r/minilab Mar 06 '26

Wow! Your ZimaOS Feedback + ZimaBoard 2 Giveaway Results!

27 Upvotes

![Hi minilabbers!](https://i.imgur.com/CUzCrBr.png)

We are delighted to have hosted this very successful event with IceWhale. Thank you all for your participation and engagement. Congrats to the giveaway winners! And a big thank you IceWhale for your support of r/minilab! The following is IceWhale's message to our community.


To the r/minilab community

And to every homelab enthusiast who shared their thoughts

First of all, thank you to everyone in the r/minilab community who participated in this discussion. What started as a simple giveaway thread turned into one of the most insightful and detailed pieces of feedback we've received.

Our team has carefully read all 209 comments. Many of you shared your homelab setups, and just as importantly, you candidly pointed out both the strengths and the shortcomings of ZimaOS and ZimaBoard. These conversations have been extremely valuable to us.

Today, we’d like to briefly and sincerely respond to some of the themes that came up most often, and share a few directions we’re currently working on.


👍 What you like — we’ll keep improving

Simplicity and ease of use

When 41 users mentioned the usability of ZimaOS, especially for people just getting started with homelabs, it sent us a very clear signal: lowering the barrier to self-hosting truly matters.

We'll continue investing in this direction and keep building an interface that remains intuitive and easy to use, even as more advanced features are added.


Docker App Store

We saw 28 mentions of the Docker App Store, which tells us that the one-click installation experience resonates strongly with users.

We're also currently working on App Store 2.0, which will include:

  • A redesigned settings UI
  • Clearer app categories and discovery
  • The ability to directly edit Compose YAML
  • More flexible container and application management

RAID management and encrypted folders

Many users mentioned that these features strike a good balance between power and accessibility.

That's exactly the direction we want to continue pursuing: providing powerful server capabilities without requiring sysadmin-level complexity.


Hardware stability and x86 compatibility

We were also encouraged to see comments such as:

"My ZimaBoard has been running 24/7 for years."

"x86 compatibility is extremely important."

This reinforces the core design philosophy behind ZimaBoard: low power consumption, silent operation, expandability, and reliability. These principles will remain central to our hardware roadmap going forward.


🚀 What we're exploring next

One clear trend from the comments is that more and more users are experimenting with local AI / LLM workloads in their homelabs.

This is something we've been thinking about internally as well. We're currently iterating on several Local-First AI ideas and hope to share more with the community in the near future.

When it comes to virtualization, we also understand that many users are looking for stronger VM management capabilities. The team is rethinking how to design a next-generation virtualization experience that is simpler and better suited for homelab environments.

In addition, we're actively working on several other improvements, including a new App Store experience,mobile access improvements and so on.

Feel free to follow our community channels to stay updated, such as our Discord and subreddit r/ZimaSpace.


🌱 IW community ecosystem

Since the end of last year, we've established the IW Community Makes Fund. We commit 33% of ZimaOS Plus revenue back into the ecosystem.

This fund directly supports contributors such as:

  • developers building apps or plugins
  • homelab enthusiasts sharing deep-dive projects
  • creators writing tutorials and documentation
  • developers building new self-hosting tools or ecosystem projects
  • supporting community events - like this one!

If you're working on something like this, we'd love to support you.

Ultimately, we just want to make homelabs a little easier to build and manage.

At its core, homelab is about ownership - your data, your hardware, your stack. ZimaOS and ZimaBoard simply aim to make that more accessible for more people.

Feel free to keep sharing your thoughts in this thread or in our Discord community. And thanks again to r/minilab for the consistently thoughtful discussions.


🎉 Alright — time for the part everyone's been waiting for

🏆 ZimaBoard 2

/u/viDU85

🏆 ZimaBlade 7700

/u/cloud4nm

/u/parttimetinkerer

Congratulations! We’ll contact the winners via Reddit DM, so please keep an eye on your messages and reply within 72 hours.

🎁 ZimaOS Plus

Everyone who left a valid comment in the thread is eligible to claim ZimaOS Plus access. Please send an email to [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) and include:

  • Your Reddit username
  • A screenshot to your Reddit profile showing your comment, so we can verify your participation.

Thanks again everyone — the minilab ideas in this thread were awesome.

r/minilab & IceWhale Team


r/minilab Feb 17 '26

Mini Meta 100,000 Minilabbers!

78 Upvotes

Woo, achievement unlocked!

