Configuration:

• 8-port, 4 PoE ports switch
• Pi 5 running Docker with Plex, Jellyfin & HomeAssistant
• Two Orange Pi 3 Zero running PiHole for redundancy.
• Rpi 5 with 16tb (Qty 4 - 4tb 3.5 WD Reds)
• Qty 3 - 12v 8030 fans (two intake, one outlet)
• Qty 5 - 12v 4020 fans for intake (And aesthetics?)
• Mini PC with 1 TB, N150, 16 GB DDR4 for remote access (because I had one lying around)
• TP-Link Router

Total power consumption is 65W-ish (bounce between 64-66)

Additional:

Unfortunately, there are no PoE Hats for the Orange Pi's I'm using (PiHole)

Thanks again to posts:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/minilab/comments/1k63yhl/mini_lab_with_3030_alu_profiles/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/minilab/comments/1ivkhxb/minilab_for_lanparty/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/minilab/comments/1itnojc/8u_mini_rack_filling_in_nicely/

for inspiration. Great community.

The core of my rack is a frame made of: - 4 vertical 8U rails - 4 aluminum profiles, 20×20×250 mm - 4 aluminum profiles, 20×20×150 mm Inside the frame are two Intel NUC5i5RYK units, each equipped with 16GB of RAM and a 240GB SSD. The network switch is a MERCUSYS MS105GP (5×GbE, 60W PoE).

I want to organize my home network with a small vertical rack. The thing is, most of the stuff that I've seen on this subreddit are highly customized racks made with a 3D printer, and I'm not sure if there are any generic racks I could buy and adapt for my setup.

My devices are:

1. Router
   
2. Modem
   
3. Not sure what the heck is that, but according to my ISP it's required for the optic fiber.
   
4. Inovato Quadra (mini pc)
   
5. rbpi zero w
   
6. Mini UPS (30 W)

To be added very soon:

5-8 Port Gigabit Ethernet Switch
Another Mini UPS

Mini-Labbers,

I'm in the process of building my first minilab and was wondering how you all manage power for different devices. I have 6x Lenovo ThinkCentre M920q and the power bricks are going to take too much space in the rack.

I was thinking about a "power rail" so that I can remove the requirement to have the AC/DC brick with the computers. It would also potentially be convenient for my MikroTik devices that support DC input terminals...

Have any of you had success with a "power rail" setup before? If so, what did you use?

Thanks! :)

Finally got my little rack cleaned up and dialed in:

Top: Netgear MS308E + PoE 2.5G switch powering the AP

Middle: Cluster of pi5 with PoE Hat / NVME for storages.

Lower: Mac Mini M4 / Nuc 14 for heavier workloads, basically PVE on NUC with max ram and nvme.

Still have plenty of spaces to fill it up.

Everything is housed in a compact rack, but I’m still missing one important piece: a UPS that fits well with a mini rack setup.

👉 Any recommendations for models that are reliable, compact, and won’t take up too much space?

We're doing a big switch around in my house, my daughter is getting the room I currently use as my office/nonsense room. As a result I'm not going to have an office in the house for a while. My work equipment is being relocated (and some of it is being replaced) to an office I'm renting but I didn't want to move all my gear there. I decided to get one of these inexpensive Tecmojo 10 inch cabinets and temporarily slot it under my other half's dressing table to try and tidy things up. It's only marginally tidier than it was but it's a start. The mini PC on the right is new and I didn't have enough ethernet cables or shelving to hook it up. The ones I do have are just way too long so I'm going to see if I can get a bulk pack of shorter cables and another shelf or two. Then I need to figure out how to neaten up the cabling at the bottom (there's also a dangling SSD amongst the mess). In the end I'd like to 3D print some nice fascias as others have but that's a project for the future :)

My mini lab needed a refresh!

Finally collected all the ingredients and ready ready for assembly.

When it comes to Minilab, at least for me it means cheap and convenient and by rack-design space efficient. I find that 2U with 6 drives is maximum you can get and the best usage of space, so I decided to go with it. I also wanted it to be nice clean looking and easy to access.

Here is the list of ingredients form the attached photos:

• 10 inch Rack 2U : 6 x 3.5 inch HDD - HOT SWAP !
• 0KG1CH 3.5'' SAS SATA Server Tray Caddy for Dell PowerEdge R730
• Power Data Converter 22Pin 7+15 Male To Female SATA
• A4 M3x12 ISO 7380 threaded screws

Originally, I planned to screw all of the SATA adapters, but it's impossible, even with the super slim ratchet, so I opted for second best option: Super Glue.

I am also slightly worried about thermals, so I got a blank like panel with fan mount, to mount it on the back of this HDD shelf.

At the moment, I have a different ideas on how to power the whole thing, but I'll play with that over the weekend:

1. SATA power adapter and a cable from PC - The easiest solution
2. Dedicated Flex or Pico PSU - The most common solution
3. DC 5525 to SATA IDE hard drive power supply cable DC 12V to SATA - I have no trust in this, but worth exploring.

