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Budget (including currency): $350 (4x towers, $1,400 total for towers) Country: USA Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Minecraft, Roblox, Low-End Steam Games Other details: Plan to use with Asus VZ249HE 1080p monitors, aiming for 16GB of RAM, SATA SSD boot drives Hello fellow enthusiasts! As a summer project for my daughters I'm planning out a home computer lab build. This will be replacing two old Lenovo laptops running Manjaro, I'd like to take the plunge to some excess business towers (Dell, Lenovo, or HP) that are running last-gen hardware at a good discount. I'm thinking Intel i7-4770 with around 16GB of RAM and room for a future graphics card upgrade (Maybe GT 730 or AMD equivalent), running pre-installed Windows 10 Home or Pro. Current laptops have i5-3320m with 8GB of RAM so this should be a nice performance upgrade. We will use these computers to play Minecraft and Roblox primarily, but I'd like to help them dabble in some other popular games on Steam which hasn't been super easy right now with the Manjaro Linux laptops. I'd like all 4 computers to be identical hardware to make supporting them easy. Just for level-setting, I found these refurbished Dell Optiplex machines at Best Buy. They look pretty much like what I'm after, but maybe I can find something cheaper that would give me the budget margin for adding a graphics card. Where can I find a sweet deal on 4x excess workstations? Dell - Refurbished OptiPlex Desktop - Intel Core i7 - 16GB Memory - 480GB SSD - Black/Silver Other Relevant Info: - The two old laptops have Samsung 850 Pro 1TB hard drives which I will be scavenging, these can be used either as steam drives or potentially boot drives in two of the machines - I already have two Asus VZ249HE 1080p monitors and am planning to buy two more (on top of budget above), they're nothing special but they're cheap and work fine for this use case - I have recently installed Gigabit fiber internet and a Ubiquiti Dream Machine SE with Cat-6 cable to the room where the computers will be located. Planning to use a small Ubiquiti managed switch to fan out wired connections to the computers - Would be nice if they had bluetooth for headphones, not critical though.

Hello, LTT Forum Community! I'm on the brink of embarking on an exciting project to set up a home server and would greatly appreciate your collective expertise to guide me through some decisions. Given the constraints of apartment living, where space is at a premium and modifications to the property are off-limits, I'm leaning towards a compact yet powerful setup. My vision includes a small form factor PC discreetly placed under my TV cabinet, complemented by a hard drive enclosure for NAS purposes. Here's what I aim to achieve with my server: Implement ad-blocking using Pi-hole or a similar service. Support at least four simultaneous video streams on Plex. Run a VPN server, specifically something along the lines of Vmess/Vless. Facilitate occasional light gaming on my TV, including Switch emulation and party games. Hosting my website(s). Explore additional services, such as smart home integrations. Potential Hardware Configuration: PC Option: Minisforum UM790 Pro 7940HS Mini PC. Storage Solution: Ugreen 5 Bay RAID Enclosure USB-C to SATA HDD SSD – UGREEN. Hard Drives: 3 or 4 Seagate Iron Wolf 8TB drives, contemplating RAID 5 or RAID 6 setup. I saw a video telling me to leave a bay or two empty for future expansions. Key Questions: RAID Configuration: Given the built-in RAID support of the Ugreen enclosure, should I opt for hardware RAID or would software RAID be more reliable? I'm concerned about the potential for data loss if the RAID controller fails, and I've read mixed opinions on the resilience of software RAID in such scenarios. PC Choice: Should I go with the Minisforum PC, or would building a custom ITX PC be a better route? Having previously built a mATX PC, I'm a bit hesitant about navigating the intricacies of a smaller ITX build. Alternatively, are there other solutions I should consider? Budget-wise, I'm aiming for a balance between cost-effectiveness and meeting my project's requirements. I'm open to investing in quality components that provide value without being excessively pricey. I'm eager to hear your thoughts, recommendations, and any personal experiences that could help steer this project toward success. Thank you for taking the time to read my post and for any advice you can provide!

