My Home Lab Is NOT What You Think It Is
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 พ.ค. 2024
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#homelab #homeserver #tech
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Things I Used (Affiliate Links):
► CAT6 Patch Panel - amzn.to/3PLV7JN
► Cable Brush Grommet (not exact model) - amzn.to/3F7NRTK
► Geekom Mini IT12 (not exact model) - amzn.to/3Q54vd0
► Tiny Pilot KVM - amzn.to/3QgXAh3
► The BEST LABELER - amzn.to/46CPpRs
► Monoprice CAT6 Patch Cables - amzn.to/46m8abS
Check out Tiny Pilot!
► tinypilotkvm.com/
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"Hardware Haven Theme" -Me ( • Hardware Haven Theme M... )
"CRENSHAW VIBES" - GARRISON ( / garrison-brown )
"The Butterfly Nose" - GARRISON
"If You Want To" - Me
"Sunshower" - LATASHÁ( / best-music-pro.. )
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Gear I Use: (affiliate links)
Recording Gear
► Camera - LUMIX G7 amzn.to/3LmfGdk
► SD Cards - SanDisk Extreme PRO amzn.to/3BPXrd1
► Capture Card - EVGA XR1 amzn.to/3Bn8qt7
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► My Remote Editing PC - amzn.to/3J1hN5g
► DriveStor 4 NAS - amzn.to/40R5LDz
► 2.5 GbE Switch - amzn.to/43unwub
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Timestamps:
0:00 My Home Lab Stinks
0:33 Squarespace (Sponsor)
1:13 Why am I upgrading my home lab and how
1:51 The gear
6:36 Labeling
8:29 Cleaning up the TP-Link switch
9:03 Upgrading the Geekom Mini PC
9:43 Switch setup
10:06 Mini PC Proxmox install
10:17 Day 2
11:13 Preparing the rack and patch panel
12:35 Punching in the patch panel
14:25 Installing the rack
15:20 Patch cables
16:02 IT WORKS!
17:07 Tiny Pilot KVM
17:25 Noctua fan swap
18:30 Why POE doesn't work
19:25 How it all performs
21:18 What could I do better? - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
*** FAQ/Corrections! ***
- I've had a lot of comments asking why I didn't use a UPS. I cut out a lot of footage including some where I re-ran cables for power and mentioned the UPS. At 14:15, you can see it mounted to the wall on the bottom left. It's not a great UPS and I plan to upgrade it later on.
- I definitely shouldn't have been trimming the punch ins while cables were connected to my router. I trimmed the first while it was unplugged but forgot the second one was still plugged in.
- I probably should've unplugged the switch when talking about the power supply issue, but I'm usually really warry of touching anything power related even when something is unplugged. I wasn't ever close to actually touching anything on that board, but it still wasn't a good way to present that.
- A keystone jack would've been easier, but I liked having a more "permanent solution" and buying all the keystones would've been more expensive (at least when I priced stuff out a while back).
I appreciate criticism and try not to shy away from it (at least when it's presented with good intentions), so thanks to all the great comments that have pointed out details I might've missed.
you might be able to find that PoE board that's only giving 1V on eBay.... it's probably easier to just replace it than to hunt down the exact piece that's fried... PLUS you aren't really solving the problem by replacing the broken piece... what caused it to fry? ... BUT since I'm TOTALLY NEW HERE and this is my first video I've watched from you I have NO IDEA your skill set and finding and replacing components could be your specialty lol ...