![We did a thing!](https://i.imgur.com/iJHkZaD.png)

Somewhere between "Hey, this Pi-hole thing sounds cool" and "why do I own a six-node Proxmox mini PC cluster," 100,000 of you decided that this little corner of the internet was worth subscribing to. One hundred thousand humans/bots/one suspiciously articulate NAS who collectively looked at oft-overlooked hardware and had their homelab Goldilocks moment.

How did we get here? YOU.

Every shared "it's not pretty but it works" SBC NAS/media server tucked behind a TV. Every 3D-printed rack ear that took forty-two revisions to get right triumphantly presented to the sub. Every posted "this is my minilab" with enough RGB to make a full 42U server rack blush. But especially every time someone helped an internet stranger figure out why their VLANs weren't VLANning or pointed them in the right direction. The civility of this place is astounding.

This community went from a speculative handful of people posting their builds, testing the waters for a niche homelab group to a place that became the community nexus for a mini-revolution. The project, support & mentions from creators like Patrick, Jeff and Tim really lit a fuse under the membership growth that hasn't yet slowed down. This in turn has opened doors for vendors, such as our friends at GL.iNet & IceWhale to offer some fantastic giveaways in this sub - all because you have built a community worth showing up for.

And thanks to our sister/cousin subs across reddit for the reciprocal linking and general acceptance of /r/minilab as a new kid on the block. It's great to be a part of a wider community.

None of that stuff happens for a dead subreddit. Vendors don't knock on the door of a community that isn't engaged. Creators don't shout out a sub that doesn't give them something interesting to look at. You did that.


By the (approximate, unscientific, possibly made up) numbers:**

  • ~100,140 members who think "mini" is a feature, not a limitation
  • ~230 new friends we just haven't met yet joining every day
  • ~270 new posts a month
  • ~3.5k comments a month
  • Average "what mini PC should I buy?" posts per day: Yes
  • ~700k visits a month - massive!

What's next? Same thing we do every night, Pinky!

Seriously though—whether you joined yesterday or you're one of the OGs, here since the sub was smaller than the chance of securing a mini PC with a PCIe slot, thanks for making this place what it is. It's your builds, your questions, your cursed cable management, and your willingness to help strangers on the internet that got us here.

If you've got any suggestions, thoughts or fun ideas, please feel free to share them. It would be remiss of me not to highlight our two current giveaways - check them out, the odds are still fantastic!


Thank you one and all again. May your minilab adventures be fruitful and continue to inspire us all!


r/minilab 12h ago

My lab! Rackmate T1 with monitor - wake screen on presence, control pc with hand gestures, automatic fan and LEDs

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14 Upvotes

Initially posted to esp32 but had second thoughts. Through a few projects I've built up a small pile of Adafruit and Seeedstudio controllers/peripherals, and combined a bunch with this Rackmate project I wanted to show off. My main goal was to build an 'always on' Home Assistant dashboard, but I was concerned about screen burn and knew it would be too much of a headache to manually unlock this screen with a keyboard every time I come into the room.

ESP32 #1 - Adafruit QtPy ESP32-S2 (CircuitPython) - "qtpy"

  • Mounted on SeeedStudio Grove expansion board (snapped to smaller size)
  • Powers 5v Noctua 120mm PWM fan from 5v/gnd pins (fan draws 150mA, Adafruit says up to 500mA off the pin is ok)
  • Adafruit EMC2101 fan controller (tach/fan to noctua at bottom of rack) - NOTE: didn't work without pullup (4.7K from 3v3 on emc2101 to tach)
  • Adafruit VCNL4030 (prox, lux, color) - grove i2c to stemma i2c here, then stemma chained to emc/apds
  • Adafruit APDS9960 (basic gestures)
  • SeeedStudio mmWave sensor (modded grove cable just supplies 3v3/gnd, bounces presence thru HA/bt/mqtt)

ESP32 #2 - SeeedStudio ESP32-C3 (WLED) - "xiao2"

  • Mounted to Seeed LED driver board (rated for 3A at 5V)
  • Powered by 5V/3A port on Anker hub - USBC to 5V barrel
  • Y-connector to 2 loops of 5V WS2812b ECO (BTF-Lighting 4x19" set - 120 LEDs total)
  • WLED output capped at 2700mA
  • Main turns on with my Hue remote, bottom animations driven by qtpy fan speed

QtPy is attached to a Beelink N95 with the usb passed to a Debian KDE VM called Rackhead, which has full iGPU/HDMI access. It checks the mqtt broker for presence on the mmwave sensor, and moves the 'virtual' mouse every 30s by 1px when presence=1. It checks mqtt for fan_speed/set, which is driven by an HA automation using the EMC2101's internal temp.

