Rack Choice: Open Frame vs 4-Post vs Wall-Mount
Pick the right rack for your homelab: open frame vs 4-post vs wall-mount. Cable management, noise, and space trade-offs explained.
Tag: hardware
All the articles with the tag "hardware".
2.5GbE / 10GbE on a Budget
Skip Cisco. Used SFP+ gear from MikroTik and Mellanox turns 10GbE from $5k fantasy into $200 reality.
HBA Cards for ZFS
Pick the right IT-mode HBA for ZFS: LSI 9211-8i vs 9300-16i vs 9400 series. Flash firmware, avoid RAID controllers, navigate expanders and PCIe lanes.
Power Math: Watts, Heat, and Your Electric Bill
Calculate true energy costs: watts, kWh, BTU output, and 5-year TCO for homelab hardware swaps. When efficiency pays back.
Cheap Managed Switches That Don't Suck
Used enterprise-grade managed switches under $100: Aruba, Brocade, MikroTik picks, VLAN setup, wattage, and gotchas for home lab networks.
Quiet Home Lab: Fan Swaps and Undervolting
Noctua fans, IPMI curves, and undervolting techniques to make rackmount servers bedroom-quiet without thermal compromise.
UPS Sizing Without Overpaying APC
Master UPS sizing math: VA vs watts, runtime calculations, battery replacement costs, NUT monitoring, and when EcoFlow beats enterprise hardware.
Raspberry Pi 5 vs Mini PC for Home Lab
Raspberry Pi 5 vs Mini PC: when ARM wins, real costs with NVMe HATs, power consumption, performance, and ecosystem trade-offs for your home lab.
Mini PCs for Home Lab: N100 vs N305 vs Ryzen 7000
Head-to-head benchmarks: Intel N100/N305 vs Ryzen 7000 mini PCs. Power consumption, NVMe slots, RAM, transcoding, virtualization. Which one to buy.
Used Enterprise Servers in 2026
Dell R630/R730, SuperMicro buyer's guide. Real noise, heat, idle power. What to avoid. eBay sourcing tips.
NUT: Network UPS Tools for Home Labs That Don't Want to Crash
NUT (Network UPS Tools) monitors APC, CyberPower, and Eaton UPSes and triggers graceful shutdowns before your home lab eats a corrupt ZFS pool.
LoRa Mesh Hardware Buying Guide
Which LoRa boards to buy for Meshtastic or MeshCore, why the antenna and mounting height matter more than the radio, and what to skip on your first order.