Workshop and Homelab Tour

[@smpstech]

Shouldn't that be called a Homeclab?

[@WooShell]

and the channel subscribers are the clabclub?

[@RT-qd8yl]

@@WooShell Way better than "Clabber girls"

[@JZB-2022]

It's funny. I'm doing a brand new voice install for a school system, and during the walk through of their existing network closets we noticed that there were PILES of old networking gear in the corners. Whole bunch of Cisco 2960/2960s/3650G/3750G switches and many, many APs as well. My boss who was doing the walk trhough with me asked what the customer was going to do with all of it since they upgraded to Meraki, and he said that all of it was going to be scrapped. All of it, just tossed out to the recycling center. My boss quickly said that we'd be happy to rescue the switches to use for spares as they were all recent enough to still be usefull (fully Gig and PoE). It's crazy how much newer fully working equipment just gets tossed, so it's just so cool to see even older stuff put to cool use like this even now. Thanks for the great videos!

[@clabretro]

it's truly amazing how much stuff just goes in the trash

[@renderedpixels4300]

I picked up a 3560G for getting my CCNA, still plan on using it once i get a house of my own, though i did also pick up a 48 port ubi switch i would probably use primarily for the ecosystem lol. Used enterprise stuff aint light on power, but for what it is, its dirt cheap, just a bit of configuring

[@MrCorSmit]

Send some of the stuff to mr Colby

[@UpLateGeek]

I recently travelled interstate for a project at the office of a company my work acquired a few years ago, and they had a handful of 3650 switches (48 port gigabit POE with IP services feature set, no less) sitting on a shelf, most of which had never been unboxed. Turns out they'd bought them just before we acquired their business, and were planning on upgrading a bunch of their switches, but their network engineer was super busy and never got around to it, then he got a new job about 6 months later and never told us about the switches. They were going to send them all to e-waste! Needless to say I threw them into the back of the van, and they'll be used as temporary upgrades for some of our older switches. If they had told us about them, we'd have organised to swap out their old switches and be done with them for another 5 more years, instead we put a in budget for their upgrade last year and bought them all brand new 9300 series multi-gig UPOE switches. Something tells me not mentioning the switches might have been the plan all along!

[@poweredbyWatts]

Welcome to ‘Merica!

[@ricdintino9502]

eBay + "a couple beers" = Buyer's remorse

[@renderedpixels4300]

Sometimes i dont even need beers 😅

[@theserialport]

that Computer Renaissance coffee mug looks like the main prize

[@clabretro]

strong agree

[@juanstdio]

I recall a few months back we were just 3k folks and now you are almost at 50k subs. What a journey! and it totally justifies the lab :D

[@clabretro]

haha thank you!

[@Arandomguy151]

I haven't lost attention on this video this just goes to show that clabs videos are the best quality. Keep it up clab!

[@clabretro]

thank you!

[@Arandomguy151]

Geez clab already

[@andyg8888]

This sparks joy. Thank you for inviting us into your space, Mr Retro.

[@clabretro]

glad you liked it!

[@sleepyhead249]

New clabretro video!!! Let’s go!!! Always love your video!!!

[@CalebVorwerk]

The first time I saw a power edge was in one of your videos, I now own an r710 and run it at my works data center. I absolutely love them.

[@clabretro]

awesome!

[@artofnoise5013]

Nice of you to show your supervisor at the end.

[@Thesecret101-te1lm]

The two tips you need: A: For the data you really don't want to lose, buy disks from different manufacturers and use them in mirrored pairs. The chance of two different manufacturers having quality problems at the same time seems very low. B: Others have already commented on this, but get zip-lock bags for the random screws. Buy 100-packs of different sizes and ensure that you have some working pens floating around so you can actually label the zip-lock bags. Two tips you might not need :) C: Obviously add more shelves where there is space. D: To ensure you don't end up with various junk on every single piece of free space, just avoid having easily accessible free spaces. If someone is remodeling/renovating their kitchen or similar, grab the old doors from their cupboards/cabinets, and install those doors to cover shelves that have free space. Also maybe grab some drawers for the various loose things that kind of have to be loose. Looking forwards to future videos!

[@holidayfestivities106]

Love the vid, got me through my weekly laundry run. Discovered you fairly recently and blew through your back catalog and you have quickly become one of my favorite KZbinrs. Keep up the good work! #TokenRing2025

[@clabretro]

thank you! glad you enjoyed it

[@evilZardoz]

There's so much cool stuff in this clip! The Fore ESX/LE155 ATM gear, the 7206s with the library of port adapters, etc. Storing gear vertically is something we've been doing forever. I love how that space literally looks just like the typical IT manager's workshop/space of a mid/large org in the 90s. Software boxes, shrinkwrapped NICs etc. Definitely hits me in the ol' nostalgia!