- - I only brought this up because something similar happened to me with an audio amplifier and I spent so long chasing down the problem, I'd replace the fried cap only for it to fry again 2 days later, and then replacing mosfets and the same thing happening.... after nearly 2 weeks of this I just looked up the board number on eBay and found it for $15 and it's been going good for over a year LOL
- and I know just how helpful PoE is so not having it a huge headache... so luckily you got the other box to get the PoE up and running.... :)
- -- OH BTW why did you cut the ends off the RJ45's and patch it that way when you could have just got a dual female patch panel and not had to cut anything? OR am I forgetting that this wouldn't work?? I know you have to flip 2 wires if you go from one computer to another without a router (the name of the cable is on the tip of my tongue... BAH!) so does this come into play here and that's why you chose to do it the way you did? Or was it just that you had that patch 'bay' on hand and didn't wanna buy a new one? lol
:)
@Nobe_Oddy I think you’re looking for crossover cable. There are female to female crossover adapters that keystone and all that, but those wouldn’t be required here. This is a straight through connection every time. You’d only really use crossover to go NIC to NIC, one pc to another pc. The switches manage the data pins for you, so you’d really want to just extend the existing cable. Newer NICs can also handle the data in any standard CAT configuration, so crossover may not even be necessary any more in most cases.
I agree with the rest of your statements though, and only trying to share some knowledge 😅
"My home lab is not what you think it is." - Walter White
this needs more likes
He has contributed to a habit that is ruining me financially, physically and emotionally, while straining my relationships and keeping me from my responsibilities. Homelab tinkering can really wreck your life. Check on your kids, talk to them about the dangers.
H.H. who do you figure that is.. Howard Hughes, Herbert Hover..
14:50 Nothing more permanent than a temporary solution!
I hate that you’re 100% correct haha
That patch panel is why I got a keystone patch panel instead of a punch down. But I really need to get a 1U brush panel as well.
I considered it, but I’m pretty sure it ended up being cheaper and I don’t mind it being more “permanent”.
I was a direct punchdown guy for years... a friend of mine said that I HAVE to try keystones. Oh... yeah... about that.... friggin awesome solution... never going back
He doesn't know how to use a multimeter or ohms law. Just saying as he's likeable. You know it's a job when you're not passionate enough to learn basic things which govern all digital and analog signals
I figured someone was already going to mention keystones, and I'm not disappointed. But still here to give my +1. Yes, you might not plan to change anything with the cables you have run already, but punch down is also a pain if you ever decide to add anything. With a growing homeland, that's what finally got me to change out my punch down patch panel for a keystone
Keystones in a blank patch panel is the only way to go
I'd argue that if your home lab works and you are learning you have a decent setup regardless of how janky it might look. That said these were some nice upgrades and it's always cool to see what people are doing with their setups.
100%!
For me, this was needed because it has limited me in testing things out and exploring, either literally or just by making me less motivated. lol
@@HardwareHavenI totally get it and there are also the swag points for having a nice looking setup. I've spent a lot of time re-cabling everything from home offices to datacenters and there is also value in a neat well labeled environment.
It's not what you have, but what you do with it. Personally I think it's more interesting to make a $100 homelab than a $10,000 one.
this! I see these massive homelabs and then people are like "what should I do with it?" The truth is often you don't need much.. I run everything in containers and its a very small footprint.
Love your improvements except for one thing. When you had that router apart, you could have gone further with the POE problem. Notice that the POE power supply is a modular one sitting all by its lonely. Just pull the connector where it goes onto the POE board and check the voltage again. If it is still about 1 volt or so, you have a bad power supply. Just take it out and search for any numbering on it to try and cross reference it. Mean Well makes ill sorts of open frame supplies like that. You could find out in a few minutes if your router is fixable. Good luck
I'll be setting up phase one of my homelab rack at our new house in the next month or so and love seeing how different people with different needs organize things. This one was especially awesome within the YT homelab community since it is relatively modest, focused, and cheap yet very capable. I look forward to your future work on this rack and your upcoming 10g video
When I modified my rack setup, about a year ago, I replaced all my Cat 6 and Cat 7 cables with the Monoprice SlimRun cables. They do look much better. While doing that, I removed the keystone patch panels, added a brush panel, like you have, and removed all the little 6-inch cables that went from the now-gone patch panel into my switch (1G/10G/25G). Eliminating unnecessary points of failure and dust collection is a good (great!) thing. If you wanted, you could drop your patch panel similarly and run your long cables over a tie-down bar, through your brush panel and into your switch(es). That 8-year old Synology looks good but, alas, it's DSM is out of upgrade support. Looking forward to seeing what you choose as an upgrade. Enjoy your videos. Give ESXi a go, when you get a chance.