All sensors report to MQTT (mostly just informational at this point) and the APDS registers gestures as keystrokes - still figuring this out but got it set up with the arrow keys to start. Current plan is to do maximize/minimize window for up/down, cycle windows for left/right. I realize the mmWave setup is odd; I decided that the cost of running the HA LDE2410 integration and using a grove port was lower than figuring out how to wire/read/report the data from the tx/rx pins in circuitpython.

Pretty happy with how the Rackmate is coming together. The 2 Beelinks (N95 and i5-8279u) each have a brick/wart, but everything else is powered by an Anker 6-port 112w USB-C&A hub. I have a Netgear 8-port switch (using a 12V port w/ USB-C to 12V barrel), a Hue hub, a GLinet mango travel router, the LEDs, and another 4-port usb (the kind that connects to a pc with usb-a but has a +PD type C port), and still have an open A/C outlet and a couple USB-As available.

Here is the repo with the code and some pics. It was generated through back and forth with Claude, the Adafruit docs, and some Gemini. I was able to figure out how to test and print the sensors w/o LLM help, but putting those results into mqtt publish loops was a little more than I care to understand (and the stakes seem low enough here). Still crossing my fingers that the qtpy box doesn't burst open (possibly with flames) with how much is attached and crammed in there. 


r/minilab 12h ago

Horizon One Mini Update

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16 Upvotes

Prototype 2 had a few issues but it is usable and I'm working on different configurations. I would love to hear anybody's feedback on how they would like to see this outfit in. Now that I have the shelf installed properly 🫣This design is pretty much there. Just a few tweaks to make it more refined and fix a few minor issues.

HOM Update

Here are the current lessons I've learned so far going through this process.

Cable management is key. You almost need to do that first, but you also have to figure out what you're going to put in this thing and where it's going to go ahead of time.

For order of install it looks like: Rail Config > Cable Runs > Patch Panels > 10" - 6" Stack > Power > 19" Stack.

This may change as Intest different configs.

Let me know your thoughts and questions.


r/minilab 1d ago

My first 10inch mini rack is done!

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167 Upvotes

Hello Everyone!

I was building my 10-inch rack for my first minilab for a couple of months, and I have to say that I am quite happy with the results. I have been on Unraid for around 1 year and caught up very quickly. I started with a basic array setup, but now I am hosting websites, home media automation, HA, video streaming and other usual suspects.

The only thing I do not have is more advanced file sharing. For now, I have been using standard SMB access via VPN, Filebrowser and Syncthing, but I would like to try something else. I would be very glad for some suggestions on what to try.

NOTE: Ignore the cables going out of the rack. I am printing a new back piece to get the cables out of the back. :-D

Thanks!

Parts

  • ASUS PRIME B760M-A WIFI (V2) micro ATX
  • Intel Core i5-12400 Alder Lake CPU
  • Corsair Vengeance DDR5-6000 - 32GB - CL36 
  • Montech NX600
  • Sipeed KVM
  • Lenovo SAS 430-8i 
  • Corsair Commander Pro
  • Zigbee2MQTT dongle
  • PCIE extension 8x SATA
  • Drives NWME
    • 2x 1tb
  • Drives HDD
    • 6x HDD for array
    • 2x HDD for parity
    • Total 64TB
  • Drive SSD
    • 128gb boot 2,5 inch
    • 2x 2tb cache 2.5 inch 
  • Corsair RM750x ATX
  • UPS - APC BX950MI
  • Cloud Gateway Fiber 
  • AP U7 PRO
  • Storage
    • Array: 6x HDDs + 2x HDDs for dual-parity protection.
    • Cache: 2x 2TB 2.5" SSDs + 2x 1TB NVMe drives.
    • Boot: 1x 128GB 2.5" SSD.

Construction

  • 18U rack pre-threaded rails 4x
  • M6 Bolts
  • 3D printed construction
  • Magnetic side panels for easy access
  • 1x 180, 2x 120, 4x40 mm fans for cooling
  • Cooling of separate zones
    • Multiple chamber 3D printed design (helps with cooling)
    • Temps HDD
      • Idle 32-38c
      • During parity check max 44c
    • Temps nwme
      • Idle 42c
    • Temps SSD 2.5 inch
      • Idle 33c
  • Horizontal mounting of a micro ATX motherboard with access to PCIE cards
  • Side and top handles for easy manipulation
  • Power button
  • Magnetic covers for drive sections
  • Hot-Swap design of all drive mounting

r/minilab 1d ago

My lab! My fully 3D-printed 10-inch rack minilab!