My Network Cabinets My bedroom and lab

Hi, I am getting a second hand dell precision tower 3620 pc with the following specs 8gb ddr4 ram intel core i7-6700 cpu@3.40ghz intel HD Graphics 530 windows 10-pro 256 gb ssd and 1tb hdd. I am getting this at 200 dollars in Singapore. I majorly want to set this PC up as a home server and install proxmox as a hypervisor and then run TrueNAS scale, Jellyfin, Pihole, Wireguard, Nextcloud, Photoprism and Frigate. I have 20 IP Hikvision Cameras around my house and I am currently using a TP Link Omada SDN solution to connect my ER 605 router along with all the POE switches, Gigabit Switches and access points. I am planning to purchase 4 Seagate Ironwolf HDDs, each of 6TB capacity. However, the dell product specifications page says that maximum capacity of 7200RPM drive supported is only 2TB. https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-sg/precision-t3620-workstation/prec_t3620_om_pub/specifications?guid=guid-0a90134e-599f-4abc-b76b-4bbf7c540321&lang=en-us Now, I am confused whether this system will support the hard drives or not. I also want to seek recommendations if this configuration can house all the services or not? I will mostly be running containers for all services except truenas. I plan to have a total RAM of 16 GB and total storage of 18 TB (4 drives of 6TB in raid Z1) Further, Frigate recommends to add a TPU for better image recognition. I wanted to know if I can add a cheap GPU (GTX 1060) instead of a TPU to achieve the same performance? I am asking this since the GPU can be helpful in media transcoding as well for Jellyfin. My workload is not heavy and it will be a normal home use case server. Also, can I rackmount this precision 3620 box? I already have some network racks in my home. Height is 14.17 inches, width is 6.88 inches and depth is 17.12 inches). If so, what are some recommended ways to rackmount a normal mini tower form factor of a case? Thankyou.

Hey Everone, I am currently working on a 2001 Kawasaki 1100 stx di JET SKI and I need to run some Diagnostic software that can communicate with the engine management module. Unfortunately, this software runs over a serial connection and does not run on Windows XP or newer. So my idea is to run Windows 98 or 95 in a Virtual Machine on a normal Windows 10 laptop and use a USB to serial adapter and pass it through to the virtual machine. Most of my questions are revolving around whether or not this is actually going to work as all of this that I have planned is totally theoretical and I cannot find any account of anyone actually doing this with a VM before. Here are my questions When purchasing a Serial to USB adapter; Should I go with Prolific Chipset or FTDI Chipset? I have heard mixed things about which chipset works better/ has better compatibility. on top of that, most of the things I have seen floating around on the internet are really old and likely out-of-date information by now. Anyone with any experience with these adapters would be helpful. would it be better just to source a really old laptop with a serial port on it? This seems like it might be a really solid option but then I realized that finding a laptop that old, that works, and that is for sale might be challenging. My main concern with all of this is that I might get everything done right on the software side and the Engine Management Module might just be dead, if that's the case I am not sure how I would know for sure that everything is configured right, I don't exactly have a known working serial device at my disposal. Any and all input is welcome. Edits: Formatting

Hello, for now i have Gigabit internet in my home, I plan on buying Pi Zero W. As i understeand i need to buy micro USB-B to Lan adapter and connect Pi to my router like normal PC. Does trafic go to PiHole and back to router? Or does Pihole just gets seperate info on what sites i want to access and assigns 0.0.0.0 IP to them? I plan on buying 2.5Gbit (and faster) switches so i don't want to be bottlenecked by Pi. And if I want, I can get 2Gbit internet from my ISP. On the other note, where can i learn about networking? I'm wondering about Cisco certifications but there should be great free learning materials for networking.

Hello there, So I'm building a kind of Home Lab / NAS for my family and I, which will be responsible for storing our files (Photos and Documents), but also needs to host a good bunch of services at the same time (Jellyfin, Caddy, Sonarr, some websites, etc.) I was, for testing purposes, running Proxmox with one VM for Truenas and passing the hard drive as a virtual disk from proxmox, and some other VM's and Containers for the other services. Is this a good approach or should I put Truenas barebone and run VM's inside Truenas for the rest? The final setup will be composed of 2 WD Red 4TB drives + 1 Generic 500 GB SSD (I don't know which one or what brand it is).

Hi everyone! I'm starting to design my very first home lab and would love some feedback on the components I'm considering: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/xrsvTn I'm thinking of using Proxmox as my OS (installed and mirrored on the two 2.5" SSDs). Initially I'm thinking of setting up a TrueNAS VM to act as my family's NAS (using the 4 HHDs in RAID-z2 with the M.2 SSD as cache). I'd also like to setup a Plex server (that's why I have the GPU on my list of components [for transcoding]). This is what I want to do initially but I would eventually like to run other things as well (e.g., Nextcloud, Pi-hole, Home Assistant).