I'm looking to get a rackmate t2 because I love the form factor, but have 2 items that are a cause for concern.

I have a Ubiquiti Edgerouter 10x, which is 10.6" (268mm) wide; and a HPE Microserver Gen10 which is 9.06" (230mm) wide and 10" (254mm) deep.

The dimensions for the t2 rack are shown below. Can the items above still fit inside even if the router can't be screwed in? Is using a mini rack a terrible idea in this case?

Thanks for your experience and suggestions!

Still early on in this build, but I finally found a compact power solution that works for me.

This rack is just a Pi cluster (PoE), some ESP32's, fans, and LEDs, so I was reluctant to over-spend on power (already have an external UPS it'll plug in to), and I wanted built-in USB ports so I didn't have to fill the box with adapters / hubs.

The rack PDU market was $$$ for those low requirements, so I found an in-desk power strip / usb hub for $32 and made a mount.

I'm not the first to adapt an in-desk plug strip to a rack, but hope maybe this is useful to someone. :)

Hi everyone, I have never seen anyone install their DeskPi on the wall, it is entirely possible, here is mine that I started this week.

I’m about to start my first server, I scored an hp elitedesk 800 g6 mini, i5-10500T.

I’m planning to upgrade the RAM. I’m looking at the crucial 64gb SO-DIMM 3200 for $140 at ebay but I also found a g.skill ripjaws 64gb 3200 for $100. From what I remember, ripjaws are associated with gaming? So my question is, will there be an issue using peripherals that are marketed towards gaming or is it just going to be the same, performance wise?

I’ve now almost completely filled my Rackmate but I have no idea what to put here. please help

I’m trying to sketch out a USB power rail idea for the minirack I’m working on, to replace a bunch of wall warts inside the case with a Meanwell or other robust 5v supply, or maybe a repurposed ATX supply to support 12v and 3.3v gadgets as well. The idea includes front-panel switches, fuse holders, and status LEDs with all the ugly wiring stuff out of view on the back. I figure this could fit in 1U, or more if the PS is not placed in the way-back. Many of the things I want to run like Orange Pi Zero 3s and RPis of various flavors that I have on hand. They need up to 3.0A - more in the case of an RPi 5 I don’t have (yet!). However, all of the USB-A v3.1 PCB-mount or panel-mount jacks I can find are at most 1.8A, even though I know such things exist in theory.

All I can find are USB-C jacks with the rating I want. This means a bunch more USB-C to USB-xxx short patch cords (or barrel plug-to-USB-xxx) in my future that I’ll have to buy or make. Unless someone could suggest a source for such a jack, or an alternative idea with similar functionality?

Today, I learned that IKEA has split their small LACK table line into two sizes:

Regular LACK and the newer, smaller “mini-LACK”

I was very excited about the possibilities here. Could the mini LACK be a solution to creating and 10 inch wide mini-rack?

Here’s a photo showing the width

I hate to judge before all the facts are in, but I feel like the “MiLMoLR” project - short for “Mini Lack Mini Lab Rack” - and pronounced “MalMoLaR” project may have a difficult start.

It’s 9 5/8” between the mini-LACK posts.

I’ll try making this work with smaller thickness of wood on the sides, but I only have about 1/2” to gain on each side without a complete redesign.

I'm a sales engineer so I maintain a few different environments. The Meraki gets super hot and needed a rack. I'm so glad I found this subreddit because this has been incredibly fun- this is only phase one.

Annoying the Meraki is 11 inches; so if anyone has a better idea how to mount it, I'm all ears.

I was forced to scrap the idea of powering those Radxa X4's with PoE, so this is my solution. I have a 56v 200w power supply feeding a 12v and a 5v buck converter, with some 30-amp terminal splitters to break out the power leads. I used freecad to model a couple of plastic trays that bolt to the bottom of the rack. The models are crude and together use up about 600g of petg, but the result is very solid. This was my first time modeling. I know I could improve, but this should suffice for a one-off.

The bottom tray holds a cheap tripp-lite UPS. I've soldered a couple of leads to the panel LEDs and intend to hook that up to a WESP32 unit. I figure I can use the blinking LED status to send an alert to a NUT server as to when to safe mode the volatile nodes.

As for power control, the X4 nodes use WOL, and the raspberry pi still runs on POE so can be shut down that way.

Heat is very good, even with the UPS encased in all that plastic. The unit only draws about 80w under load, but I will be putting in some case fans.

So I finally finished my attempt at a custom aluminum 2020 rack and I wanted to show off ;) I'm glad my gear doesn't look like an electronics dumpster anymore ;) Spent a lot of time on cables and yet somehow they still look like sort of a mess.

This is the current state of my lab. Just an optiplex 3000 and a not-so-old macbook pro. The Alarmo is just because it looks really good between all the mess xD

I'm planning to add 3 SBC that I have laying around.

The rack is in progress, I'm recycling some parts from an old 3d printer.