[@VelocityBlasters]

@clabretro Protip : You can just tape the lid sensor switch down to prevent this from happening again. It's a useful switch in the data centre where you want to log case open status but at home you don't really need it and that would prevent you from accidentally breaking it in the future.

[@TekChris780]

The #1 thing on my Christmas 1995 wish list was a Parallel Zip 100 which Santa did bring... I thought it was the coolest thing ever and I envisioned being able to take it to friends' houses with all my games loaded on it. Turned out that wasn't super practical as it required a bunch of drivers and was a faff to get it working properly but I still loved the thing and used it into the 2000s.

[@pd1jdw630]

Nextel! Gees… You could maybe put up an openBTS phone network. You’ve gotta look into the hardware needed. But there have been some tests done with vans at a Burning man festival years ago. So it can be done.

[@redgek]

Thank you for a crib episode. That's some serious gear you have and I especially can't wait to check that Sun IPX cutie! :P Happy new year and thank you for showing us all the cool stuff some of us missed out on!

[@clabretro]

thank you! and happy new year!

[@deadreaver666]

CLAB!!!!! Happy New Year M8! That Sega Saturn collection is UNHINGED! I'd love to see you do some wild modding to one. Also, FOR THE LOVE OF LINUX, Decorate that Waste Drainage pipe!!!! lol

[@clabretro]

😂

[@The_Electronic_Beard]

Working on any of this gear is fascinating and very addictive! Looking forward to more videos this year and suoer excited for the IBM fibre channel gear!

[@edfromnc7660]

Reality keeps slapping me in the face when I watch retro computing! I'm sitting here looking at my HP 4050N Laser Printer, which has been and still is my main printer. I got curious as to when it was built and the wiki says they stopped making them in 1999! I feel old now.... I worked a lot with Cisco gear and sorely want to have a 4506 or 6507 for my home network, but as it would be good to heat my house in winter, it would be a disaster for the AC in summer! :-) I am content to run my Netgear switches because they don't draw much power, but I long for even a 3560G or 3750. I also spotted a couple of Compaq ProLiant servers, spent a lot of time with those too.

[@gametec_live]

What a beauty... Always love your videos!

[@theillusionist8407]

dream material right here

[@matthew-d3p]

being from ireland i have always found it interesting that the usa is 120v we use 13amp 240v sockets 3kw and 20a at the breaker 5kw just to charge our phones but they are specifically for high power items in the usa and normally not found inside the home only in garages / basements , the fuse panels are also such a stark difference in comparison to ours , a 24 fuse/breaker 240v panel is around 10 inches wide by 12-16 inches tall

[@unknownsoldier4156]

Watching your network switch videos PLUS your awesome rack setups are really motivating me to finally purchase some 42U server racks and finally set my farm up with all manner of networking. I always purchase server rails for my servers if they're available but I have no where to use them. Needless to say there is a stack of rails that rivals my stack of servers! Oh and happy (late) new years!

[@forgotmyoldSN]

Sweet! Love watching these videos and finding excuses to buy more gear.

[@bernhardschuepbach4533]

Nice setup, somewhat perfect-chaotic. May your channel and homelab thrive

[@dross1705]

Always very happy to see a new video from you pop up ❤

[@RandomTechWZ]

I wanted the i95 and i930 Nextel so bad back in the day. I could never get my mom to switch over to Nextel from Sprint so I was stuck with their ReadyLink walkie talkie while my friends had Nextel. The Linksys WRT series was my first intro into computer networking so I'll always have a fondness for them too.

[@mcbeav]

Nextell phones with direct talk still function as walkie talkies I believe. I used to work for Sprint back in the day.

[@_vilepenguin]

I can’t think of anything witty to say. Love the channel. Thanks for being you.

[@newellslab]

Thing that might be fun to explore: Old enterprise wireless gear (Cisco Aireos, Aruba Networks, Meru). If you want to explore it I'd love to point you to some resources.

[@AnnaVannieuwenhuyse]

I just set up a b/g cisco unit that's been more solid in this crowded airspace than anything else. I'm amazed. 😊

[@purpaidh]

I'd love to see that PDP-11 put together and put to use! As always, I put down everything to watch what you put out as soon as I see it! Keep up the great work!

[@clabretro]

thank you!