Yeah that’s not a bad idea. I think for me it’s nice having more flexibility as it’s not uncommon to all of a sudden need 2.5Gb to a jack across the house, or to need to setup a temporary test network and such. I like not having things as hard-lined. It’s already proven very useful in just a week or so.
And one of the things I’m hoping to do once I get into more of a routine with full-time TH-cam is experiment more, so ESXi is on my list haha.
I think your setup is fine. You up cycled some parts and that's always a plus in my book.
I love label makers - my E110 was incredible as a starter labeller for my networking and telecomms stuff; recently upgraded to an E550W and it's dope. All my cables are either flagged or wrapped and it just feels incredibly organised. Plus, you can label patch panels in bulk iirc, though I haven't experimented much with it.
One thing I did for my home setup is to replace all the wall warts with an old (high quality) ATX power supply. I cut the wall wort barrel jack wires and connected them to the 5V or 12V rails as needed (most gear uses one of those.) Those wall warts are frequently what causes equipment to fail: they fall out of voltage spec or overheat and sometimes kill the equipment. A bonus is being able to have one plug instead of half a dozen and probably more efficient as well.
Also, you probably want a UPS. With one for the network gear and one for my PC (or laptop), I can keep working for power outages up to about an hour. A must have for working from home.
I had a power outage a little back and i had two hours of wifi working thanks to that, though it´s a pretty small unit and can only run my pc for a couple of minutes it was enough to have wifi on my laptop and phone for a decently long time
There’s a small UPS in that closet, but I’ll be upgrading it at some point
If you don't have an ATX psu lying around, you could use a generic DC power supply. Not the wall wart types, but a bigger 10A, 20A, or 30A one. These are often used to power LED strips or fans in a cabinet.
I like the fact that you are truthful and honest about your setup. Because most people don't have server racks with multiple switches and expensive gear. You're set up as much like mine. Patch together with stuff that I bought off eBay or second hand stuff. Thank you for the great video!
It's incredible to stumble upon a random home lab setup that mirrors mine so closely. Good hardware choices. Reliable and not that so expensive. Good job
Great video as always! AC Infinity makes an in-wall/door exhaust/intake fan for just your application. Some of the units have bluetooth on board and can turn on/off the fans at a specific temperature or humidity reading. I utilize an AC infinity 10 inch fan in my server closet to vent the hot air into my enclosed foam attic at about 80 degrees and it does the job nicely. Keep up the great work.
Loved it, quite down to earth solution, which is what I need :) Things that got my attention:
- I loved your "rack". Yeah I think I need that, some trays indeed. For now I have a 8port and 5port non rackeable Cisco switches. So *for now* I'd need something to put the things over.
- The patch panel: definitely want one of those, it's not much order you can do without it. And small patch cords!
- Proxmox: Hey I just recovered my Supermicro Atom MiniITX, could be a great use.
My APC UPS has a dead battery under the desk. I have two NAS (I know) and a couple of computers. This would help a lot to my peace of mind. Thanks for the ideas!
If you're going to rack a switch using only two screws, use the bottom one on each ear, the top of the ears will lever against the post to support the weight. Using the top one means on that side the weight of the switch is pulling the bottom of the ear away from the post as it sags.
Normally I would, and you can see that for the heavier stuff like the big switch and shelf that I used all 4. That 10Gb switch is surprisingly light though, so I didn't really put much though into it. That's not saying you aren't correct lol
Your new homeserver looks great. I recently started in the homelab/homeserver world with a Lenovo ThinkCentre Tiny, in addition to my previous gaming PC (i5 9600kf). I'm doing a lot of research and learning more about this, and I've watched several of your videos, which have taught me and motivated me a lot.