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640 Upvotes

I bought a 3D printer mostly just to pull off this project 😅

Here are the specs for my home setup:
NAS: TrueNAS Community Edition (2x10TB main pool, 2x3TB backup pool, 64GB DDR4 RAM)
Compute Cluster: 3x HP Mini PCs (1x EliteDesk, 2x ProDesks) with i5-8500T CPUs and 32GB RAM on each node.
Hypervisor & K8s: Running a Proxmox cluster with a 3-node Talos Linux Kubernetes cluster inside, plus a few extra VMs.
Networking: TP-Link TL-SG105-M2 2.5 Gbps switch.

If you want a deeper look into the Kubernetes setup, I’ve documented it on GitHub: https://github.com/zarnautovic/kubernetes-homelab

edit:
Here are some 3d models i use to make this:
rack: https://makerworld.com/en/models/2139130-kws-rack-v-2-heavy-duty-10-inch-homelab-rack#profileId-2317125
hot swap bays: https://makerworld.com/en/models/2689222-hot-swappable-10-rack-drive-tray-2-5u-w-cradle#profileId-2979462
panel for atx psu: https://makerworld.com/en/models/1395747-10-inch-rack-mount-panel-for-the-atx-psu-2-ssd?from=search#profileId-1446712
mini itx motherboard: https://makerworld.com/en/models/2452767-2u-mini-itx-motherboard-pc-rack-tray-10-rack?from=search#profileId-2692953
mini pc mount: https://makerworld.com/en/models/1618704-hp-prodesk-mini-g3-4-5-10-rack-mount?from=search#profileId-1710049
switch mount: https://makerworld.com/en/models/1990494-tp-link-tl-sg105-m2-2-5g-10-inch-rack-mount?from=search#profileId-2142070
patch pannel: https://makerworld.com/en/models/825894-10-inch-keystone-patchpanel-x10-ports?from=search#profileId-769490


r/minilab 1d ago

Ugreen 4800 Pro + M1 Mac Mini homelab. any recommendations?

12 Upvotes

looking for some inspiration on what to do next with my homelab and would love to hear what services or open-source apps yall are running.

My current setup consists of a UGREEN DXP4800 Pro(Love), and an M1 Mac Mini(that pretty much gets zero use).

Currently running on the NAS:

* Jellyfin
* \*arr stack (Sonarr, Radarr, etc.)
* tailscale
* gluetun/qbittorrent
* Usenet downloads
* Nextcloud
* Immich
* Scrypted (for bringing my Ring cameras into Apple HomeKit)
* Home Assistant OS in a VM

The NAS handles everything really well since I upgraded to 32 GB of ram. Since I upgraded my primary devices (PC, iPhone, iPad), I barely touch the Mac Mini anymore.

Now I'm trying to figure out:

* What are some unique or underrated self-hosted services worth running?
* Are there any applications that would make good use of the M1 Mac Mini specifically?
* What services have become genuinely useful in your household beyond the typical media server stack?

I've looked at some of the common recommendations, but I'm especially interested in things that improved your daily life, family workflow, home automation, backups, AI, dashboards, monitoring, etc.

Curious to hear what everyone is running and what you'd do if you had this NAS + M1 Mac Mini combo available.

Thanks!


r/minilab 2d ago

My lab! Jumping into the mini rack rabbit hole

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436 Upvotes

Hello,

After looong years with devices here and there I finally decided to fully commit to something reliable, portable, and aesthetically pleasing

It has been a long run but I am super proud of the result especially considering I am not a handyman at all 😅. For those interested here my setup (top to bottom):

  • Wifi AP : TP-Link Omada Business WiFi 6 AX3000 Ceiling Mount Access Point (EAP650)
  • Firewall : QOTOM Q730G5 (OPNSense as an OS)
  • Desk PI's patch panel provided with the rack
  • Router : TP-Link Jetstream TL-SG2008P
  • Switch : TP-Link TL-SG105 5 ports 1G + Controller : TP-Link Omada controller OC200
  • KVM : KVM Ezcoo + JetKVM
  • 3x Mini PC : Beelink Mini PC, Mini S12 Pro Intel 12th Gen 4-Core N100 (up to 3.4GHz)
  • NAS : Synology DS918+ (with 4x4 To HDD)
  • UPS : Not in the picture but CyberPower CP1500GAVR 1500 VA

Now that hardware is sorted I will be moving to software part and configuring a K3s stack fully provisioned by FluxCD over Flatcar OS (still a work in progress 👀)

Detailed information and the logbook of my journey here : https://homelabeur.eu/deskpi-rack
All the rack mounts have been 3D printed you can retrieved them in the above blog post.