[@Thesecret101-te1lm]

Don't know what a PDP can do, but the slightly newer VAX computers with VMS can interact fairly nice with semi-modern stuff.

[@bbriante]

if someone says i should move from an apartment to a house i will show this video as a cautionary tale of what would happen. that said, what a cool collection of retro servers sir.

[@DanGallegos11]

Pretty sweet Geek DEN! Thanks for providing good content and awesome stuff to record content on .

[@KibaWolfbane]

I love the unintended gag of fhe Linksys tower being so tall its out of frame now

[@MrCodyswanson]

Oh man, I haven't thought about Computer Renaissance for years!

[@clabretro]

my Dad used to own some in the Seattle area!

[@cameramaker]

The random screws problem: after ending the day or when desk needs cleaning, you can put the screws into a zip-lock bag, with a piece of note of what it is from. I use mini stick-it labels, they go well into those mini bags - but I had hard time to get them last time - maybe EU is banning such plastic. This serves multiple purposes - I can throw and mix the bags in one box or drawer quickly, the screws don't get to the floor with accidental flip of the cup, and its of course labelled - and you can search through the stash any time you need to get something back together. Sometimes I taped the relevant bag to the gear cover. And you can do recursive bags and labels, when the gear that comes apart uses multiple / complex screwing.

[@clabretro]

good idea!

[@Thesecret101-te1lm]

Buy the zip-lock bags in 100 packs or so, and buy different sizes, and ensure you have enough (amount/quality) pens around to always have one working. All zip-lock bags I've seen have an area intended for writing directly on the bag. They are so cheap that it's reasonable to write directly on the bag even for semi-short term usage. Tip: write things like "cover", "rear panel" and so on on different bags and keep the different screws in different bags for the same project. Just stuff the zip-lock bags inside whatever device the screws belong to.

[@jaco1982za]

Absolutely agree on your remarks about the rails, but also want to add to that to get the cable management arm, as it makes pulling the server out of the rack so much cleaner

[@circuitsable]

the stack of saturns and dreamcasts is sick, and that hd wega haha. thanks for the tour!

[@chairthrower]

We are still using a Sony KV-32HS420 CRT in our living room. It's 20 years old. It also has an HDMI port, but it's 4:3 unlike your widescreen. It weighs over 150 pounds.

[@questionablecommands9423]

I think I spotted the box for >thing< we worked out a deal on. I don't imagine it'll end up being a video, but I'm glad to see it on the shelf even if it ends up in project purgatory.

[@rcxb1]

Once you're powering a rack with several servers, you really want to switch to 208/240V UPS units, which provide 4X as much power as 120V units. Eaton 9px6k UPS's can power a whole rack and can be found used for under $1000, sometimes even less. That, and a vertical L6-30p PDU should fit your needs. For the iDEN phones, the only thing you might be able to do with them is use MotoTalk/DirectTalk which would let you to use them almost like $20 FRS 2-way radios if they have it installed, and also have SIM cards that were previously activated. Some phones without it MT/DT can be moded to add it if you're interested in the extra effort. There are old iDEN base stations for sale for a few hundred dollars but doing all the set-up, including allowing those IMEI's access, is not going to be easy. I don't think the iDEN protocol was popular enough that there's likely to be any SDR projects out there that re-implement the base station to make them usable, either. And yeah, neither would be legal to run, anyhow.

[@seanlynchbp]

Nice collection. Some day I will do a vid on my man shed and all the computer stuff I have. Love you videos. And I have that Linksys stack too lol

[@clabretro]

glad there's another stack out there haha

[@floodo1]

I loved Zip drive. Was so good for CAD classes! I actually used the battery pack a couple of times back in the day … the real hotness were Jax drives tho!

[@miked4377]

wow...homelab is😢 awesome! im excited!!

[@Ironapple09]

You are the reason I bought my rack lol, I’m only in HS and dear lord do I have a long way to go. Also CAT

[@clabretro]

it's a journey!

[@ultraswank]

Great collection, and yes a tiny bit of organization might be helpful in the future. Oh, and let's hope that basement never gets flooded, that would hurt :)

[@jasperhercus8254]

new clab drop :) love your videos man and holy cow, great gear!!

[@isjoshhere]

Love the behind the scenes look and the material for future videos. Keep up the great videos. Thank you for the cat tax!

[@clabretro]

thank you!

[@TeslaTales59]

Greta tour Clabman! Be careful of that nearby sewer line! If a Dell server lands on it, you may be an unhappy boy...