That’s awesome!
Neat! This homelab setup was relaxing! Thanks for sharing!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Here you are getting all fancier with your home lab setup and I'm preparing to get very carefully jank… I've encountered a few folks lately who have limited budgets and a stack of mismatched hard drive. Turns out a couple IKEA LACK tables could make a box that one could screw rack hardware into when/as it is acquired, and I've got it in my head that one might set up something that looks like a mining rig in it to hold a motherboard, power supply, and a stack of drives. I'm still wondering about the stack of drives part since I'd like it not to take all day to replace one, jank though it may be.
Your setup (at the end of the video) looks much nicer … but it also cost more. 😉 One of the draws for me to your channel is the found/reclaimed hardware doing fun/interesting things.
When I had all my networking and servers in a closet I swapped the solid door for a louvered one to increase airflow. It worked great.
Good to know!
(That’s the plan haha)
Love the focus on being cost effective, reusing old (but use case sufficient) hardware, and space savings. Nice work!
Excellent work, very good congratulations!!
Place your cursor on the green circle to see the temperature values.
Is it satisfying to get all the power/network cabling cleaned up. Job well done!
"I don't need a lot of storage in here"
*adds 1TB SSD*
well played
Lol, you say that, but in a video where I talk about having 4TB of storage, people freak out that it's not nearly enough.
true, I mean imo usually when you don't neex storage 512GB is usually pretty big overkill, expecially if you don't use windows as an OS but if you'll be running VMs and might need expandability 1TB is a solid middle ground
@@L4X1K3 Exactly 👍
Looks awesome, hoping to do something similar some day whenever I get around to running CAT cable in the house… with a 5 mo old it’s going to be awhile lol. Looking forward to the 10Gbps video!
Looks like the height of the posts on that a/v rack is exactly right to remove them from the angled base and to use some L brackets to mount the posts to the shelf above and the shelf below.
fwiw, when I was beginning my homelab, I watched a ton of the channel Fiber Ninja. He does some very real transformations of server rooms on medium sized businesses which contains a lot of good advice on cable routing and organization with an eye towards serviceability. "The Chamber of Cable Blunders" and "Small Office / Big Cabling Rehab!!" are the most interesting, imo. He's the reason why I tossed out all my punch-down patch panels for keystone jack panels with rj45 couplers.
I thought about mounting them in, but access to the back would be a pain unless I built in sliding rails or something.
And thanks for the recommendation! I’ll have to check it out
Good Video and good simple setup.
With the temps in Synology, go to the Storage manager and look at the drives directly, there are actual drive temps there.
I recently cleaned up my network closet with patch panels. Instead of using punch in keystones I used double-sided keystones so I was able to use my current cables. The one mistake I initially made was only getting 6" patch cables, I needed some 12" cables to reach some of the ports on my switch. The something I liked that I did was get different colors of patch cables and keystones, so depending on the type of connection (servers, network equipment, rooms[different color on each floor], etc) they have a different color.
Now the last thing to do is label my patch panel, but first I need to find my notes of what goes where. Then replace my UPS, it has started to go funky.
Yes those mega homelabs are awesome but I actually prefer videos at the stage of yours - they’re much more satisfying! Keep up the good work 👍🏼
"I don't necessarily trust all my labeling" lol keep up the good work. I look forward to your videos
Add a vent at the top and bottom of the door, that should allow acceptable airflow.
Looks good! I gotta rewire my own set up.... but I can't go thru the walls, I rent :( I like the desktop rack.... a lot :)
Yeah renting can be tricky. I’ve found that flat Ethernet cables are great for running under trim and such. I ran one all the way across my apartment a few years back.
@@HardwareHavenwhats the write endurance of your ssd in yur editing machine?
