So many of these posts gainsaying the practice of a home lab are spot on. In my view it's plain foolish to try and cram enterprise gear into a living space. It's almost too hot and loud for my office, why would I take any of that home?
The other posts talking about Tiny Mini Micros are on the right track but I think it goes further yet - there's good reason to have a small rack of crap in the corner:
- ISP hardware.
- pfSense gateway.
- Wifi base station.
- A good gigabit switch for the house.
- Those tiny mini micros or Mac minis for lab stuff.
- a NAS chassis or two.
- Raspberry Pi clusters.
- PiDP-11 or other such hobby stuff that needs a place to sit and blink.
There are plenty of other uses too, like security DVRs, ingest stations for cameras/recorders, optical and tape media devices, etc.
None of that stuff is hot or loud, but you probably wouldn't want it piled up on your desk or spilling out of some bookshelf. And I think the article kinda gets at that point, tbh.
The other posts talking about Tiny Mini Micros are on the right track but I think it goes further yet - there's good reason to have a small rack of crap in the corner:
- ISP hardware.
- pfSense gateway.
- Wifi base station.
- A good gigabit switch for the house.
- Those tiny mini micros or Mac minis for lab stuff.
- a NAS chassis or two.
- Raspberry Pi clusters.
- PiDP-11 or other such hobby stuff that needs a place to sit and blink.
There are plenty of other uses too, like security DVRs, ingest stations for cameras/recorders, optical and tape media devices, etc.
None of that stuff is hot or loud, but you probably wouldn't want it piled up on your desk or spilling out of some bookshelf. And I think the article kinda gets at that point, tbh.