2024 - DIY to the next level

Another year, another set of change. In this field, the only constant is change.

I was able to get my hands on a set of Mikrotik switches to upgrade the existing network setup. Mikrotik makes great, low noise and low power switches. Their switches are packed with high end features for a relatively afforable price, and does not lock you into any subscription or license out of the box.

I decided to change the rack layout around, and move the networking to the back of the rack. And also upgrade to 40G networking.

Shown below, from top to bottom, are:

1U pfSense Firewall
- Supermicro X10SDV-4C-TLN2F Motherboard
  - 4 Core, 8 Thread Xeon-D 1521 CPU
  - On-board Dual 1/10G RG45 Intel NIC
- 32GB (4x8GB) DDR4 ECC RAM
- Mellonox ConnectX-3 40Gbe NIC
- 2x120GB SSD for mirrored Boot drive
Mikrotik CRS326-24S+2Q+ Switch
- 24x 10G SFP+ Ports
- 2x 40G SQFP+ Ports
- 1x Dedicated RG45 Management Port
Mikrotik CRS354-48P-4S+2Q+ Switch
- 48x PoE 1G RJ45 Ports
- 4x 10G SFP+ Ports
- 2x 40G QSFP+ Ports
- 1x Dedicated RG45 Management Port

Front of the rack is now fill with individual On/Off switch PDUs for quick servicing.

Shown below, from top to bottom, are:

APC Automatic Transfer System
- Automatically transfer power in case of power loss
- Connected to two UPS as inputs, and outputs to systems that does not have built-in redudant PSU
3x PDU with indiviudal on/off toggles
- Each connects to a differen UPS
Unifi Protect NVR
- Camera System
Raspberry Pi 4B 2GB
- Running Home Assistant
2x Raspberry Pi 3B
- Both Running Pi-Hole
4x Lenovo M720q/M920q Tiny PC, heavily modded in a blade server style
- XCP-NG Compute Nodes
- Each unit is fitted with
  - i5-8500 (6 Core 6 Threads)
  - 64GB (2x32GB) RAM
  - 2x 256GB SSD
  - Chelsio T422-CR 2x 10G SFP+ 2x 1G RJ45 NIC
3U TrueNAS server
- Supermicro X10SDV-4C-7TP4F Motherboard
  - Xeon-D 1541 (8 Cores 16 Threads)
- 64GB (4x16GB) DDR4 ECC RAM
- 4x12TB HDD in RAID 10
  - Spinning Rust Storage
- 2x 3.2TB U.2 NVMe SSD in RAID 1
  - XCP-NG NFS Datastore
- 4x 3TB HDD in RAID 10
  - XCP-NG Backup Share
2U TrueNAS Server
- Brother's TrueNAS server
- AsRock D1541D4U-2T8R Motherboard
- 64GB (4x16GB) DDR4 ECC RAM
4U Server
- Brother's ESXI compute server
- AsRock x470D4U AM4 Motherboard
- Ryzen 7 3800X
  - 8 Cores 16 Threads
- 128GB (4x32GB) DDR4 RAM
3x UPS

Lenovo Tiny PC Blade Server

This is currently one of my best DIY mod to date. Inspired by traditional 2U blade server designs, I designed and 3D printed a lot of parts to cram 4 compute units in a 2U space. Each "blade" is on a rail and can easily slide out for "quick" maintanence.

Completely gutted an old 2U server case, and cramed the compute units, sliding rails, PSUs, and a crossflow fan in it. Crossflow fans are a kind of fan that can push out tons of air at a relatively low noise, in a small foot print.