I am looking at wiring my new house for ethernet (walls are open). For regular ethernet jacks around the house this is my plan: Punch-down Keystone Wall Plate > Cat6E Cable > Patch Panel with Pass-through Couplers (not punch down style) > Patch Cat6 cable > Switch For WiFi Access Points this is my plan: AP > Cat6E Cable > Patch Panel with Pass-through Couplers (not punch down style) > Patch Cat6 cable > PoE Injector > Patch Cat6 cable > Switch I am not sure if this is too complicated or if it will work fine My main reason for this forum post is does anyone know if the PoE injectors will work with those FS.com couplers in the blank patch panel? They are circuit board instead of individually wired internally. I contacted their support but they told me no twice and yes once for PoE support from three different representatives. The other reason is does anyone know if my current setup will be able to handle 10GbE in the future (other than the switch)? I can run Cat6a instead of the Cat6E if thats better for the future. The parts are as follows: >RJ45 Modular Ends: Cable Matters 100 Pack Pass Through RJ45 Modular Plugs for Solid or Stranded UTP Cable >Punch-down Keystone Jacks: Cable Matters UL Listed 25-Pack Slim Profile 90 Degree Cat 6, Cat6 RJ45 Keystone Jack with Keystone Punch Down Stand in White >Cat6E Cable: CAT6E Riser (CMR), 1000ft, UTP 24AWG, Solid Bare Copper, 600MHz, UL Certified, Easy to Pull (Reelex II) Box, Bulk Ethernet Cable in White >Router: Ubiquiti Dream Machine Pro >Switch: Ubiquiti Switch Pro 24 >Patch Panel: Cable Matters Rackmount or Wall Mount 24 Port Keystone Patch Panel (Blank Patch Panel for Keystone Jacks/Keystone Panel) >Couplers for Blank Patch Panel: Cat6 Keystone RJ45 Coupler, Unshielded, Female to Female Insert Inline Coupler >Patch Cables: 12ft (3.7m) Cat6 Snagless Unshielded (UTP) PVC CM Ethernet Network Patch Cable >Access Points: Ubiquiti UniFi Access Point WiFi 6 Long-Range & Ubiquiti UniFi Access Point WiFi 6 Lite >Wall Plates: Two Ports Keystone Single Gang Wall Plate

Hello All! First time posting and am looking for advice on vlans. I have a decently sized lab and currently run everything from VL1, not the best. I am looking for a way to keep VL1 for management ( will change in the future) while adding 3 vlans: VL10 - IoT VL20 - Servers VL30 - Guest Wireless. I have my primary Lan through PFsense, using an external Microsoft AD/DNS/DHCP server for the 192.168.2.0 scope. I would like to define the three additional Vlans on pfsense, and either use pfsense for DHCP/DNS, or add a new scope to my existing AD server. I also have the option to create a DHCP pool on my Aruba wireless controller for guest wireless. I am looking for the best option on getting this configured. Now for the part I can't get through, vlan tagging and trunking. I would like to keep my existing 10Gb uplink from my switch to my pfSense box for the VL1 traffic, and add an addition 10Gb connection to handle VL10, VL20, and Vl30. I have the vlans defined in pfSense and set to use my secondary 10Gb nic on the router. When I connected the secondary link to my Brocade ICX 6610, I was able to access my pfSense GUI on all my vlan address (10.10.10.254 ext.. ) but this broke everything on VL1. I started over and factory reset my switch to clear off all of my trial and error. Attached is a high level network diagram and my current vlan configuration from the switch. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Hi all, I am currently looking at getting a new server for home use, i have listed below what i am going to use this for: - Plex media server - Hyper-v lab environment 4+ Server 2012r2 VM's - File storage I have been looking at two separate servers, i have listed them below: http://www.ebuyer.com/714837-dell-poweredge-t20-3708-xeon-e3-1225v3-3-2-ghz-4gb-ram-1tb-hdd-tower-t20-3708 http://www.ebuyer.com/721267-fujitsu-tower-server-primergy-tx1310-m1-2tb-ebuyer-com-vfy-t1311sx190gb I am just after some help choosing which one i should get, i am planning on upgrading the RAM to 32gb immediately and getting 2x WD red 3tb drives. If anyone has any experience with ether of these servers could you let me know, so i can try and make a decisions on which one would preform the best with what i am trying to run. Cheers

