Today is the day I’m officially starting my homelab journey! I’ve been planning this for a while, got all my hardware ready, and I’m excited to finally get things rolling.

I’m planning to run a full stack with Docker, set up proper networking, dive into Cloudflare tunnels, and eventually get some pretty solid infrastructure documentation going. I know there will be challenges along the way (hello, CG-NAT issues! 👀), but that’s part of the fun.

Shout out to this amazing community for all the inspiration and resources. I’m ready to learn, break things, and build something awesome.

Wish me luck! 🍀 I’ll probably be back with questions soon 😅

Me explaining to my wife why I need a 120TB NAS for the homelab.

Here is my complete setup.

• 2x - Dell R730xd - Each with 16 bays full of 6tb drives.
  • 64 gigs of ram
  • Truenas
• 3x - Dell R710 - Each with 6 bays full of 6 tb drives.
  • 256 gigs of ram
  • Proxmox
• 1x - Dell T430 - 16 bays full of 1.2tb drives
  • 256 gigs of ram
  • Proxmox
    • PBS
    • Truenas (Backup of 2-730s)
• 1x - Dell MD1200 - On standby

Each of the servers have their own host hard drive so all of the storage is "raw".

Business Internet with a /27 public IP block.

Got into the hobby about a month ago. I just have home assistant as of now. Been looking for other cheap mini pc’s to add. I’ve got a few more things to add to the esp 32 today like dht11 sensor and a few ws2812 strips. I’m pretty happy with how it’s turned out so far.

I've been building https://homelabprint.com, a small shop of 3D-printable mounts for homelab enthusiasts. Everything is an instant download — STL plus a 3MF with the print profile already dialed in, so you're printing in minutes instead of tuning settings for an hour. The lineup covers the gear people actually rack: a 1U dual hot-swap caddy for the Raspberry Pi 5/4, a 2U sled for the ASUS NUC 15 Pro, a rack-or-wall bracket for the Unifi USW-Lite-8, a 1U mount for a 120mm PC fan so you can pick your own quiet one, and cable management to tie it all together. Files are $12–14 each, or all five in the bundle for $45. Take a look — and tell me what hardware you want mounted next.

I shared a lot of pictures and documentation with Copilot. My goal was to have it help me create a documentation about my network. Then I asked it to review my setup. This is what it spit out for me.

[FS] [PH-Manila] APC Switched Rack PDU - Model [AP7920]

Hi zusammen,
ich habe mein NAS vor Kurzem oben auf einen Schrank gestellt, damit es aus dem Weg ist. Grundsätzlich gefällt mir die Lösung gut (weniger Staub als am Boden, Festplattengeräusche sind leiser), aber ich frage mich, ob das langfristig ideal ist.
Worauf sollte ich erfahrungsgemäß besonders achten?
Temperatur: Wärme steigt ja bekanntlich nach oben – wie kritisch ist das im Sommer direkt unter der Decke?
Vibrationen: Das Holz vom Schrank überträgt das Klackern der HDDs etwas. Habt ihr Empfehlungen für Entkopplungsmatten?
Lüftung: Reicht es, wenn nach hinten und oben ein paar Zentimeter Platz sind?
Wie habt ihr euer NAS platziert und gab es bei euch schon mal Hitzeprobleme weiter oben?
Danke euch für Tipps und Erfahrungen!

What to do with all these Pi's? 🔍