It was fun to see your assistant Ruth! I've got two Bostons at home, Alice and Annie.
Oh man...I figured you had a pymping home setup
I have boxes and frankenputers all over the place, wiring dangling from ceiling and a closet with my 24 port switch and loose POE switch just like your setup
Mine sits on a large metal shelf in my back bedroom
Keep em coming!!!!
Hahaha nah. It’s mostly fairly jank
@@HardwareHaven Jank is my middle name ;)
Hardware Haven really upgraded my TH-cam viewing!
So nice to clean things up - congrats!
Thanks! Felt good haha
Hardware haven if you get any items with those sticky labels that won’t come off. I got a tip from the it manager when I qualified as a it technician was to use lighter fluid to let it soak in and then pealed it off in one go which worked
yay new video keep the good work going haven!
I'll try! haha
14:50 “There is not more permanent things than a temporal solution” - IT Gods
Looks great. And I like that you try to be resourceful by reusing older parts. We don’t all have an unlimited lab budget. 😂
Now you should get one software to monitor all you devices.
You can host it in one VM or Container (don't know the options). With that you can monitor if the device is alive or not, with, ICMP, get the temps and other useful information through SNMP. And define alerts when reach certain thresholds.
I known Centreon, i work with it.
LOL ‘Risk wife coming home to no internet’ I can relate.
The fact that you tagged both Jeff on this video, makes me subscribe
It almost seems like the legs can be reinstalled upside down for no tilt. love the tiny server. in mine I use one 2tb nvme for boot/vm storage and one 2tb sata ssd for extra storage. I had to take the ssd out of the 2.5" case to make some clearance. but it looks cooler that way anyway. i find sata really makes a bottle neck running multiple vms
That’s what I was hoping at first, and it possibly could but would involve some drilling and such.
The plan for my server is similar, with the NVMe being for VMs and the SATA drive for snapshots and potentially non-boot virtual drives
Nice. Low end, but on a budget pretty good. It is definitively an improvement.
You could have saved yourself a lot of work, and actually improve things, by not using punch out patch panel. Instead use pass through patch panel, with RJ45 sockets on each side. Not only it is easier, more flexible later, it also degrades signal less.
Nicely done. Only thing I would have personally changed would have been to use passthroughs on the patch panel so you could have just done and re-plug and rack the equipment and done.
I monitor temps (and other stats: CPU, RAM, etc) of all my machines with Glances. Then I pipe that data to InfluxDB and display in Grafana (via home assistant dash).
Really nice way to follow heat trends and see if or how long throttling can occur
9:45 Those are Sunoons, try to get the Sunoon maglevs they are as good as the Noctuas and the fans u take out can be sold off, its a well-known brand
Looks good 😀
Not sure if my job just does things differently, or if its better or worse, but I LOVE using keystone patch panels rather than punch down. Awesome video either way tho!
Definitely would like to see a video trouble shooting and or replacing the power supply for the TP Link poe. I wonder how much a replacement would cost on Ebay?
My issue was just finding the part lol. I’ll probably tackle it later on, maybe in a patreon video or something since it might be a bit short and/or awkward haha
It could be cheaper to get replacement PSU from taobao.
Thanks for the excellent video. It was very timely. I've been wanting to do something similar.
I really love your setup, functional and still affordable. I cringe when I see people with homelabs with enterprise equipment costing serious bucks. That POE switch might only fire up the 48V when a POE device needs power to be delivered thus saving on idle consumption power draw.
After you changed the fans, I saw that your fan icon is amber. The Noctua fans are rpm based while the stock is with lock sensor. They are high/low state, what I can give as a Cisco homelab with Noctua fans is to use from Noctua ext. cable and cut or splice another cable and attach it to the ground somewhere or you can with something metal a little bridge between yellow and ground the fan header, this should fix the amber light, I hope I haven't played with tp-link. :)
"Vent Systems" makes a nice two piece louvered door vent. One at the top and one at the bottom should allow for convective air flow.