Hey everyone, I've been looking for some suggestions, past experience, and insight on a server build that I've been wanting to do. I am on a budget, but I still want to get great performance. I'm looking for the best price to performance. Here are my goals for what I will host on my home server setup: Web Server for my portfolio (low traffic) Plex Media Server Plex Player Music Streaming Server Torrent Client Torrent Manager (i.e. Sonarr/Radarr/Lidarr) Lots of storage capacity for tv shows/movies/anime Steam w/ Big Picture (for tv/couch gaming) Anything else like game servers, cs projects, file hosting, image hosting, personal pastebin, etc. Here is the solution that I've come up with: Networking Ubiquiti Security Gateway Pro Ubiquiti Unifi Switch 24 Port w/ POE Ubiquiti Unifi AC Lite or LR 400Mbps internet Static IP Server Hardware Storage Server (Possibly a storinator, but those are pretty expensive so I may just find some cheap used server with 3.5" bays) FreeNas OS ~10Tb of storage with room to expand as needed ~1Tb of fast ssd storage Main Server ESXi VMs with all my services running (plex, torrents, webserver, etc) Fast SSD storage for VM file systems Uses storage server as NAS Media/Gaming Server Windows 10 Some old GPU (i.e. Nvidia GTX 780Ti) Fast SSD storage for OS and games Connected to TV, not in server rack UPS in case of power outage Some server rack, 15U? I was hoping to build the servers if possible, but I know that would likely be much more expensive so I may end up just upgrading a used server. If anyone has any past experiences or suggestions with setting this up please let me know. This will likely end up costing me a lot of money so I want to do everything right so that I have plenty of performance and room to expand in the future if my needs increase.

I would like to be pointed in the right direction to figure out which Hyperviser solution would be best for my use (even if its paid). I don't know much about virtualization but want to get into it right, so I want to invest my time to learning something that is more on the professional side, rather than products like FreeNAS. I would like to set up my hard drives and SSDs in a manner that is done in pro environments. My aim is to get into using VMs and redundant storage on a separate computer other than my daily. I believe the best way for me to go about this is to maybe reuse my Dell poweredge server or probably just build my own server, with a hypervisor on the bare metal with VMs and Docker containers to do my tasks in a reliable machine that will also provide long term storage for photos, videos, work related files, chat logs, images backups and also bulk storage for video projects and video game libraries. [keep in mind I do plan to just buy the things i need, I'm not necessarily bound to using what I have so I'm not listing anything] My main goal, have one machine do it all. -To act as relabel and expandable "NAS" for my longer term storage for projects and backups (I do have proper backups, this is for convenience) -To have expandable faster general storage for video game libraries and open projects (maybe SSD cached?) -To have VMs that can be created and changed for w.e my next crazy idea is (instead of using a bunch of old desktops) Long term goal is to have this machine do all above and -To act and my network DHPC with a pfSense firewall running on a VM with dedicated pass through network card, which will go to a dumb switch and wifi access point. My current idea is; - To use Proxmox (as it supports containers) which will be installed on a USB drive. (IDK if this is the best HV for my use and want feedback) maybe ESXi 6.5? - Create groups of 4 or so drives on separate HBAs or to motherboard SATA to create groups of drives for my volumes (encase I want to physically move a volume and rebuild it else where) - Create a ZFS? volumes for use for my VMs, containers, Vswitches and experiments to run on, that will be redundant and fast - Create a volume (with ssd cache?) for bulk data like video games and open projects that is also redundant and open* for access to my network - Create a "super safe" redundant pool for long term storage for photos, finished projects and image back ups. that is also open* to my network (anything I really want to keep will be put on removable media as well) *I only use one PC for daily use, so I could mount these volumes to my desktop over the network I'm not sure if Proxmox has the native ability to manage drives or if people use RAID cards on top of that? I would rather not use RAID cards because I want the drive monitoring and the ability to rebuild the volumes on another computer if need be. Would I need to run a VM to manage my storage if Proxmox doesn't support this need? or would it all be better to just put all my drives together and make vpartitions for these volumes? though I am fine with having a couple HBAs to section off these 4 drives for "safe storage" and another 2 mirrored drives and ssd for general storage and 2 more for the VMS. Is it standard practice to pool everything together? what would you suggest? ~ Why am I doing this? I enjoy this stuff, but I'm not great at it. I used to have a Dell poweredge server set up before doing similar things but with Windows 7 on the metal and most the drives on a RAID controller with partitions shareable on the network... this wasn't secure and ended up failing. Now I run a bunch of single drives in a huge PC tower and USB back up drives, it takes up a lot of space in the office when you factor in a old PC running pfSense and another running a mail severer with some game worlds for family and myself to use. There has got to be a better way. Soon I will be doing away with my rig for something newer which will be in a much smaller case, so I need this data to be somewhere. Like many on this forum, I have been following LTT for a long time and seen their various means of storage, but it usually lacks details about what services they run on and why. Though I'm assuming most, if not all is Win server 2012. (I'm thinking of Petabyte project and such) this is where I get my inspiration. So in my quest to tinker and learn more about computers and servers my needs for safe storage and work machines has grown. Like the natural progression of the computer industry, running many physical machines for light tasks and reinstalling windows and such has become a ineffective mess.

