2024 Homelab Build: Pt.1.5-Hardware and Software Reconsiderations

[@souldawg]

Been loving your content since the old lab in your bedroom a couple years ago, it’s awesome to see how far it has progressed and all the cool new gear. Personally, can’t recommend Proxmox enough as a Linux based hypervisor.

[@averyplays7576]

Your support means the world to me, thanks for following along!

[@rdsii64]

I have never messed with HP stuff. Right now I have one Dell R720. Its been rock solid and surprisingly quiet when it isn't being taxed. It currently only runs one service and the air conditioner is louder.

[@averyplays7576]

R720s are some of the most solid servers I've ever used

[@renderedpixels4300]

I run a T420 w/ proxmox and so far its great. The drives are louder than the server most of the time lol, I manually control the fans so theyre locked to 15% (yes, ive verified that they dont overheat even at max load, my 2470 v2s cap out at 85c)

[@pvalpha]

I use proxmox on my homelab. Mine's built with old HP DL360 G7s that I got for cheap/free and a couple supermicro 12x 3.5" disk chassis for truenas. Strongly recommend either XCP-NG or Proxmox depending on how you want to go with things - both are fairly solid. Build your own xen-orchestra loadout for free. The Proxmox is free with nag if you want to switch to the development repos. If you're going to use any local storage I'd recommend cheap sata ssds if the backplane supports them. There may be some m.2 to u.2 conversion carriers you can use to put commodity ssds in there. But if you can find commodity SSDs that have capacitor-backed controllers, less chance of data corruption if that's in place. Spinning rust is still best for long term storage support on a cost basis. If you do a supermicro 12 bay 3.5" drive chassis with some SSDs on a carrier card for the log/index/cache support it will be super fast. Having a shared NAS storage is vital for migrating and backing up vms. One good trick with KVM/QEMU based linux hypervisors - if you choose the right "processor"' for your VM you can migrate between x86 architectures pretty easily. Learning and playing with networking is also super important. The homelab is the best place to test things to virtual destruction. :) You haven't learned until you've wiped a machine a few times in the process of testing an idea. Homelabs are where you can do that without some raging IT director coming after you and your job. Playing with hardware and software is what makes this job *fun*.

[@MarkHyde]

Epic intro with your feline 'Operations Manager'... just found your channel. Great series. :)

[@TootNuggetEdits]

oh snap you got that new new

[@alphabanks]

You have a great lab but to be honest I think you should run multiple hypervisors in order to be well rounded. I'm a huge fan of nested virualztion IMO it just open up tons of options. As stated I like to run multiple things I'm not trying to rack physical servers everytime I want to work on a project.

[@HaydonRyan]

Can you talk about where you’re getting these deals?

[@jonathan.sullivan]

Use longer cables so you can pull them out for maintenance.

[@Darkk6969]

I'd stick with used Dell gear mainly for firmware, BIOS and driver support. HP requires you to have an active subscription to get BIOS and firmware updates along with iLO firmwares. I have the HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 that I bought brand new years ago and use it to run TrueNAS. I was lucky enough that someone hosted the firmware updates for it but I rather get it directly from HP. Seems HP is making everything subscription based including their printers which is BS. ProxMox rocks once you get it up and running. The nag screen isn't big of a deal and you can modify one of the files to remove it.

[@XRPSAINT]

You might want to check out cockpit, it is integrated in rocky 9.

[@nesdi6653]

I have a Z840 its awesome try it

[@javajav3004]

How do you manage soundproofing? new to your channel i have a hpe proliant e200a

[@averyplays7576]

I use headphones most of the time

[@SHUTDOORproduction]

Can we talk about how horrible the broadcom buyout is.... Its more more than just licensing the company is going to get scrapped for parts to cater to big fish...

[@johnharrison712]

I'm running HP Gear in my lab as well. I have DL360 G9(VMware) and then a DL380 G9(TrueNAS) How are you connect in your Storage array, would love to see the video on that and if there any licenses with it.

[@JasonsLabVideos]

Thats a nice home lab rack ! HA !

[@wigglz]

A rack on carpet? this should be good for static electricity

[@HotNoob]

hp stuff sucks, because they are so picky about hardware. also from my experience have instability issues. go with dell. just as cheap but not a smexy looking also yeah esxi sucks, run proxmox.

[@averyplays7576]

Like I said, I muuuchhh perfer Dell, but you cant get R740/R640esque HW for under 800 usually, and I bought all 3 DL360 G10s for just over that.

[@jeffnew1213]

Disappointing to hear that you're abandoning ESXi 8. Seems VMUG will continue to offer Advantage subscriptions, so the Broadcom buyout may actually have very little effect on the home lab. Since my lab is geared toward mirroring the environment in which I work, there's no consideration there of anything but vSphere. Been running 8 since it's release. Have converted vSAN 7 hosts to vSAN 8 ESA. Lots to do without looking for a new, lesser, hypervisor.

[@averyplays7576]

It was the same with me, however, we are not able to use the new model, so we are preemptively moving to KVM based hypervisors. I do enjoy ESXi the most, but the lab is to mirror the work environment, plus my 40Gbe cards are deprecated.

[@RobertBrownTUC]

@@averyplays7576 Been using ESXi/vSphere for the last few years in the enterprise IT world and at home due to working with it on the daily. I started at non-profit and the new vmWare model is a bit expensive for us and I started looking for different options. Been testing out XCP-ng and XO, has alot of the same features as vmWare but for free if you don't want to buy support. Its taken a bit to get a head around how it gets setup compared to vmWare but been really happy with it so far. Cheers to the update date video, always happy to see a fellow nerd playing with hardware.

[@Alan.livingston]

Just get a shelf rather than paying for apple rails

[@averyplays7576]

Alright guys, I hate this video, Ive watched it 10 times and I still disappointed in the way it came out might be deleting and re-uploading soon.

[@leo_craft1]

Can we agree that hpe is not the best way to spend your money?

[@averyplays7576]

The price to performance is literally the only reason I have them haha

[@leo_craft1]

@@averyplays7576 Yeah but your raid controller is limited, you nework card is limited, you can't even update the bios without paying huge amount of money

[@leo_craft1]

This man bought expensive high end servers to just keep them off

[@averyplays7576]

They literally run everyday, did you not hear them in the vid?

[@MacLimitRange]

Use case? Minecraft server and plex? Lol

[@averyplays7576]

Watch part one

[@cameramaker]

Its 2024 and they still have not figured out a quiet cooling. This is not a homelab, sorry. This is literally trash for home use. My Not-a-lab (production gear) which is located next to me (in the 37U rack in same room) in my office uses mostly a 4U configuration, and those got 24 LFF config, with populating only 16 drives to allow airflow in rows 2 and 5. All the fans are changed for 12 cm quiet ones. All the switches are in passive config. Plenty of spacing (1U space between any active device) to allow heat exchange by the server body. I do not really get it, why would anybody put a 1U or 2U system next to humans. I got sick of that video after a minute of of awful noise.