[@ziggomatic5772]

I would love to see a vid of you setting up a plan 9 grid in a future video. The computer is the network and all

[@NIC_Pineiro]

This video could have been 3 hours long and I would have been all over it! I always walk away from clab's videos super motivated to tinker in my lab. Cant wait for all the token ring stuff!

[@clabretro]

glad you liked it!

[@jessestrobel2]

great video as always. Keep it up, always a great watch

[@ussul6524]

WOW what a bunch of nice hardware. Your server rack is one I will have as well if I move to house. Just so cool. I guess I am geek if I wonder why you have no optics.

[@PiddeBas]

Just in time for my evening snack :)

[@RoyceTaft]

Love the Linksys stack. I fondly recall using a WRT54G as a WiFi bridge to get my Xbox online back in high school. Good ol DDWRT

[@DozIT]

The WRT54G was my intro to wifi, I was 11 at the time, remember playing Mario Kart DS online, crazy times!

[@maxdiamond55]

love the laser disk player. great

[@spewp]

3Com also offered home equipment that stacked with clips, similar to linksys, not as complete but still worked nicely. I had a little stack of my own with switch & DSL modem.

[@mstratforduk]

Definitely going to need to acquire a place with a basement some day 😂

[@spinpop01]

In my Lab in the late 80's we had IBM micro Channel computers that interfaced with our PDP 11/785. Could be an interesting experiment with your PDP 11/70 emulator. Also, we used DECnet.

[@AlexKidd4Fun]

Port @ 39:37 is called 13W3. Used on a lot of old UNIX workstations likr SGI, Sun, etc.

[@mattbailey1515]

around 51:42 I checked the iDrac for my Dell R730... and I happened to also be at 196 watts lol

[@SylvieCanuck]

I did the same thing. My r440 is at 110 watts and my r730xd is at 168 watts.

[@rayk32]

Your videos are so awesome! I started in IT back in the 90's and seeing all this equipment working again brings back so many great memories. Have you ever looked at the 3Com Corebuilder ATM or OfficeConnect stuff? I started my interest in home networking with Novell, Windows 3.1, Windows 95 and OfficeConnect back in the 90's. I can't wait to see you set up the DSLAM and DSL network!

[@clabretro]

I actually have a 3Com Corebuilder! So that will definitely show up in a video someday.

[@rayk32]

@@clabretro ❤

[@friedgpu]

what a lovely video. keep up with the good work.

[@NathanBent]

Love the channel, video and (c)lab! If you update your Proxmox, you get a cool dark theme 🙂(plus, some other nice QoL improvements!)

[@jjock3239]

I thought I was the only one hoarding old software and books! Now< I feel validated.

[@trackersoft123]

very nice homelab! :) i would like to see more sun sparc videos if possible, also DSLAM thing sounds really tempting. Regarding truenas - you can configure email notification for warning/critical events, so you will know when something failed.

[@LeeZhiWei8219]

Wow! New Video! That's so cool! Great video again dude.

[@LeeZhiWei8219]

I have a spare WRT54GL..... Do you want it? 😂

[@LeeZhiWei8219]

Fiber Channel.... What's funny is Datacenter still use FC, and SFP28 lol.

[@LeeZhiWei8219]

Token ring on the P5? 👀

[@clabretro]

I'm good on Linksys now 😂

[@vincentschumann937]

there are quite a few defcon talks that focus on sims and gsm, probably a decent starting point on whats possible and what you want to do

[@clabretro]

interesting, thank you!

[@Aruneh]

Looking forward to seeing the hardware and software setup for Retro Rack #1! (We all know there's going to be more)

[@BDBD16]

25:30 Is that a SOYO AMD motherboard, with the green slots?

[@vote4carp]

Next time the wife or friend says something to you near the retro rack, you've gotta drop a: "Really? Right in front of my Sun?" 😂😂😂

[@EthanBB]

Man, I want to see videos about ALL of that gear :D

[@seshpenguin]

I know people have put together their own homelab cell networks with relatively inexpensive SDR stuff... that could be an interesting project

[@utp216]

If you don’t mind saying what is the white panel to the left of your rack @ 14:17 and next few minutes?

[@clabretro]

that's the original media/network panel that came with the house, where you'd put the cable modem, coax splitter, etc

[@TurboAdam]

Might have already been suggested but if not, I’d consider putting some tape over that lid open switch…ya know…just in case…

[@clabretro]

that would be wise

[@tjeaton2405]

To reduce power consumption on the servers could you remove the 2nd processor - I assume you'd lose 50% memory capacity too but could reduce running costs if that resource isn't being consumed?