Hi guys, I've been working as a network engineer for the past 7 months and have finally been able to afford starting my home lab/media storage solution. So far I've got some Cisco equipment for my networking course at college and a few HP servers to play around with, one of which is currently pulling double duty as my media server with plex installed on Windows Server 2016. I've been planning to upgrade to 10G/bit and was wondering what the current best deal is for 10G NICs and a 4 or 8 port switch? I've tried a few Mellanox SFP+ cards with little success as well as the issue of working with SFP connections over standard ethernet. I'd really like to stick with ethernet so I can finish running network cable around my house. The only other solution I can find is the ASUS XG-C100C on Amazon for ~£90 and a small 10G switch for around £200. I'm also aware of drive limitations in terms of speed and have accounted for this already. All the SSDs! Any suggestions would be awesome, cheers, Jimmy.

I have found a Cisco Nexus 5020 for sale. I was wondering if I can do later 2 networking to provide 10GB networking to various servers in my lab. switch# show ver Software BIOS: version 1.5.0 loader: version N/A kickstart: version 5.2(1)N1(7) system: version 5.2(1)N1(7) power-seq: Module 1: version v1.2 BIOS compile time: 11/30/10 kickstart image file is: bootflash:///n5000-uk9-kickstart.5.2.1.N1.7.bin kickstart compile time: 2/4/2014 23:00:00 [02/05/2014 08:58:28] system image file is: bootflash:///n5000-uk9.5.2.1.N1.7.bin system compile time: 2/4/2014 23:00:00 [02/05/2014 11:27:58] Hardware cisco Nexus5020 Chassis ("40x10GE/Supervisor") Intel(R) Celeron(R) M CPU with 2065492 kB of memory. Processor Board ID JAF1418BFAH Device name: switch bootflash: 1003520 kB Kernel uptime is 0 day(s), 0 hour(s), 4 minute(s), 56 second(s) Last reset Reason: Unknown System version: 5.2(1)N1(7) Service: plugin Core Plugin, Ethernet Plugin switch# show lice license_SSI141107GA_2.lic: SERVER this_host ANY VENDOR cisco INCREMENT FC_FEATURES_PKG cisco 1.0 permanent uncounted \ VENDOR_STRING=MDS HOSTID=VDH=SSI141107GA \ NOTICE=<LicFileID>20100518202710000</LicFileID><LicLineID>1</LicLineID>< PAK>N5K-C5020P-LAB-SSSI141107GA</PAK> \ SIGN=EC5948E20FA6 INCREMENT ENTERPRISE_PKG cisco 1.0 permanent uncounted \ VENDOR_STRING=MDS HOSTID=VDH=SSI141107GA \ NOTICE=<LicFileID>20100518202710000</LicFileID><LicLineID>1</LicLineID>< PAK>N5K-C5020P-LAB-SSSI141107GA</PAK> \ SIGN=A49D8496351E switch# show lice ? switch# show lice brief license_SSI141107GA_2.lic switch# show lice f feature file switch# show lice feature package mapping ------------------------ Feature-Name: ------------------------ Linecard-Type : Package All or Any : Linecard-Type : Package All or Any : Linecard-Type : Package All or Any : Linecard-Type : Package All or Any : Linecard-Type : Package All or Any : switch# show lice default Feature Default License Count ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FCOE_NPV_PKG - FM_SERVER_PKG - ENTERPRISE_PKG - FC_FEATURES_PKG - VMFEX_FEATURE_PKG - ENHANCED_LAYER2_PKG - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- switch# show lice usage Feature Ins Lic Status Expiry Date Comments Count -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FCOE_NPV_PKG No - Unused - FM_SERVER_PKG No - Unused - ENTERPRISE_PKG Yes - Unused Never - FC_FEATURES_PKG Yes - Unused Never - VMFEX_FEATURE_PKG No - Unused - ENHANCED_LAYER2_PKG No - Unused - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- switch#

Hey Everyone! One thing that I have been learning a lot about lately is virtualization. It is a great way to try new things and be able to refresh operating systems with basically a couple clicks of your mouse. At home, I have built a virtualization server where I have created a lab environment in which I am able to learn operating systems, applications, etc.. This is definitely a cool thing and would like to know more about what the linustech community use for their virtual environments. How is your home virtualization lab setup? And what kinds of VM's do you have running? Also, what kind of hypervisor do you run? (Hyper-V, ESXI, XenServer) Look forward on hearing your setups everyone! Thanks