Homelab Episode 4: Rack Upgrades

[@lpseem3770]

Part 1: severs, part 2: applications, part3: joy, part 4: cable management. Story of every home lab.

[@klaernie]

just as a small info: most track saw tracks have a lip that is too long, and instead of cutting it off with a razor, you're supposed to cut it off with the track saw blade. That way the distance between the rubber lip and the blade if really small, and helps you align the track where you want, plus provides a little bit of anti-tearing for the piece of wood under the track, leaving a cleaner cut. Source: watched too much woodworking on youtube..

[@clabretro]

ah, thank you! that makes a lot of sense. I'll have to do it that way on the other track.

[@rmangoba]

Fun video to watch! Tip when rack mounting something heavy: temporarily install a shelf upside down in the space where the heavy item will be. Then just slide the heavy item (UPS) in, bolt it, then remove the shelf.

[@clabretro]

Thanks! And yeah I finally thought of that, helps a ton.

[@andymok7945]

Track saw with a good blade makes a great cut. You need to trim the that part with the saw. That then gives you the precise cut line. You then line up the track on the mark line and your cuts are perfect. Then so long as you don't use a different blade, you get accurate cuts. When they wear out or something else happens, you can replace that strip with a new one. You want the heavy items at the bottom of the rack to keep it stable. Sand the plywood and give it a good paint job.

[@Agnemons]

I would suggest that you put a patch panel on the wall where your cables are joining. Would look way neater and of course you could label each cable run.

[@clabretro]

Yeah good idea, that's probably what I'll end up doing when I clean all those cables up.

[@lookitsahorner]

I think the main reason we stick UPSes at the bottom is of course, the experience you had of lifting it, but also so battery replacements are easy for UPSes which have batteries which slide out, and also to make sure the centre of gravity of the rack remains as close to the bottom as possible so the rack doesn't tip when sliding servers out on their rails

[@clabretro]

Good call, that makes sense too.

[@christopherjackson2157]

Yup 😊

[@Caraudiomechanik]

Put a keystone patch panel on the wall if you want to clean that bundle up further and get the cable lengths under control

[@clabretro]

That's what I'm thinking, whenever I get around to cleaning that area up I think that'll be the best route to go.

[@JCrossMsM]

Looking forward to hearing more about that RPi connected to the UPS. First time I've heard of one being used that way.

[@clabretro]

I actually have a video going over it: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hX6Xk4xsi86NqMk. works well, just haven't hooked up those servers yet.

[@JCrossMsM]

@@clabretro Ah, thank you. Somehow I missed this one.

[@JakeCovey]

10:49 is the greatest thing I have ever seen

[@iwontlagback7236]

Lol yeah same thing with my UPS install, i installed it and then 5 days later we had a bunch of power issues where the voltage would go under 190 volts (i live in a 240v country) definitely paid for itself

[@johnnyvvlog]

That UPS really needs to be at the very bottom. Firstly to keep all that weight low to avoid tipping the rack. And secondly to avoid a potential battery leak from damaging half of your rack.

[@clabretro]

Definitely, you wouldn't want these at the top, especially a taller rack and if you had multiple units. The servers are heavier but don't have quite the same problem since they bolt to both ends.

[@XxCrawdadCraigxX]

good video

[@obi_1_kanobi761]

I love the "I'm never gonna paint it". I am 100% the same. So I painted mine before I put it on. I still rushed it so it's not perfect but I knew I would never do it if I didn't do before I put it on. haha🤣

[@clabretro]

haha good call on painting it beforehand - I wasn't patient enough 😂

[@dandraeg3679]

Looks Good

[@OmarMekkawy]

Nice setup, just make sure to keep the UPS's ventilation holes clear and not covered by any type of racks, otherwise it will overheat.

[@clabretro]

good call, definitely!

[@dawn1berlitz]

ya could also get a external battery if that UPS supports it but i do have a Seperate UPS for my internet equipment and my server buit my current one is a desktop pc being repurposed qas a server as the dell server i had started having issues with the x16 slot and onboard graphics are not good at all for rendering but im better off without that as the power draw is a bit high for something that was idle most of the time but the funside is with a desktop pc is you can customize things to your liking as my stuff doesnt even look like a server kind of but it is

[@JasonsLabVideos]

NICE !!!

[@clabretro]

thanks!