[@clabretro]

I might look at some lower power CPUs too

[@TechTimeWithEric]

44:12 I used to deal with Computer Renaissance in Wilmington Delaware, but they closed down a number of years ago

[@clabretro]

cool! my dad used to own some in the Seattle area

[@whette_fahrtz]

gonna watch this video every time i look upon my empire of dirt and think "I have too much old computing gear and half finished projects and shit I bought on ebay after a few beers"

[@DJGeosmin]

you can 3d print all sorts of awesome little trays that will help with your parts storage. really great options for RAM, CPUs, you can find some for HDDs although they are time consuming and big prints coming from a fellow owner of way too much computer stuff, its lifechanging lol also it just feels badass when you go to configure a system and get to pull a whole ass tray of DIMMs or chips off your shelf

[@clabretro]

definitely been thinking about doing that!

[@win7best]

8:19 I sure love trying to find rails for a HP Proliant ML350 G9

[@SproutyPottedPlant]

The best part for me is those Sega Dreamcasts and Saturns ❤❤ Sonic Adventure!!

[@noahisamathnerd]

I’d love an in-depth video on UPSes!

[@Jacobhopkins117]

2025 shaping up to be a BANGER year of content. Looking forward to it!

[@TheJonathanc82]

I need to do a serious rack cleanup for my homelab. I would love to find some rack servers that don’t have fans spin up to afterburner.

[@UpLateGeek]

Speaking of new NASes, I bought half a dozen white label (factory recertified, whatever that means) drives in November which finally arrived the other day. Only problem was that I got them sent to my work because I'm never home, but I've been off work because of the Christmas break, so I haven't been there to bring the drives home! I still need to buy the NAS itself, but I'll just wait till I go back to work before it buy it. It won't be anything special, just a Synology. Re: the satellite gear, I'm not 100% sure, but you might not need a satellite to get two satellite modems talking to each other. It's been years since I worked with satellite gear, but if you can set the uplink and downlink frequencies separately, they should just talk to each other over a coax cable that would normally go to the dish. You might need an attenuator to drop the signal to an acceptable level though. Re: the piedp11, you could do a series of live streams soldering it together, I'm sure there would be plenty of people who'd watch.

[@ВладиславГлибченко]

Hey! Have you ever sum-up total power consumption of retro rack/cost of running? Does youtube rev covers it?

[@Jim-ku6ry]

If I might suggest to make sure to plug up the cold air returns if you haven't already done so. All that dust will get sucked into your furnace and play hell with your fan bearings.... Nice setup ✌️

[@JohnDoe1999-lg7mh]

Zip disk. I remember the click of death. The there was the LS120. PS/2, hated working on those things. Very few people kept the disks and having to run around to find a floppy for the cards to configure the system to know about the add-on cards.

[@Fractal_32]

15:47 I was expecting that 2x4 to say “click subscribe” like in a This Old Tony video.

[@ConnerWithAnE_]

I’d love to watch a pidp11 build

[@annoyedlemon]

i see you have same issue with startech 42ru rack mine has a little curve also it hard to get square really need a support shelf in the midddle

[@OVERKILL_PINBALL]

Those SFP+ to RJ45 adapters can get super hot. 24 port Netgear 10Gbps switches are dropping in price! I got one for less than $500 so keep an eye out (one switch to rule them all).

[@GarthGoldberg]

I used to have one of those Linksys things, and I don't remember what it did or why I had it.

[@ReinaldoRauch]

10:10 cosplaying as a sysadmin as told by @jeffgeerling shirt lol

[@HyenaEmpyema]

Regarding power consumption: I recall from another video you said you're in CO, which would mean you run the heater about half the year. So theoretically, the rack is contributing towards heating the house for that time (thanks law-of-conservation-of-energy!) Regarding the fans going to max: My guess is they do it to prove that the fans and fan power regulator are capable of running full tilt. Otherwise, if it ran fine at low-rpm but fan or controller suddenly failed at high rpm, you wouldn't find out until after the OS booted and would have to kill the OS which would piss everyone off.

[@winkekeks]

have here a quad socket HP DL585 G5…think i have to power it on after watching some of your videos and get some retro feeling. Haven‘t used it for long time cause it literally needs its own power plant

[@Kardall]

I still can't find a 2950 era appropriate enclosed Dell rack... I missed out on one (it got sold really really fast) on Marketplace. Would have been perfect. Just trying to make a small Dell rack for playing around with and thought it'd be neat to have matching rack with the 2 2950s and a 1950 server in it... If anyone in your community has any leads, let me know :) I'm located in Canada.

[@PiemanX17]

I would love one of those Dreamcast's haha