I will be more than happy to answer any questions or receiving feedback !


r/minilab 1d ago

£50 a pop? Good day

15 Upvotes

Absolute heaven. Just picked these up today , 4tb Segate Skyhawks for £50 a pop. In this economy! Very happy man.


r/minilab 2d ago

Moved into a rack, finally

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63 Upvotes

Yes it looks empty, yes, the cables are a mess. But we all start somewhere, right? 😂


r/minilab 2d ago

Software Bits and Bobs Even mini-labs need seamless remote access: I developed USBridge Remote, a self-hosted P2P alternative to RustDesk/AnyDesk with Moonlight and Wayland support.

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45 Upvotes

I originally developed this app for my custom KVM-over-IP, but it turned out to be much more effective than existing solutions, so I decided to make it fully open-source for the community. No constant limitations, no mandatory account registrations, and no dependence on third-party cloud services.

If your mini lab needs direct, independent access over your local network or via Tailscale (with ZeroTier planned for the future), I recommend giving it a try. It features native Moonlight and Sunshine protocol integration, delivering ultra-low latency and frame rates up to 240 FPS. Wayland (Linux) works right out of the box without screen capture issues or constant permission pop-ups.

Over the weekend, I finished working on a two-way shared clipboard: copying and pasting text, transferring images, and sharing files between local and remote machines is now fully functional.

Ready-to-use beta versions for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android are available in the repository, and the iOS client is already live in the App Store.

GitHub: https://github.com/USBridge-Technologies/USBridge-Remote

I’d love to hear your feedback!


r/minilab 2d ago

Looking for feedback on a Linux-native alternative to VMs and containers for bare-metal servers. [Kloigos]

8 Upvotes

Hi everyone,

For the last several months I've been working on a side project called Kloigos. I jokingly shorten it to k5s.

Kloigos partitions a Linux server into what I call Compute Units using native Linux features such as systemd, cgroups, nftables, LVM, and Unix users. Each compute unit gets its own CPUs, memory limits, IP address, storage, and SSH user, while everything still runs directly on the host kernel.

The goal isn't to replace VMware or Kubernetes. It's aimed at situations where you have a powerful Linux server and want lightweight, VM-like isolation without the overhead of virtualization or container orchestration. Kloigos intentionally makes a different set of trade-offs: applications share the host Linux environment and some VM capabilities are sacrificed in exchange for native performance, operational simplicity, and lower resource overhead.

The idea came from a discussion with one of my customers, who runs large bare-metal servers but found their Kubernetes platform too heavy for their use case and didn't want to pay the virtualization overhead of VMs either. That got me wondering whether there was room for something in between that's better than just using \`numactl\` and some ansible playbooks...

I'm currently testing Kloigos on a small Dell OptiPlex in my homelab, but I'm looking for people with larger lab environments who might be interested in trying it out and giving honest feedback, and benefit from it, too. I know Proxmox, Docker, and Kubernetes are popular around here, but I'm curious whether there's room for another approach.

I'd especially appreciate feedback on:

* Does the overall idea make sense?

* What security concerns would you raise first?

* What features would make something like this genuinely useful in your homelab or stating or testing environment?

Disclaimer: This project is still very much in alpha. Features/bugs are constantly added/fixed, and I'm actively looking for design feedback from people with real infrastructure experience. Yes, I use AI as it's just so incredibly useful, can't deny that.

GitHub: [https://github.com/fabiog1901/kloigos\](https://github.com/fabiog1901/kloigos)

Documentation: [https://fabiog1901.github.io/kloigos/\](https://fabiog1901.github.io/kloigos/)

Thanks! I'd genuinely appreciate any feedback, whether it's positive or critical. I'm happy to answer questions and discuss the design decisions behind the project.


r/minilab 3d ago

My lab! My humble minilab

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395 Upvotes

Been running this setup for about five months now barey touching it. It's not as clean or creative as a lot of the builds posted here, but figured I'd share it anyway. This sub was a great source of inspiration, information, and finally convinced me to start a homelab as someone who doesn't love huge hardware (slowly converting all my pc gaming friends to ITX)

When building I debated between building a Proxmox cluster with a few mini PCs or doing one powerful ITX server. I ended up building something simple that I could get running quickly (and easily understand). and got going with a high core mini PC and standalone NAS.

A family member was kind enough to 3D print a few parts for the rack. They ended up catching the minlab bug themselves and got a 10" rack full of Raspberry Pi's for software development.

