I use one of those coax/Ethernet converters in my house. It’s a 2-story place and running Ethernet was going to be too daunting for a room.

Overall it works very well (I had bad experiences with using network over electrical power). The only thing that will be a downer is the gigabit coax converters seem to be expensive. Since I just had 1 client in an isolated network, 100mbps was fine for me but would hamper your NAS throughout. You’d also need to buy 2 sets of converters for your use case, so that’s potentially not cheap if you’re wanting gigabit from end to end.

Some of the newer wireless standards are very quick, but you’d also need to ensure all NICs are compatible and a newer AP wouldn’t be free.

Perhaps talk to the landlord about splitting the cost of getting Ethernet professionally run in all rooms. It may be the most cost effective solution, but the drawback is you walk away with nothing. The landlord would be able to advertise Ethernet ready infra, so there is some benefit for them to do it.

I still love you

Yep, I’m speaking in generalities. Overall, my point is that a homelab doesn’t need something expensive because it may not be heavily used, so most of those features are not necessary. If the guy had mentioned running a business or customers, that’d be a different story.

You even had to qualify your own statement that one has to modify hard drive power consumption to achieve acceptable noise levels.

I had a SIEM running on a mini-pc like a champ. It cost me fifteen bucks and taught me a lot. Build to requirement, not title.

Bear in mind, a system that is built to be a dedicated server will be meant to crunch data. That means 2 things:

• loud fans

• heavy electricity use

If you just want a lab, I suggest getting a desktop PC and loading a server OS on it. Practical hardware experience isn’t too valuable because platforms change and they usually make them super simple to maintenance with lots of online support. Getting a desktop will also save you some bread on initial investment.

Exactly. The use-case dictates requirements, then you build according to that. Will this work for a camera system? With the right drive(s) added, sure. Would this run something graphics intensive very well? Not particularly.

I agree with the others, looks good. Don’t be too hard on yourself.

I would suggest something light for the cabinetry/accents or it’s going to become a dungeon.

Keep up the good work!

True. Hard to fix that one though.

It’ll be ugly as all getout from the inside, but this is probably the only thing you can do aside from replacing the drawer or replacing the backer board.

That said, you should probably fix the primary reason this broke. That much force means:

• the drawer guides may also need work or it will happen again.
• the items in the drawer which may have jammed it shut should get reorganized to keep it from happening again.
• the temper may need some work if this was purely a result of unloading frustration on furniture. This fix may not cost a significant amount, but a bad temper can generate drastically more financial (and sometimes criminal) damage than moderate self control. I know this one well.

I would learn about mtbf if I were you. Everything has a failure point (generally buried deep in product info), and when you start keeping it on 24/7, the hours will burn. Those fans on your GPU will give it up way before they normally would.

Finding a used server is not a good idea either. You aren’t in a data center and servers are super loud. Also, they chew up electricity like a hungry dog and his dinner.

As others have said, find a used desktop somewhere and a cheap KVM switch so you can use the same peripherals for both. It doesn’t need to be beefy by any measure (maybe drive space), just affordable.