[@jonathan.sullivan]

You need some Rackstuds in your life.

[@clabretro]

heh, that's what i've heard. something about hanging these huge servers off plastic studs makes me nervous though :D

[@Agnemons]

@@clabretro The Servers are on rails by the look of it so they don't need anything.

[@klaernie]

Just out of curiosity: would it have been an option to unbolt the crossbar at the top rear of the rack, so you could have saved the time fiddeling all the cables through?

[@clabretro]

I think that would have worked, I considered it. Also thought about removing the patch panel from the front and pull it through to the back that way. But in the end I realized I wanted to comb the wires and the best way to do that was unhook them all anyway.

[@klaernie]

@@clabretro definitely a very valid argument. I'd tend to be too lazy for that, or just push that out to later. But I'd also put a cheap deleycon patch panel on that wall to take the strain evenly and make finding cables easier. But I'm the big mouthed one here, having put a few kilometers of cable into my 112m² apartment, and most of them are not that neatly combed, not even for a meter..

[@tankgrrl]

Yeah. You could also, since it's less than than 19" deep, unplug the switch from power, leave all the ethernet connected, unscrew its rack bolts, push the switch forward out the front, turn it at an angle so you can then pull it back again through the rack and out over the bar, then reverse the process to put it back and bolt it back in.

[@klaernie]

Gotta say, since making my comment I built my own rack, and swapped switch and patch panel - and keeping them connected was an option minutes after assembling the rack, but I regretted my laziness and had to do it again and properly. Running the cables again sounds harder than it is, balancing a patch panel while assembling/disassembling a rack is really hard.

[@ronkali5365]

Can you explain what all that stuff is for in your home if you don't mind.That's lots of wires

[@clabretro]

Sure. This house was a new build and it was pretty cheap to add ethernet jacks wherever we wanted, so we added at least one to each room. In addition we added a couple dedicated outdoor runs for security cameras and some to specific locations where you would mount televisions. So basically each room has at least one ethernet jack, five of the runs are being used for wireless access points, and eight are being used to power security cameras.

[@ronkali5365]

@@clabretro ok thanks love the setup. I want to do something like that .Using my 4 nas as media center

[@MrEarnxtracash]

The saw cuts the black strip and you are supposed take the saw and do that before you use it, did you read the book that came with the saw track? LOL

[@clabretro]

Never even opened up the directions 😂

[@Warhoon]

Would you mind sharing which rack you're using? Looks like a StarTech 4POSTRACK25U.

[@clabretro]

yup that's the one! I picked it up on Amazon: a.co/d/ep4vYqV been really happy with it.

[@timmark4190]

At one point you mentioned you have a raspberry pi to shutdown the servers. Then you say its not done yet. So what are you shutting down with the raspberry pi

[@clabretro]

Right now the pi is just gathering metrics from the UPS and letting my Grafana instance scrape them. It's all set up with Network UPS Tools (networkupstools.org/) - so basically I'll be able to configure those servers via NUT to shut themselves down when the raspberry pi notices that the UPS is in battery mode. I go over testing that flow in this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hX6Xk4xsi86NqMk The problem I'm gonna have (I think - I haven't added up all the power usage stats yet) is I need to have my network on for that to work. So I'm pretty sure I'll need another UPS to keep all the network gear running while the servers shut down (so that the servers and the Raspberry PI can talk to one another). Another route I'm thinking about is just connecting the servers to the pi directly via USB, but I don't actually know if NUT supports that. If that works I'll probably just do that and buy another UPS later. So basically I still have to run down there when the power goes out and shut down the servers at the moment haha.

[@briceperdue7587]

Just unbolt the rail that is your problem? I don't understand how that is a problem if your about to sand some plywood?

[@clabretro]

I probably could've unbolted some top rails - didn't want it to flex too much with the two Dell servers in there though. Figured it was simpler to just pull the cables through.

[@nsanerydah]

No, you cut through it for zero clearance.

[@clabretro]

Yeah.. oops. I'll have to do that on the next one ha.

[@vvorldnewsmedia]

how do you have ads on your video when you don't have over 1000 subs? #youtubeprivilege?

[@clabretro]

no clue... definitely not monetized yet.

[@vvorldnewsmedia]

@@clabretro that's funny cuz I watched an ad I just asked cuz youtube is screwing me over that all didn't mean to sound like a dick sorry

[@clabretro]

all good!