EDIT: i had an rpi it died from esd i think
EDIT2: this is also my work machine and i sleep to the sound of the fans
I just found what server #loops run on.
My first services were running on an old laptop from 2006/2007 standing on an old leather chair in a corner of a room. The laptop was standing on four old and used skateboard wheels so there was some space between the laptop and the leather.
I had a spare gpu lying around so I didn’t need integrated graphics
Then next thing I knew I had 16tbs of data
I just got a Nas with 4hdd and 4 nvme. That’s pretty solid for my current needs. Scale your hardware to your needs. I won’t be maxing out my setup maybe ever. I’ll just update to newer hardware every 5 or 6 years and call it good.
An actual image:
I went overkill because i had money, no hardware i could dedicate and wanted flexibility for my volatile interests. So overkill (except storage until i upgrade) that i plan sharing it with my family (when i set it up properly) I could have made a less overkill choice but that way i probably wont need to change my setup for some game
People who are proud of their gear post it.
You seldom hear from the folks running a half dozen VMs on a laptop.
We use containers now btw
My home lab is my windows gaming PC running containers on a Ubuntu VM as a guest os in Hyper-V.
We are all over the shop.I wish I knew how to do that. Can’t get my VMM or Virtual Box running well.
I run a cluster of VMs that run kubernetes and manage those VMs with containers that run Terraform and ansible. Along with baremetal RISC-V workflows and ASICs.
A tool is a tool and one should pick what works for them.
Why? Wouldn’t the VMs add extra complexity? Couldn’t you just run the containers on the machine?
I’m one of those people with an overkill setup.
Do you have experience with kubernetes or kubectl and DR or ASICs? Not everything should be a container or can do what an ASIC is built/designed for.
If I want a three node cluster for redundancy and speed I’ll need three baremetal machines. Or one hypervisor hosting 3 VMs that run my cluster nodes. I think there is a knowlege gap. Check out these links if you have more questions.
https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/architecture/
https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/kubespray-deploy-kubernetes
https://rudimartinsen.com/2023/12/29/kubernetes-cluster-on-vms-2024/
Also some things cannot run as a container due to having architectural differences. These are specifically designed chips for prototyping and software development.
https://www.ijert.org/asic-design-for-a-32-bit-risc-v-processor
Lastly we all have different needs for our home labs. I have to research new tech and processes for my job. It’s a lot of political overhead to get some stuff working on company hardware. I’m very lucky to have a good relationship with systems and storage so that I can buy older retired hardware to run at home. This is not everyone’s usecase and that’s fine.
I keep my laptop in a bookbag thanks.
You seldom hear from the folks running a half dozen VMs on a laptop.
That’s probably me. Blame it to working with automation systems that span from the early 90s to present day.
You seldom hear from the folks running a half dozen VMs on a laptop.
That’s probably me. Blame it to working with automation systems that span from the early 90s to present day.
PTSD flashbacks of trying to get CFEngine configured for deploying Windows 2k, Redhat 3 and Solaris 8 lmao.
I used to sell a product that OEMed CFEngine. My condolences.
I want to hear from them because that’s the setup I’m aiming for.
Where are you all discussing your shit so I can eavesdrop and steal ansible playbooks?
it’s the reason people post pictures of their cyber truck which can’t move when it snows while my ford has been plowing out neighbors since '97.
I feel so seen rn
I also host my stuff on oscilloscopes.
That pic looks very much like the corner of a memory validation lab I worked in at one point. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if someone who’s really into server hardware had a home setup like that.
I have setup like that because i do a lot of repairs and I’ve yet to acquire minipc for server purposes, plan to buy n100 fanless one, for now i have rented vps for 2 years for selfhosting purposes
Doing something scrappy with an old laptop is cool. Hey, built in UPS if the battery still works!
Doing something powerful and reliable with server class hardware is also very cool.
If it is meeting your needs, I’m happy for you.
Sorry to tell you I never had a battery
It even has an integrated UPS.
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Yeah, right, like UPS would be here this quickly (ba dum tss)
I never received the battery
Missing a Raspberry PI 4 setup which hosts a print server, an RTP server with two surveillance webcams and no password, and also seeds a terabyte of torrents over the local flower shop’s unencrypted WiFi.
Wow, that was a journey… :)
I just have an old laptop with a tui screen saver on it to prevent burn
also, the ssd doesn’t work with linux so i have to put the os on a usb stick
Try booting your installer without UEFI - I have an old x99 WS IPMI board I spun up with NixOS and has so many issues using the EFI / UEFI installer.
Admittedly that thing pulls 60w at idle, so promptly turned it off 😅
nah, it’s not uefi. linux straight up doesn’t even see the drive when it’s in the pc. according to archwiki, all laptops in its series work perfectly with Linux except for this one. the SSD does work externally in an enclosure though, so I’m using it for storage.
Ahh man that’s a pain, my old notebook has no sata and only 32gb of emmc (which I’m tempted to remove and add a larger chip), but it’s only being used for my 3D printer so it’s not really a pressing need yet.
Btw you can set it up to turn the screen off without sending it to sleep. I use a screen lock to do this, but other things probably work too
Poverty computing takes more balls. Like yeah, you got a nice Plex server and you can play Skyrim at max setting because you can afford a big NAS and a nice graphic card - no skills needed. I’m spending two hours trying to get the Sims to work on a fifteen year old laptop that I don’t think can even run a DE or running Puppy Linux off USB while waiting to afford a new hard drive.
BRB just making a backup
I have an overkill hardware setup because it’s fun. No I don’t really need 4 servers in a Proxmox cluster with 64GB RAM each… but it’s cool lol. Besides the hardware was just gonna become ewaste anyway, I’m repurposing it
How did you get multiple 64 GB RAM sticks that would’ve been ewaste?
64GB total each across 4 sticks haha. Well, one only has 32 but details.
As it’s obsolete server hardware, I’m guessing each one has a bunch of low capacity ram sticks in it. And they’re probably not the regular consumer grade stuff, but some other spec.
They’re not even real servers actually, 2 of them are my old gaming PCs I built in 2012 and 2017 and I have many Dell Optiplexes and the like lying around I reuse for various things
I have upgraded some of the parts in them - including the RAM, because ballooning VMs are annoying - but it’s still true they’d be ewaste otherwise
Electricity meter go brrrrr
You’re not wrong. Currently running 4 “servers” (describes their role, they’re really just repurposed desktops) and averaging 350W. Oof. Time to try ARM soon I think.
It was the same in my house, with a 19" rack and old workstations. I’m downsizing to a 10" rack and so far it’s quieter and cheaper (in the long run!)
Hey, free heat in the winter…
