My Home lab

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brendantay

Member
Aug 12, 2015
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Australia
Hello all,

So im not sure if anyone has seen my current home lab (small rack shoved in the corner of my room actually powered off due to cooling issues)



Router: Sophos UTM9 Running on an atom board 2GB Ram 5 Nics.

Server 1 (First 2U sever - HyperV Testing only): Rackable Systems Dual Xeon, 16GB ram 4x 500GB Sata Drives , Sever 2012 R2.

Server 2 (Second 2U Server - HyperV Core): Supermicro Server Dual Xeon, 128GB ram 8 x 600GB 15K SAS Drives, Server 2012 R2.

San: (3RU Server): Supermicro Server Single Xeon, 12GB Ram has a few 2TB HDD's atm (waiting on new discs to arrive) Also running Server 2012 R2.

Network: Dell 5424 Gigabit Switch

San and HyperV server connected via Brocade 1020's.

The two External HDD's you see under the Router are connected to Raspberry PI running Deluged (torrent client). for uhm.. downloading Linux isos, Clearly

Since this photo, I have purchased a few replacement bits, from some people here :) and have plans to replace/add more stuff also.


Anyway onto the important bit.....
currently in the process of building my first house :D (very slow progress... i still dont even have a land title.. thanks developers!)

I moved some stuff around and extended the house a bit to fit in a better ensuite.. and office :D also, I want somewhere to shove all the noisy bits so i dont hear them :p (first kid on the way also so loud noises will be everywhere, id prefer none in my office)

As you can see at the back of the house, A store room.. Aka Server Room.
Also, Bed 2 Will be my office, I have 2 runs of conduit going on the wall that backs onto the bathroom for cable runs, Fibre/So on.



And, over to the "Store room" design.

Im going for a hot/cold side setup to reduce cooling costs;
Will only house a single 42U rack and be my cable/excess shit storage in the cold side, I still need to work out the finer details, like how to seal the room properly and keep moisture out, but i guess no point worrying about that until its there and able to be looked at.

Cold side Sketchup Mockup


And the hot side;


As you can see its a very simple design so far, hot side is a little tight @ 645MM Deep but it gives me 1 meter at the front to rack (which is also a little tight) - Considering moving the rack to be infront of the door so I have more room, Will also likely change the door to the room to not open inwards.
 
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brendantay

Member
Aug 12, 2015
128
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Australia
Well..

I'm happy to say I long since moved it and actually have nearly completed this Project!

Latest build pic; been a few weeks since i've done anymore work as i've been unwell but this weekend ill be back at it!



*Pic works in preview, but doesn't appear in post correctly...

It's here --> https://thenerdgarage.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/20171107_190515_wm.jpg


Still to do:

- Finish the obvious bits.
- Seal floor
- Properly (airtight) Seal the Door.
- Install air conditioning and run relevant venting/Filtration/Extraction.
- Probably a lot more that i'm forgetting.
- Rack everything...
 
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brendantay

Member
Aug 12, 2015
128
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Australia
How do you plan to get to the rear of the rack if the whole section is walled off?
By opening the door ;)

Has no handles installed yet (Not even purchased any yet) but you can see the colour difference towards the back, the gloss part is a door. 620x2040mm :)

You can see it from the back a little better -> Here

However apparently I don't have a pic on hand of it directly!
 

T_Minus

Build. Break. Fix. Repeat
Feb 15, 2015
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Cool setup!

I wish I could convince myself 1 rack was enough :) LOL!! Would really simplify things ha ha.
 

brendantay

Member
Aug 12, 2015
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Australia
Cool setup!

I wish I could convince myself 1 rack was enough :) LOL!! Would really simplify things ha ha.
How could you possibly need more than one?!

I've got myself 3 x APC 3kva ups's and 1 x battery bank and still dont think my Space is gonna be near full! :p
 

Rand__

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Mar 6, 2014
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How could you possibly need more than one?!

I've got myself 3 x APC 3kva ups's and 1 x battery bank and still dont think my Space is gonna be near full! :p
Be glad you have not been bitten by the bug...
3+ nodes productive, maybe some additional storage, a few boxes for playing around/testing, some older generation stuff; depending on the deals you get this eats up rack space pretty quickly;)
 
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brendantay

Member
Aug 12, 2015
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Australia
Be glad you have not been bitten by the bug...
3+ nodes productive, maybe some additional storage, a few boxes for playing around/testing, some older generation stuff; depending on the deals you get this eats up rack space pretty quickly;)
I'm currently looking for the right range of hardware to build a 3 node vsan cluster, but aiming for 1u only haha

However, best thing I've learnt is old hardware goes straight in the bin cos I can't be bothered dealing with it, or people trying to buy it for cheap and never actually coming.
 

Rand__

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Mar 6, 2014
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Yeah old stuff is a story in itself, tossed a rack full sometime last year. Unfortunately deals pop up all the time to fill those empty spaces:p

Was on a 3 node vsan trip too - working on eval'ing 6 nodes... Went 2U minimum though for board not riser based pcie card limit...
 

K D

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Dec 24, 2016
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Went from a couple of towers and a 12U to 2 half racks. Now filling up a 3rd half rack with Current Gen boxes. 4 node Scalable Xeon vsan cluster, 2 storage nodes, 40gbe... Was using 3 and 4U boxes but now all 2U.

If only I can get a couple of weeks without travel, I can take inventory and start clearing out the old stuff. Hopefully in February.
 

T_Minus

Build. Break. Fix. Repeat
Feb 15, 2015
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It's easy to fill rack with SuperMicro 846 / 4U chassis.
A lot of us got those when they were VERY cheap... and they're nice since they can handle 24x 3.5" (or 2.5") and internal 2.5" with possible rear 2.5", as well as fitting desktop style HSF or the common SM 4u" HSF combo... as well as the SuperMicro Sc216 2U chassis...

Testing / random systems or empty chassis def. have 42U of that, then the 'need to be online' home stuff and work stuff :)

I really should probably sell some extra chassis since the newest stuff is more small / getting away from 3.5" for the most part... then again if I do that they probably will bring back 3.5" in larger capacity SSD / become more common... LOL
 

T_Minus

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Feb 15, 2015
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True...
If I remeber correctly seagates (or samsungs?) 60tb sas ssd was in 3.5" ._.
Yeah I've seen some in 10tb & > but they seem to be OEM / bulk orders for large enterprises who need huge flash arrays... hope this eventually become normal as we get into higher capacity SSD for all. At-least I see this occuring at some point somewhat soon... please.. :) LOL!~!
 

brendantay

Member
Aug 12, 2015
128
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Australia
Now filling up a 3rd half rack with Current Gen boxes. 4 node Scalable Xeon vsan cluster, 2 storage nodes, 40gbe...
Okay, now I'm jealous :(


It's easy to fill rack with SuperMicro 846 / 4U chassis.
A lot of us got those when they were VERY cheap...
It's not very easy in Australia do fill a Rack, unless you want to buy DL380 G4's haha.

Or have a solid budget, which I don't :(
 
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