If it’s a 1U they can sound like a jet engine. The Noctua 40MM fans can be swapped in and cut the noise a good bit.
You can also build a shroud to place over the case, the idea is to allow the air to flow but use something like deep pile carpet to line the inside and absorb the sound created.
It will never be silent but you can get the sound to the point where it won’t rot your brain.
Yes, I’ve been tinkering for a while. The network piece I have had the longest is actually my 10G switch. Previously I had a couple 8 port switches but when I started wiring the house up I didn’t want to be playing any games.
I buy a lot of used enterprise equipment. If you are planning to have multiple access points that can use POE (power over ethernet) you can buy a new 5 port switch and be ok but if you are thinking about cameras a used 24 or 48 port POE switch from ebay well save you a ton in the long run. The Dell PowerConnect 5548 (48 port 1Gbps switch) I am using provides two 10G connections so that I can use a pair of DAC (Direct Attached Copper) Cables for a total of 20Gbps from my 10Gbps backbone. It’s overkill but it means even with multiple cameras, ap’s and wired clients I don’t have to worry about oversaturating the connection. My camera server also connects via fiber as does my NAS/media server.
Mini pc’s are great right up to the point where you want to expand beyond what they are capable of. Without a PCI Express slot upgrading the network will require the use of a USB adapter but they can be more of a pain than it’s worth. You can find stuff with more ports but there is a point where it will probably be cheaper to just get something you can expand with.
For failover to 4G the Netgear LM1200 has the option to go between your current internet connection and your router and negotiate the connection and automatically switch. I just use it like an ONT (Optical Network Transceiver) or Cable Modem and let OpnSense control the switch over because then I get accurate measurement of the data used and length of downtime. But that also means I need a minimum of three ethernet connections two for WAN and one for LAN.
I purchased my router parts used on Ebay. A similar setup in a 1U format (which I wouldn’t recommend unless you have a place where you can keep it and not hear it in your day to day life, are deaf, or are wrong to swap it into a new case with a different cooler) can be picked up as of right now for 185.00 plus tax and about 35 shipping.
If you have questions though please feel free to ask.
OpnSense is amazing.
I’ve used it for over 10 years after using a ton of other stuff. I run a 10G fiber connection from my router to my 10G network backbone with multiple vLan’s. My ISP provides me a 1Gbps fiber connection to an ONT. I also use a Netgear LM1200 as a wired Cellular backup which OpnSense selects automatically when the fiber loses connectivity.
I am running mine using a Xeon E3-1226 v3 in a Supermicro X10SLL-F with 16GB of RAM and a 128GB Sata SSD. 10G is provided using a Mellanox ConnectX3 and an SFP+ module with OM3 Fiber.
I’m running a Quanta LB6M for my fiber backbone and a Dell PowerConnect 5548 for 1Gbps ethernet connections.
For WiFi I use a pair of TP-Link Omada EAP-650’s with the OC200 controller using POE. It hands over seamlessly as clients move around the house and I’m planning to add a 3rd AP upstairs when I have finished my solar install and competed the building of the master suite.
I haven’t seen that specific thread, but while Google making the driver open source is a noble gesture compared to the ‘black box’ approach of companies like Nvidia, open source isn’t a magic fix. We’ve seen countless projects die simply because no one has the time or the specialized knowledge to maintain them.
Right now, the community is handling minor patches, but we are one major Linux kernel architectural change away from needing a ground-up rewrite of the Gasket driver. If/or when that happens, and no one steps up to do the heavy lifting, thousands of these devices will become security risks or paperweights. It’s particularly frustrating because they are still being sold brand new to unsuspecting users who assume they’re buying a supported, plug-and-play product.
Not that I know of.
https://github.com/feranick/gasket-driver is the best option for now. But you also need the same gcc version installed as what was used to compile the kernel.
Glad you found out before the purchase. I made my purchase September 2024 and still rely on it for FrigateNVR.
I’m hoping that somehow a few people will get together to keep it going for a while. I sadly don’t understand most of the programming and such.
I’m guessing it’s because more powerful hardware is coming out all the time. But for a lot of homelabs more power isn’t really needed to watch a few cameras for basic detection.
And yes the hardware hasn’t been made in a while but new old stock is still being sold. Hence the reason for the post.
Oddly enough right before I saw this post some alternatives were in my news feed.
https://itsfoss.com/news/minio-moves-away-from-open-source/
Highlights are:
SeaweedFS
Garage
RustFS
I have one question. Are you using an of the shelf router or something like OpnSense?
If the answer is no then you have found a good place to get started. As you begin to self host you will need to look at securing your new toys.
You will gain a ton over a consumer router. They are often just powerful enough to get the job done today. They rarely get updated and if the product is end of life you can only hope a project has picked it up or replace it with similar risks. Building your own you can shoot the specs to a point where you have room to run other features and last a long time. You can run something like CrowdSec, multiple vLan’s, time server, DNS servers with multiple upstream servers and ad blocking similar to piHole, Caddy, ACME client, captive portal for guest networks, Intrusion Detection, and a lot more.
Then you will not only have some understanding of the function and use while you expand your self hosting journey to all those fun services you will also have the flexibility to secure your network when you begin to integrate those things into your home and life.
I’m running my own router using OpnSense, server running TrueNAS, smart home with HomeAssistant and fairly complex network of devices. I have a 10Gbps fiber backbone and a 48 port switch for my 1Gbps ethernet. It can be addictive especially when you are rebuilding a house.
After that figure out what you need, want, and desire. But keep your router as a separate device from everything else. And remember that what you think you need will only work for today, software is only going to get more complex and need more horsepower to keep it going.
For hardware there are two schools of thought, newer lower power devices and older stuff. The choice is spend now or over time. My used X10SLL-F with a xeon E3-1226 v3 router, my X10DRH-C with a pair of E5-2683 v3’s and my desktop Ryzen 5800X which is currently also my Frigate NVR host along with other miscellaneous hardware draws along with the other devices in the house (fridge, deep freezer, smarthome stuff, and the like) draw about 1100 watts. So my baseload is about the same as any other us household.