The NAS handles storage and a Docker hosted Jellyfin & Arr stack with Intel's transcoding. The MS-A2 runs everything else: Proxmox VMs/LXCs, Nginx, Valheim server, Pi-hole, Home Assistant, Zigbee, LM Studio, Tailscale exit node, etc.

For routing, I considered OPNsense/pfSense, but UniFi's interface is so easy. I worked in IT for a few years but never went deep into networking, so it's been fun putting those awful compTIA exams to use. Eventually, I might move routing to the MS-A2 (10Gb SFP+),replace Tailscale with WireGuard to become more independent, and maybe move the Jellyfin server to the MS-A2 if its worth it over the UGREEN NAS, but I'm currently content with the performance.

Proxmox has also been fantastic. One my companies sysadmins (dream job) is even deploying it at work in one of the labs instead of ESXi or Hyper-V. I've even seen it listed in some recent job listings. It's nice feeling in the loops with current software.

Hardware Front:

  • DeskPi RackMate T1 Plus
  • Pothos
  • Ubiquiti Cloud Gateway Ultra
  • 2× Raspberry Pis (currently doing absolutely nothing & open to ideas) + IPKVM
  • Ubiquiti Switch Ultra
  • GeekPi Patch Panel
  • MINISFORUM MS-A2 (Proxmox, 2TB SSD, 32GB RAM)
  • UGREEN NAS DXP4800 Plus 4800 (4×4TB RAID5, 2×1TB SSD cache, 32GB RAM, 2x4TB cold backups)
  • APC UPS (out of frame)

Hardware Back:

  • GeekPi 1U Brush Cable
  • Noctua NF-A15 PWM w/ Owl Tree 12V fan controller

I'm moving soon, so I'm hoping the next place has a better wall jack placement. I'd also like to integrate everything into a different piece of furniture that's more consolidated (or just chuck it in a closet).

Next in my to-do list isn't really server related, but setting up SSH & Tailscale with my Steamdeck so I can stream Apollo/Moonlight from my PC within my LAN to TV or remotely for performance.

I'm thinking about removing the 2 Pi's and IPKVM (shoving it in the back) and 3d printing an enclosure for the MS-A2 and NAS with the extra U's just to clean it up a bit; Happy to send links to any hardware or 3d printables,; I'll respond! Also, I'm open to any build ideas and critiques from the experts here.


r/minilab 3d ago

My lab! Unifi MiniRack. 10gb switch backhaul to 2.5gb drops

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93 Upvotes

Network
The UCG-Fiber anchors the rack with a 10G WAN port (my modem and WAN are only 2.5Gb), a built-in 4-port 2.5GbE switch, and 1TB NVMe for Protect camera recording.
Both switches are USW-Flex-2.5G-8-PoE with all 8 ports at 2.5Gbps. Uplink to the gateway via 10G SFP+.
Each of the three indoor floors has a U7 Pro Wall connected at 2.5Gbps over the existing cat6 runs. The two half-U patch panels give 24 home runs covering APs, cameras, Apple TVs, and bedroom drops.

More info: https://www.nth.io/luke/projects/homelab-mini-rack-v2/

Components
Rack - NavePoint 9U 10"
Shelves - DIGITUS Shelf 1U 10"
Keystones - VCE Cat6 Keystone Jacks

9
Modem
Hitron CODA56
DOCSIS 3.1 + 2.5Gbps
8
Gateway
UCG-Fiber
10G + integrated 4-port 2.5GbE switch + 1TB NVMe
7
AP Switch
USW-Flex-2.5G-8-PoE
PoE APs and cameras, 2.5G cat6 drops. 10G SFP+ backhaul.
6
Patch Panel
GeeekPi 0.5U 12 Port ×2
Two half-U panels for 24 home runs total.
5
Cluster Switch
USW-Flex-2.5G-8-PoE
PoE powered from AP switch. 10G SFP+ backhaul.
3/4
RPi 4 Cluster
russross 2U mount
Modified OpenSCAD model for PoE and M.2 hat sizes. See the RPi homelab post.
2
M4 Mac mini
M4 Mac mini
On a DIGITUS shelf. Custom 3D printed mount planned.
1
PDU
Tupavco TP1713


r/minilab 3d ago

Home high availability cluster and his bigger experimental brother

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30 Upvotes

r/minilab 3d ago

Help me to: Software Looking for an easy-going media viewer/sharing tool for a minilab newbie. Main concern is about getting data from my local NAS

6 Upvotes

Hi all!

