❮ Luka builds things

My hardware

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I have lots of little machines! This post will describe them and what I use them for. Let's go!

The Server

This is my crown jewel custom-built box.

It runs most of my services; it is my cloud (NextCloud), password manager (Vaultwarden), git forge (Forgejo), media server (the *arrs and Plex), and lots and lots more.

Here are the specs:

It's a beefy machine, but if I were to buy it again, I would go for the 16 core EPYC. I only chose the 24 core one because it was just 20eur more expensive compared to the 16 core one. But it does draw more power, which results in more heat generated, which sucks in the summer.

Anyway, I love running heavy loads on it and watching all the cores light up. Nix updates and rebuilds sometimes rebuild a lot of packages, and this machine handles it like a champ.

What is great about having the server motherboard is having IPMI! I never saw the appeal of connecting to the machine and having the ability to change BIOS settings remotely, for example, but after some failed updates that locked me out of SSH, I was able to connect the machine via a web console and restore connectivity, it was great! I recommend getting a motherboard with IPMI now.

Another great thing is having two NICs. I can assign one to a VM or something else.

Storage

I have two BTRFS pools, one for OS and services and another for media. Both are set to RAID1, so I generally buy two drives if I want to expand my storage.

I've had one drive fail and I was able to replace it with no data loss. I have scheduled data scrubs and they have at times detected and corrected issues. It's also quite fast, especially if you split the spinning drives and SSDs.

All in all, I recommend using BTRFS.

Root pool

My root pool is a mishmash of old drives that I cannibalized from other/older systems, e.g. my defunct gaming PC.

Devices:

This gives me ~1TB of usable storage.

So far it has performed quite well and no devices have died so far.

Media pool

Here is the place for my big files and (local) backups.

Media pool Hard Drives:

Here I've lost one 3TB drive to failure in the last 5 years. I was able to replace it and the BTRFS pool carried on with no data loss.

PC-Engines APU2 board

I have a PC-engines APU2 board.

My APU2 board in its cabinet, don't mind the messy cables

Currently its serving as my main router with OPNsense. I manage my DHCP, DNS, VPNs, VLANs and other network related things on it.

So far it's been great, though the CPU usage frequently reaches 100% and it's also running quite hot.

Linksys EA7500

This one serves as my main home Wi-Fi AP running OpenWrt.

It has been with me for the longest time, even before I started my HomeLab journey and I only needed it for WiFi.

NVidia Shield

This is a relatively new addition, I bought it used to replace the apps of my smart LG TV. The TV Plex app was slow and I was also afraid I would start to get ads on the TV at some point via a sneaky WebOS update.

With the addition of the NVIDIA Shield, I was able to disconnect the TV from the network and now I only use it as a TV screen.

Raspberry Pi 1

Just recently I used it to create a Phoniebox.

I should write a guide on how to build it yourself. It was super easy, literally took me minutes.

Since it does not have a Wi-Fi, I can't actually check the load its under (I could connect to it via Ethernet cable, but I'm lazy and can't be bothered right now). Interacting with it with the RFID cards is working great and feels snappy.

Overall, it's working great for such an underpowered device.

Dell Wyze 5070

This little machine is currently running my HomeAssistant instance. It has 4GB of RAM.

The instance is working great, it loads fast and the devices it controls are very responsive. It is currently connected to 18 smart home devices, most of which are lights and switches.

Load on the CPU rarely reaches 10%, its usually under 4%, so there is a lot of room for growth. It currently consumes around 1.3GB of RAM.

The closet

I also have a few other machines that are not in use right now.

Raspberry Pi 5

This was an impulse buy, I admit. I think I was going to put some retro gaming OS on it, then I was gonna turn it into a monitoring solution for my HomeLab and now it's sitting and gathering dust.

We'll see what use I find for it down the road.

My old gaming rig

This one is based around a Asus Z170 Pro Gaming motherboard.

I think it has an i5 processor and 16GB of RAM. At some point I used it as a temporary server replacement, when my main server motherboard died. It was a painless switch, but I remember the slowness and I think the network wasn't the most stable.

Anyway, it's gathering dust now as well. I keep intending on selling it, but just never get around to it.