Homelab

I have a bunch of computers networked together that I call a homelab. It's not very high budget, and in fact most of it is hand-me-down or scavenged from the trash (and subsequently disinfected). But it works for my needs.

Main computer: HP Omen 15 (2017)

A hand-me-down laptop from a friend of mine who was upgrading. It's fairly large, so I don't carry it around with me. There's a billion cables attached at all times anyway, so it would be a huge pain.

One of these days I'd like to build my own beast of a computer, but it's not like I'm keeping up with any triple-A game titles these days, so what I have works fine.

OS: Arch Linux
CPU: Intel i7-7700HQ
GPU: Intel HD Graphics 630

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Mobile
RAM: 16 GB
HDD: HGST Travelstar 7K1000 (1TB)
SSD: SK Hynix Gold P31 (1TB)

Notes

I use both the integrated and discrete GPU since I have it connected to two monitors: a Huion Kamvas display tablet and some Viewsonic monitor. The Huion is mounted to this swivel arm thingy so I can pull it from a typical monitor position down to my desk to draw on it.
The SSD was originally a measly 120 GB boot drive, which started to fail after a while so I replaced it with a 1TB one.
I bought a 2x8 GB kit and added a stick to the server after my travel laptop's RAM failed, bringing my server from 8 to 16 GB.

Home server: Lenovo Ideapad Y50-70

My home server is also a hand-me-down laptop, this time from my family. A laptop might be an unusual choice for a server, but I like to think of it as a server with a built in UPS and monitor*, which has come in handy every now and then. It's quiet enough that I can sleep next to it daily, which is important since I live in a microscopic studio apartment.

OS: Debian Linux
CPU: Intel i7-4710HQ
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M

Intel HD Graphics 4600
RAM: 16 GB
SSD: Whatever came with it (1TB)

Services

Owncloud
Personal wiki (Mediawiki)
Two Airsonic instances
Two Szurubooru instances
Minecraft server (Aug-Nov 2023: Enigmatica 6 Expert)

Notes

The server recieved a RAM upgrade from 8 to 16 GB after I started hosting a Enigmatica 6 Expert server, which consumes a ridiculous amount of RAM. I actually don't think this is enough, especially with the other services running. I don't want to spend even more money, so I increased the swapfile to 6 GB which at least keeps it from OOMing.

Travel Computer: Lenovo Thinkpad X260

A trusty Thinkpad that's small enough to carry around. I used to have an L420 which was massive and broke my back every time I had to lug it around. Shame it doesn't have the old style keyboards which were way nicer to type on.

3D printer server: Samsung Galaxy S4 (+Ender 3)

I found an Ender 3 in the trash in my apartment building, believe it or not. It had a BL Touch bed leveling probe (incorrectly wired) and the power supply set to the wrong voltage. It hadn't been used in a long time, judging by the dust all around it. Turns out it works if you just flip the voltage switch, and swap a couple wires on the BL Touch cable.

The funny thing is, just the month before, I thought I'd get into 3D printing by getting a secondhand MP Mini Delta. So if I'd just waited a month, I wouldn't have spent all that extra for an inferior printer that I'm not using anymore.

The server that runs the Ender 3 is a Galaxy S4 with octo4a, a port of OctoPrint for Android. I used to use the phone as a daily driver, but it feels pretty sluggish now even with optimized LineageOS on it.

Retired hardware

Thinkpad L420

Before I got into homelabbing (and Linux), this used to be my only computer. It's heavy and runs Windows. I still boot it up every so often if there's something I need a real Windows install for, or if I need to read CDs.

Home server: HP Desktop

An HP desktop workstation I got at a surplus store, which was my home server before I started living alone. Has a 4TB SAS drive and Dell PERC H310 flashed to IT mode. Since I live in a studio now and the server is very loud (especially with the SAS drive), I haven't used it since I moved.