Good to see you not spending huge on new gear, when you still have stuff that works just fine. Hopefully you manage to get PoE back on that tp-link switch.
I might add a UPS to that setup, and one for the modem too. Mine has saved me a few times working from home.
I look forward to seeing how you ventilate the closet.
There is one. I added a pinned comment with some info because I got that comment a lot lol
Now that I have Starlink (just waiting on some last minute stuff to ship and a trip to buy some conduit before I start setting out the hardware) I want to get a setup somewhat like yours done. Only thing is a double wide mobile home isn't the best option for such a setup in my opinion. Doesn't mean I'm now going to try.
It's refreshing to see this video. As someone who works in IT all day, my home lab is the bare minimum to get what I need done with everyday-Joe equipment. It gets old seeing everyone with 42U racks in their basements and thousands of dollars of equipment, half of which aren't even powered on.
home lab tip: look up music equipment racks. I found one for 75 bucks that's a full 1/2 rack, on wheels and has a wood top. basically it looks like a table but all my rack gear is in it. was a nice upgrade from the rack I built (again, music equipment) where it was 2 rails and blocks of wood I cut
3:41 instead of punching in, usually requiring a tool, you should use Panduit which comes with plastic tool which you could do without but there it is and then click in instead of punching.
These spaces are where 90 degree IEC power cables are a life saver. If you're still having space concerns with your switch's cable, grab a right angled cable.
This is very good
Closet racks just make sense. It's not always practical to put in the attic/basement. Looks very clean, similar to what I have in mind
Hi and thanks for your video :-) The powersupply should be easy to repair if you buy a cheap multiinstrument. Try check the transformer - the capacitors and maybe look after "hot" resistors. Kind regards Bjørn
I have the same rack. Great for small setups
1. cut the vinyl labels to fit on your patchpanel
2. what is the QNAP switch for? it takes up valuable real-estate and you have plenty ports free on you main switch
3. use all screws instead of 1 left/1 right, this way your "rack" is sturdier and you can remove the bottom placeholder
4. if the PoE doesn't work: rip out or at least disconnect that board, which is one of the biggest power-hogs in the switch and you'll need almost no cooling for the actual switching-PCB
5. loose the cable-grommit and get the cables in from the side with some velcro and a loose tie-wrap
suddenly you have half of your rack free again to add more stuff later on
It’s a 10Gb switch. I think I said that a few times.
I didn’t rip out the board just yet because I assumed it probably isn’t drawing much power since it isn’t functioning.
I don’t have plans to rack anything else, so I was happier to have things a bit tidier with less space.
Looking forward to the frigate/coral tpu. Just did the same with two old hp 800 g3 running on top of proxmox hyper visor. Apologies hard to type with these blue blockers. Btw I love your video’s and intro. I would like to support the channel.❤
Thanks! And sounds like a sweet setup
Hard Drive Haven sounds like a good name for a Storinator
I don’t think I could fit a Storinator in there…
@@HardwareHavenYou just need to try harder! You could mount it vertically on the wall like Dave's Garage did!
@@JeffGeerlingDon''t give me ideas...
@@HardwareHaventhere is a storinator jr. you could use that?
I'd pick up a chepa cable tester, it was a life saver when doing all the network aetup in my house.
Looks sweet I want to that some day at my house
I was just thinking of getting a brother label maker and your suggestion of brady might just save me :D
TP link, especially the on their enterprise equipment, carry a lifetime warranty. It maybe worth creating an owner account and registering the switch. If it was never registered with the original owner, perhaps you can register it for the first time and get the poe board repaired.
Enjoyed watching. I just add storage my mini PC and installed VMware on it. Still trying to figure out networking everything.
This looks amazing my dude , just love how great it turned out to be . Hope I could make something like this in the future :))
Man, I really like the 1u brush panel and the POE adapter for your ZimaBoard cable identifier. Both are now in my cart.
