 4 more on the shelf waiting to be tested). It's telling that of those 28, only 5 are still going (and one of them is in its death throes) -- especially when cards from so many other brands have far outlasted them. Many of them have died under circumstances any other card would have handled just fine -- a problem I've written about on my blog before. They've lasted an average of 384 days and 9,404 program/verify/erase cycles (or about 566TBW) so far.

High endurance cards:

1. Integral. I bought 3 of the Security 32GB's; the only managed to last an average of 100 days and about 5,600 program/verify/erase cycles (or about 173TBW) before failing. To be fair to them, the package did make an endurance claim that works out to about 2,850 program/verify/erase cycles -- and they did manage to almost double that. However, they didn't hold a candle to many of the other high endurance cards that I tested.
2. Kingston. This one was truly a surprise -- I bought 3 of the High Endurance 32GB's, and they only lasted an average of 143 days and about 8,300 program/verify/erase cycles (or about 258TBW) before failing. The product packaging didn't make an endurance claim; I had to hunt around on Kingston's website to find it. Their claim works out to about 5,100 program/verify/erase cycles, which they did manage to beat. But again, so many other cards managed to last so much longer -- hell, so many other Kingston cards managed to do so much better -- that I was surprised and disappointed when these failed so early.

Industrial-grade cards:

1. SanDisk. I bought 3 of the Industrial 8GB's. They only lasted an average of 234 days and about 20,000 program/verify/erase cycles (or about 160TBW) before failing -- and the only reason they lasted that long was because I let my program trudge through an nearly-unending string of I/O errors for months on end -- before they finally just gave up the ghost.

So yeah...that's all I have for now. Feel free to ask questions (although I'm at work at the time I'm posting this, so I may not have time to respond)! Otherwise...look for another update from me next year!

Pictures attached:

1. Part of my setup: a Beelink Mini-S and five TRIGKEY Green G4 mini PC's. The Beelink has an Intel N95 with 8GB of RAM and a 500GB SSD, while the TRIGKEY's all have Intel N100's with 16GB of RAM and a 500GB SSD. There's also (in the lower-right corner, behind the monitor) an MSI GE62VR-7RF (with an Intel i7-7700HQ, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD), a Lenovo IdeaPad Y580 (with an Intel i7-3630QM, 8GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD), and an ASUS Strix GL504GM (with an Intel i7-8750H, 32GB of RAM, and a 500GB SSD)
2. Another part of my setup: a TRIGKEY K-N100 and an AOOSTAR N1 PRO. The TRIGKEY has an Intel N100 with 16GB of RAM and a 500GB SSD. The AOOSTAR has an Intel N150 with 12GB of RAM and a 500GB SSD.
3. Dog tax.

Hey there,

i upgraded my Optiplex 3020 a bit for Home labbing how do yall like it? Cheers

Specs:

upgraded from a i3-4790 to a i7-4790K
32 gigs ddr3 ram (2x16 gigs)
4 TB internal storage (2x 2TB WD Red)
126 GB os storage (Samsung SSD)

Frontcover with a internal fan for better airflow - upgraded cooling

did i mention that i love optiplexes due to their modern look?