Ari builds a supercomputer(?)/ Pile of garbage

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A little blog space here to document this. I’ll be taking the attic, a bedroom, and another room, basically apart, reorganizing them, getting a rack of some sort, and running networking for a private cloud setup to run in the attic of my parents house.

This setup will contain:

1X Mac Pro 1,1 (networking firewall, monitor, etc, gateway to gigabit)
1X Dell R620 ( Main machine, vm’s and compute, 2x 10C20T, 256gb ram)
1X Dell R510 ( NAS / Update server, will run nextcloud, 2x 6c12t 64gb ram)
2 or 3 desktops ranging from mini dtx to SSI EEB
A switch
1x Dell PS4000E San
And some backup batteries of some sort

Eventually

For right now I just have the servers. I’m currently shopping for a 24-30U server rack to put all this in. Even new, as I want the rack to have top ventilation.

The rack will be placed in the attic right next to a window. I would like to take the window in that space out and replace it and mount an AC unit in the wall there permanently, or at least mountstuff so it can be left there and not leak, and then be able to dump cold air straight into the case.

In duo with this, I’ll be basically cleaning up my parents house. Their hoarders, so it’ll be a time. But I’ve also been given free reign to do what I want with the space.

Pictures will have shit everywhere. Will post as I clean up, so be aware if I seem excited it’s because I am cleaning up where I grew up.

This whole process will be somewhat nerve wracking as well, so be aware if I’m asking for a motivator it’s for a reason.

Anyways, here we go I guess. Will post pictures of the space next when I can um… Access it.

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Sounds like an exciting but daunting project…

Good luck. :slight_smile:

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I look forward to seeing it develop! I may try to talk my wife into letting me build a cabinet.

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:popcorn:

Heck yeah, more homelab blogs!

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Lol. First thing is first, clean up my bedroom. Had an arthritis flare today so wa. Slow.

My parents shoved everything remotely mine in the door when they kicked me out so I’ve been cranking at it. This is just today.

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Saying this is an effort is an understatement. You can see why I left in october. It’s pretty much this all over the damn house.

You could only stand on the bed before. I actually got to the other side of the room, vacuumed, moved shit, now it’s just arranging until clean. Planning to get a mini fridge from the basement.

The servers are going to be located directly above this room.

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Are those christmas lights strung up on the inside of the window?

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Ye. C’est of the house was a mess last I was here so I put them up as a distraction.

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no excuses, get to it!

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Boy do I got stories for you.

I basically have been on repeat, but not being at home one or the other of my parents just throws more of my shit in my room. I’m home now so they won’t do that, hopefully.

… Actually I should just have a yard sale.

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that a decent idea and would help free up space and money for your homelab

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Anyone wanna buy knitting or sewing machines lol there’s like 200 for some god damn reasen

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post in BST?

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Might be better than having an actual garage sale lol

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may i suggest minimalism? it can get quite addictive when you start.

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Well could pile it all in a storage locker or two and auction it all off lol

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I’m interested in your motivation to use the 1,1 Mac Pro as a router/firewall - is this purely due to availability? I figure maybe you need more power than your average router for some advanced networking stuff but the 1,1 is hardly a powerful machine by today’s standards.

Then again, the idea of using yesteryear’s high end workstation as a router does make me chuckle a bit.

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Atm I am starting with 2 servers and a 10/100 switch. What is more minimalist than that?

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I like that idea, though I’m not an asshole lol.

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Flat ass it has 2 gigabit nics in it and I can’t afford new shit. If I get lucky I can find 50 ft or longer ethernet cables at the recycle center, which is basically my best buy, for ’ dollar. So I just drop cables out the window to the router, which is in a big ass room made of windows.

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Quite seriously I just chuck them bc the tree next to the house blocks view and I personally can’t trim anything, don’t know how, and no one will do it or show me how to do it safely. So atm until everything inside is clean, this’ll do. I figure if I kill a cable it’s a dollar, no one but my dad really complains or sees it, and eventually I actually plan to color match wire to the inside of the house and run it up the corners of the walls.

There’s no wiring actually in the house for ethernet. My dad fought about having ethernet in the house, didn’t want it. Well, now he gets to deal with this, is basically how I view it. I could try to run it in the walls and cut out panels and fuck shit up, or I could do it the way my boss at work taught me and you just run cables along the bottom of the wall and mount a little switch at the end.

50ft goes pretty far in a house, so I figure if I can do it cleanly it’ll look like another part of the baseboard and will go unnoticed.

That’s way later though. Getting ready for work early so I can just leave when it’s time.

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That’s as good a reason as any! Has some future expansion potential as well if you add some pcie network cards.

At my old house I ran cables down one of the outside walls to get ethernet upstairs to my bedroom/office/server cabinet - ethernet cables are pretty sturdy, even the ones that aren’t rated for outside runs, so I reckon you’ll be fine.