Hardware
Learn about the hardware I deploy and their specs. I will breakdown most of the hardware I use within my homelab, what I am using it for and the capabilities of the devices.
I want to kick off my homelab series by explaining the type of hardware I use to run my homelab on and a bit about how they’re all configured for my projects.
Networking
I figured working our way in from the external connection would be the best idea on how to start this. I also feel like I need to add some context to choices, at least before the questions are asked. We live in a house that was built in the 60’s and all the walls are pure blocks of cement. Since buying it, we have been renovating and part of our next set of plans is to run fiber through the already existing power conduit. We went with fiber due to the potential for power cables to interfere with traditional copper. Also, getting shielded cat6 through these panduit tubes would be more difficult than fiber. 
Starting with the connection to the ISP we are using a Fritz!Box 7583 on Fritz!OS 7.57. This is a pretty standard modem you will get here and I’ve never had a huge drive to homelab networking, so this modem has been more than perfect for a casual or power user.
Recent updates have introduced Wireguard, dynamic DNS, and out of the box the device can act as a NAS with usb storage, a media center and quite a few other nice features.
The Specs would indicate it might need more antennas but I dont judge. 
The rest of the house is connected with Devolo Magic 1’s. These are just 1200 Mbps device that connects via Powerline Communication. Pretty much, you plug it into your powerline and it can transmit wifi or you can plug an ethernet cable into them. These are how we currently hard connect the house. 
When we get into my office, my connection to the Devolo gets trunked into an HP PS1810-24G switch. It’s a pretty nice layer 2 managed switch I’ve had for the past 10 years and will be sad to drop once we upgrade to fiber. This badboy has been a workhorse and never once gave me an issue for the length I’ve had it. Due to having this switch so long and never needing to replace it I honestly don’t know where you could find one and in fact, when researching the device. I’ve since learned it’s been ‘retired’; at least the latest documents are from 2018.
I have a few dummy switches here and there but those are tied to specific projects so will get covered there. As I mentioned previously. We’re in the process of upgrading everything about our network and it’s not the primary focus of our work and hobbies at home. It works and best of all, it’s functional and easy to maintain.
Firewalls, Vlans, and all those other network specific skills you can learn I tend to believe should be dedicated to the lab and not the home network. Guests, my wife, and even me, all depend on a reliable and stable core network.
Compute
I used to have a hulking behemoth of a home server. A Dell Tower Server T110 that I would run ESX on. I have since parted with that monstrosity and having picked up homelabbing again (yes I did that) I have gone a bit smaller in form factor.
Introducing my Gigabyte Brix mini PCs.
Micro PCs
Just one of these micro-pcs has more resources than my old T110. Naturally I bought 2. Something about clustering, which gives me a reason to buy three at some point 😈.
Not being satisfied with that, I upgraded the RAM and storage. I was not too concerned with the CPU since the type of work I do is not CPU intensive and even when I was running a homelab previously, I never felt the need to have more CPUs or processing power. There was always a demand for RAM or disk.
Current Specs for 2 BRIX mini-pcs.
| CPU | Model | Cores | Speed | Memory | Speed | Video |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AMD Ryzen 5 | 4500U | 4 | 2.30GHz | 32GB | 3200MHz | Onboard |
My storage setup is pretty simple as I mostly wanted enough space on the mini-pc’s to host things if I needed them to. I also have a nas I can always connect via ISCSI or cifs for that little bit extra.
| M2 | Extra Storage |
|---|---|
| 1TB | 1TB Samsung Evo |
These devices are connected to the HP switch as that acts like a core switch for my office and homelab.
As for why I have two? I had wanted at the minimum one mini PC to see what they were like and I was eager to host a few applications in docker. I had also wanted to have a few goes at installing some legacy software like Windows 95 and XP for nostalgia. Eventually I got a job where I would be working with kubernetes.
I bought the second BRIX as a means to deploy kubernetes clusters so I can enhance a ton of skills in this area. As I mentioned before, I can not sit in a lecture or study and pass a certificate course and come out actually knowing what I am doing. Let alone would I dare to have any authority in the subject. I need hands-on experience, I need trial and error. I need to do it wrong 99 times before I get it right.
This led into another new project. In fact, I would love to cover this in its own series since I found it a blast and fascinating to do.
Raspberry Pi Cluster
If you have dipped your toe into the world of homelab, kubernetes, Raspberry Pi or a combination of the three. You might have stumbled across a project where someone built a cluster running kubernetes on PI’s. I knew instantly I wanted to try this.
4 Raspberry PI 4B’s, 1 Switch, 1 USB powerbank and some CAT6 and I had my own cluster components. 
| CPU | Model | Cores | Speed | Memory | Speed | Video |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ARM v8 | B | 4 | 1.8GHz | 8GB | 3200MHz | N/A |
Storage
We own a NAS and fortunately dont live that RAID0 life-style. The NAS is a Synology DS1621+ and rather than try and explain through text everything about the synology I’ll just give a screenshot of the storage pool as it should give plenty of context.
| CPU | Model | Cores | Speed | Memory | Speed | Video |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AMD Ryzen | V1500B | 4 | 2.2GHz | 4GB | 3200MHz | N/A |
Outside of this storage pool, I have increased the RAM of the Synology from its stock to a nice 16GB and can recommend doing this ASAP. It doesn’t have to be 16GB but I found getting away from the 4GB default to make everything about the device better. Because of the CPU and RAM upgrade, I actually run containers on this host as well.
Recap
So, breaking it all down into a table, at least the possible compute I can use for this lab, as well as a 14.5TB NAS with drive upgrade options. I have plenty of space to play.
| Device | CPU | Model | Cores | Speed | Memory | Speed | Video |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brix01 | AMD Ryzen 5 | 4500U | 4 | 2.30GHz | 32GB | 3200MHz | Onboard |
| Brix02 | AMD Ryzen 5 | 4500U | 4 | 2.30GHz | 32GB | 3200MHz | Onboard |
| Synology | AMD Ryzen | V1500B | 4 | 2.2GHz | 4GB | 3200MHz | N/A |
| Raspberry Pi 4b | ARM v8 | B | 4 | 1.8GHz | 8GB | 3200MHz | N/A |
| Raspberry Pi 4b | ARM v8 | B | 4 | 1.8GHz | 8GB | 3200MHz | N/A |
| Raspberry Pi 4b | ARM v8 | B | 4 | 1.8GHz | 8GB | 3200MHz | N/A |
| Raspberry Pi 4b | ARM v8 | B | 4 | 1.8GHz | 8GB | 3200MHz | N/A |
This is the primary hardware I will be working with when I talk about things related to docker or kubernetes. I wanted to go for a simple, small and practical setup that would fit with my office space layout and I believe I hit a nice balance for the goals I want to accomplish with the hardware.