So I'm currently configuring my two node minilab (for now), consisting on a mini pc running proxmox and a terramaster two-bay NAS (raid1), within the first of those I currently have just uptime kuma, adguard and gitea, and now I wanted to be able to view and share my photos, mainly taken from a shared folder from my NAS, may be?.

The main idea is to keep my NAS as a both Backup drive and file serving device (until i can upgrade storage on my mini pc and do the backups there), so I could take the data from it and just use stuff running on my proxmox as applications, not as data itself, if that makes sense, so if anything goes wrong application-wise, or even on the server itself, i would still have access to my media.

I've been trying some software here and there and it seems like a total pain to actually pick data from my local network and serve it via media tools such as lychee or jellyfin.

Any tutorial, suggestion or tool recommendations are welcomed!!

Thanks in advance!


r/minilab 4d ago

2U 10" HdPlex mini-itx Case

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217 Upvotes

Time for a 2U 10" Case for HdPlex PSUs.

- Mini-ITX compatible 
- 232mm length (fits custom or longer racks only — e.g. DeskPi's "Plus" line) 
- 221mm width (needs countersunk screws! Most 10" racks max out at 222.5mm — check yours first!) 
- 2U - 2x 80mm fans - HdPlex PSU (ONLY THE 250W VERSION!)
- Holds 4x 2.5" drives (mounted to the cover) 
-3 different backs - pass-through back, full PCIe slot [riser needed], or fully closed

You need the following items: 
1x 16mm power button 
29x M3x6mm Phillips DIN965 screws 
1x HdPlex PSU 250W Version
29x M3x5.7mm threaded heat-set inserts 

https://makerworld.com/de/models/3068062-hdplex-psu-2u-10-rack-mini-itx-server-case#profileId-3453543


r/minilab 2d ago

Help me to: Build Help me evaluate a 4-layer AI homelab architecture

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0 Upvotes

I've designed a homelab stack for running local AI (LLMs, vision OCR, voice transcription, image gen) and would appreciate feedback before I start deploying.

The 4-layer architecture (strict separation):

Layer 1 — Inference

vLLM + llama.cpp (coexist, per-model), Whisper STT, vision VLM for OCR

Layer 2 — Tools

Hermes Agent orchestrator, LiteLLM routing, Playwright browser, SearXNG search, Crawl4AI scraping, pandoc + yt-dlp — 1 container/tool via Docker Compose

Layer 3 — Storage

TrueNAS bare metal (ZFS mirror, NFS to control plane), PostgreSQL + pgvector, Git + SOPS+Age for configs/secrets

Layer 4 — Network

OPNsense appliance (dedicated), Ubiquiti/MikroTik switch, WireGuard, Caddy + Authelia, AdGuard Home

Routing: Request → LiteLLM (Tools) → vLLM/llama.cpp (Inference, local) or OpenRouter/fal.ai (cloud overflow)

Design principles:

- Zero fixed subscriptions

- All open source

- ARM64-compatible runtimes

- No database or proxy on the inference node (inference only)

- Firewall on its own physical box

Full plan: https://luispoveda.gitbook.io/thirty-nighty-architecture

What would you do differently?


r/minilab 3d ago

DAS for seagate exos x22 recommendations

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1 Upvotes

r/minilab 4d ago

Help me to: Build How to structure minilab.

19 Upvotes

I am starting out my minilab. I currently have three thinkcentre that I have installed ProxMox on and have made into a cluster. I am new to all of this.

I have everything on one node so far. I am running two CT and one VM. One of the CT is docker with Traefik, AdGuard, Cloudflare, Portainer, Homepage.

The other CT is Filer Browser and ngix as I am hosting a website with that.

The VM is running windows 11 so I can run an app for my TCG selling business.

I want to restructure and play around and learn more. I also want to be able to do like protainer.domain.lab or something else so I do not have to remember all the ips. I am not sure which proxy manager works the best for that.

I will be adding a media sever into the mix in the future, and game server, and Home Assistant.

Any advice will be wonderful thank you in advance.


r/minilab 4d ago

Ideas to utilize an old RX580 8GB

9 Upvotes

I have plans in the works to add another node to my homelab and want to reuse some old hardware.

I have a Supermicro ITX board, i7-6700, 32GB SODIMM DDR4, and an RX 580 8gb.

Already running:

- TrueNAS on an ASRock J3455-ITX with 4x6TB drives

- PiHOLE

- HomeAssistant

- WolNUT

- UniFi Controller (on a Pi)

Ideas? I dont want to see the RX580 go to ewaste. My main rig uses a 3060 12g and 64g ram.

