I diagrammed out my home lab/home server setup, mostly to keep a complete overview of how everything connects. I didn’t want to get bogged down in aesthetics around colour scheme, or layout – as you can no doubt tell. After a while diagramming it started to feel like a meme where I was trying to convey some crazy conspiracy theory on a wall of pinned paperwork and connecting threads. I think I am done documenting everything. But now I am wondering how obsessive I should be about detailing every little thing and VLANs and IP assignments. I don’t really care if it looks like a dog’s dinner, I really just care about “okay, where does this wire go to?” Is that the right approach?
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That’s mostly semantics, for me at least.
I have only one NAS, and one Proxmox host that is up 24/7, so they are in production.
I regularly tinker with those two as well, it’s all part of my lab.
This is how it works for me. I am using the homelab to learn new things. Part of that learning process is getting things into production and maintaining them. Because managing a production environment is one of the things I want to learn.
We need some pictures
It stops being homelab when the focus goes from labbing to production, when it becomes a homeprod enviroment instead.
My take too.
A lab is a testing space, a playground, something that can be brought up and down and broken and fixed at will. It will be destroyed and rebuilt frequently.
As soon as it stops being possible to do that without someone (even if just yourself) getting annoyed that a service or functionality isn’t working, then you’ve graduated to homeproduction/homeserver/homedatacentre (depending on its size!).
It’s not truly prod unless you’re messing with it, though.
90% of the posts here are homeprod.
Nothing more permanent than a temporary fix as well?
homelab and homeservices should be 2 different things and separated as much as possible but can share some like a network. Not sure why you to trace where connected where, use UniFi network diagram and some IPAM solution to track VLANS an IP addresses.
I feel like this is much more than many people on here are ready to undertake.
Also, homelab is a kinda vague designation, so it stops being one when you say so. I know people who call homelabs their NAS running a couple of containers, so go crazy.
A nas with containers IS a homelab, bros just on a smaller scale, love not hate :)
A bit off topic but I want to see some IRL pictures of all that stuff lol
Came here to comment this. OP can we get a house tour please?
A homelab is whatever you use to tinker and try things out A homeserver is whatever you use for stable workloads
Both can coexist at the time
Next level is a home datacenter, and that’s where you have a 24 U rack or something that shouldn’t fit in an apartment You have a homedatacenter!
I’m if you can post more about the hardware software and network config really curious about your setup, it looks well thought
The growth has been purely organic. I cannot say any of it is really planned ahead of time. I use 16U vertical rails for each rack, and then build a cabinet around them that works for the space it is in, e.g. 32U in the cat bathroom rack, which is 16U side-by-side with another 16U. The arcade cabinet rack is 16U technically, but I only have 6U of rails in there, as the other space is pull out drawers to make it easier to work on the workstations without having to deal with cabling issues. 16U at the RV.
For permanent infra, I tend to buy new, because I want that extended warranty and am not interested in buying somebody elses problem. For projects, it is a mix of ebay finds and road-side or ewaste center salvage. I don’t watch TV, but I probably own more 55" 4K TVs than any one person I know, because I salvage them (people in big cities throw out all sorts of stuff with minor electrical faults) and then turn them into personal projects, e.g. a touchscreen cat toy, a waterfall ring toss game in the door of an art gallery, a virtual window.
Some days it feels like everything is held together with string and chewing gum.
I was wondering on the sheer amount of monitors you had in your diagram…that helps explain it. Tip of the hat to you and your setup!
Ummmm my 375 TB array and 256 GB of GPU is a home lab thank you very much. I’ve only got 18U of 24 filled!
Side note: how should we brag about gpu power? What is the proper metric/terminology?
I think kWh is the correct unit :)
Those are rookie numbers, I’m measuring GPUs by the amount of nuclear reactors required to power my setup.
So far it’s at 12 and I’ve made Jensen’s christmas card list.
When it starts to carry any level of production workload from an outside network :)
homelab = everything is in prod
homeserver = you have a dev/prod environment
You are asking the wrong question… when does server become lab (multiple servers).
One man’s way too much shit is another man’s enjoyable hobby.
This isn’t a hobby, it’s a horde /s
Bro, you are running a small/medium size office at this point. Not a home lab. This MF has a rack in 2 different data centers. What are you using those racks for? Off side backups? Redundancy?
Most people have a homeprod… Some of us also have a homeLab! (Modified from an old IT saying)
Can you do rm -rf / on everything in your “lab”? Yes: still a lab. No: not a lab.
This has evolved to a HomeCloud setup.
I don’t see a single other person mentioning it, so I’ll just say it: 52TB of flash storage alone is enough to make me jealous. 52TB of flash storage in an RV is just a few more layers on top.
Sad that the picture-wall project repository isn’t open on github - I hoped to see it in action. Seems very neat.