Before I purchase, do you have affiliate links for the stuff you used in this build? Get that $$$ boi!
I just updated the description so it has links now!
Bro I wish I could've let you borrow my fluke punch down tool! 😢 You did great! I remember getting rid of a bunch of smaller switches and finally getting a 24 port rack mount switch. It was such a relief. It'd be cool to see if you can get the poe working but honestly it may not be worth the head ache for only four devices. Having the flexibility of every port in your home having poe is nice though
Really good work :) An interesting bit of information for people thinking of replicating it / some of it might be a breakdown of power consumption, i.e. the total figure especially in idle and what consumes how much.
Yeah… unfortunately everything is on a cheap UPS hat doesn’t provide metrics. I’ll probably upgrade that soon, and if so I’ll mention power draw of the entire “lab”. So keep an eye out haha
Something to keep in mind that if you are using CAT5e cable try not to use CAT6 patch panels and keystone jacks. Each of those cables have different wire gauges, and while they may work just fine, but could cause stability issues or long term issues down the road. That is why its always good to use the same CAT rating the entire way through from an in-wall hard-wire perspective. Once you get to patch cables etc you can change, but your network will be de-rated to the lowest piece in the route. In this case if you have CAT5e in the walls, don't expect CAT6 level performance. IE CAT5e will run 2.5Gbps if terminated correctly where as you can get 10Gbps with CAT6/6A. 🤠👍
I am moving to an new how, should i get cat6/6a or cat7? starting all from scratch, there is nothing there yet
@@qux8508Well Cat 6 will run 10Gbps up to 55 Meters, where as Cat 6a will support 10Gbps to 100 Meters. Cat 7 doesn't use traditional RJ45's, so that would be a pass for sure there is no TIA standard for Cat 7. Cat 8 has a max run length of 30 meters using traditional RJ45 connectors to support the full 2000MHz of bandwidth.
The higher the category cable the thicker and less manageable it gets. Also you must use properly certified patch panels and wall plates for the cable you use. The price for those go up very fast as well. The faster the speed no matter the cable certification the more critical the terminations and cable routing becomes. If you are truly serious to run 6A or 8, then have a networking company or at least consultant come in to make sure the cables are run correctly would be a good investment. Electricians that run low voltage cable aren't typically up on running network cabling correctly. Like putting them in long runs with AC cabling or near appliances etc. Also a network guy with certification equipment can actually check each cable run after its in and terminated to make sure it will fully pass all the tests, not just a simple continuity test.
Pretty much the consensus is that if you need more than 10Gbps you really should be running fiber and not copper. This means that depending on run length 6 or 6A will be more than enough for residential environments. The normal homeowner doesn't really care about network cabling, as they use use WiFi because wires are ugly. 😁 Don't mix and match use all the same, that way you only need one category of keystone jacks/patch panels.
If it were me I would run Cat6 maybe 6A and fiber to each drop now a days. If I needed one drop, then do yourself a favor and run two, and if you need two run four. Its way cheaper to run cable when a house is being built than after the fact. I have close to 80 drops run right now in our house, all of them CAT5e at this point as it was done 17 years ago when it was built. I have a number of runs using 2.5Gbps and they are just fine. My longest run is just under 200 feet. Because of the size of our house I would have also used a MDF/IDF placement as well to have shorter runs and two wiring closets with fiber & copper trunking between them. That way edge switches would be placed at the IDF's and have 10G fiber connections back to the MDF. I would have also installed small closets for the IDFs and larger area for the MDF/server room. The MDF/Server room would have its own mini-split HVAC as well and dedicated 240VAC power run to it.