EDIT: Might switch the i7 system with the J3455 system and make the latter an offsite system, but there is no need for a GPU on the local TrueNAS system then...


r/minilab 5d ago

My lab! 8U self-contained Kubernetes cluster

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802 Upvotes

I figured I should probably post there here while I still have it. All of the 10 Inch Industries prints are PETG-CF. Ubiquity shelves are PLA.

First - the hardware:

Rack - Geekpi 8U 200mm depth rack - black

Console - OrangePi 5 Plus SBC (8GB / 8 core / 1TB NVME) + generic USB-C 14" LCD + 10 Inch Industries monitor stand for GeekPi racks

Power - 2x SAIPKYGS 1000 GaN5 USB chargers + IP Power IP9658T network switched PDU + Custom 3D printed tray

Network - Ubiquiti Pro XG 8 10GBE PoE switch + Ubiquiti Flex 2.5GBE PoE switch

ETCD nodes - 3x OrangePi 4 Pro SBC (12GB / 8 core / 64GB EMMC / PoE hat) on 10 Inch Industries shelf + trays

Worker nodes - 8x OrangePi 6 Plus (32GB / 12 core / 512GB NVME / 2x 2TB NVME) on 10 Inch Industries shelf + trays

Now the software:

Stack runs Debian 13 top to bottom, except for one VM that I kept around running Ubuntu 22.04 to build various bits of the OrangePi tool chain.

Console is used as both a user entry point, and a repository, allowing the other nodes to PXE boot.

ETCD node building sucked. There's still some magic done with the OrangePi filesystem image that I can't replicate, but once the base OrangePi image is installed on the mmc flash, it's easy enough to rm -rf / and debootstrap.

Worker nodes will boot the stock Debian 13 USB installer without issue, and the stock kernel handles as much as I needed it to. There was probably room for performance tuning here, but stock worked well enough. These nodes PXE booted and since all 8 nodes were the same, base install was easy enough. Following that, they ran a custom script to complete their build and re-join the cluster. The 2TB NVME drives were presented as ROOK / CEPH storage, and the 512GB NVME was OS.

The cluster itself ran testing for an IVR stack while trying to figure out how to fail the stack out of different scale units without impacting caller experience at all. Additionally, with the help of KubeVirt, I was able to build an LFS testing environment to see if that's a direction I wanted to go, with the idea being a new and tuned system image every time.


r/minilab 5d ago

Staring the lab

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78 Upvotes

It is currently a mess of cables but it's working quite well. Two tiny PCs (a Lenovo i5 10500T 2x16G ~250USD and a HP Ultra 5 245T 1x32G, ~600 USD). The Lenovo is a general purpose server Pi-hole, Jellyfin, Tailscale node, VPN and whatever I can add (ideas will be well received). I tried Proxmox for 3 months, but high network usage killed the network card and I needed to physically reboot it. So now it is a regular server. The HP one is my current Linux workstation which I will try to upgrade to 64G of RAM once the prices are not that crazy high. I have a PC (Ryzen 9 7900, 64G and a 7700XT) that has a kind of broken installation that I will do a fresh install, and will try to run local coding models. And of course, cable management is missing but I will have time later.

I had a Lenovo i3 8100T but I gave it to my brother with Pi-hole and Jellyfin installed.


r/minilab 5d ago

My lab! 10 Inch Rack Raspberry Pi 5 Cluster

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120 Upvotes

Link: 💻 10 Inch 5U Raspberry Pi 5 Cluster / 80mm Fan Mount / SFX PSU Mount・ STL Datei für 3D-Druck・Cults

Komplettpaket - 5U Raspberry Pi 5 Cluster.

Mount für 5x Raspberry Pi 5

Mount für 2x 80mm Server Fan

Mount für SFX PSU


r/minilab 5d ago

Help me to: Hardware On a journey to rip power warts out of my life.

6 Upvotes

Anyone using a DeskPi DC PDU Lite 7-CH 0.5U with a 210W power brick from Unifi? I am looking to slim down and get rid of power warts that take up way too much space. Looking at the maximum input of the DeskPi DC PDU (24V and 8A), I took my multi meter to actually get the voltage output of my 210W power brick.

It's looking like the 210W power brick is outputting 53.04V and according to the calculation VxA=W the amperage of the power brick should be around 3.95 which is far below the max amperage and far exceeds that 24V max of that DC PDU. My question is, is anyone else using the power brick with the DC PDU and is it fine? If not, any recommendations for a power brick?