When we moved in the electrician had manually stripped all 8 conductors from every drop and twisted them together to make them all phone lines. It was crazy, they had like 5 of them used for "computers" and weren't in the super bundle of electrical tape goop. We also have 28 coax drops that run with the network wiring too. Think about placement in rooms. Where would you need each of the connections on which walls. If you are putting up many flat screen TV's make sure you run power / network / coax to each of those areas as well. 🤠👍 Good luck.
you could just get a door grate installed on the door, or put an AC infinity fan in the door, or both
I think right now the plan is to get a louvered door. My wife wasn’t too excited about the other options haha. I might still do some fans and other stuff on the inside to guide airflow.
@@HardwareHaven that's completely reasonable lmao
great vid and setup!
2:53 Those are some nice NASes!
Lol
You could attach the brackets you are using at the back of the rack to the wall and rest the back of the shelf on them to level it out.
i like your videos because you're keeping it earthly , no fancy out of reach tech stuff 👏🏻
You took my favorite trick from my playbook. Steal stuff from work to upgrade.
In order to get the rack straight, couldn't you just turn around that angled supports that on the sides go all the way back? The upper part is straight while the lower part is angled, so turn it around and you'll have a straight rack mount without hacks :)
Apart from that, I would have put in an extra space between the patch panel and the first switch so that I could throw all ethernet cables to one side and electric cables to the other one, but hey, it's a small rack so not needed :)
Watching this makes me realize how much bullshit my dad had to go through when he ran IT for a small school. They had a pretty sizeable server/lab for such a small school. But it was on the complete opposite side of the school from his office.
Looks great. 1 observation, when you were punching down those patch cables, you'd have made a quicker, neater job with a Krone punch down tool. Looking fresh otherwise.
I've found an Orange oil cleaner is the best for getting rid of sticky residue.
- You can get double-sided female Keystone jacks that accept RJ plugs on the back side. Saves having to cut, strip and punch-down cables where there are already RJ plugs - that work.
- Un-Du is excellent for removing labels, adhesive residue and miscellaneous schmutz. Safe for even photos to remove tape residue which I have used.
- TinyPilot looked interesting ... until I found the price. $400!
- Will outgrow the rack in about 6 months. Home lab, home automation and so on are rapidly evolving and all of us viewers here have the same hodge-podge of equipment.
Hint: If you want a cheap but powerful label printer, buy an used POS printer, you can buy sticky thermal paper then and print whatever you want. (there are cheap battery powered ones too)
My son wanted me to get some cable management holders for my 2 racks for cables. I explained to him I thought about it. But, I'm always changing cables around for testing so it is not needed. He then asked about why I didn't have a ups. I pointed out I did and yes it works. Just to lazy to use it. :)
I respect all homelab setups, being curious and tinkering / learning is obviously the ultimate goal, however that ends up looking... Myself I'm lucky enough to have started working for a company who was gutting their old colo and was able to snap up a bunch of gear for cheap / free, then assisted in the demolition of an old call center and picked up even more nice racks, cabs, and gear. But you don't need a 78" IBM rack to homelab, it's just a nice to have. xD
I think it would be cool if you made a video for how beginners can get into homelabing! Love the channel, you've inspired me to look into it.
It's something I have in the works just trying to figure out the right way to go about it.
@@HardwareHaven Can't wait!
Humble little lab there. Nice!
The best way to remove labels or residue from duct tape good old WD40 followed up with IPA works everytime
I'd have just run the already terminated cables from the house through the brush thing and eliminate the termination block altogether. Thats just my thoughts as I like having as few connections in a run as possible so there's less to go wrong and it doesn't really cost you anything other than the wires are a set length and once you make them that's it.
I just bought that same small rack for my condo. It was inexpensive vs. a rolling rack or many box racks and like you, i like the access it has with it being so open.y only problem is it isntoo tall to fit on the book shelves I have over my desk so I'll have ro remove all the books, stereo gear, and network gear on 3 shelves reorient all 3 shelves before I can fit that rack in them. And put all the shelf contents back on them. I'm going to spend more time moving shelves and shelf contents than setting up the rack.🙄