The "network pile to network rack" mini rack

[ben-parker]

I have operated a home server for many years now, mostly to serve my media library but also hosting some apps locally. In the past the server has just sat in my office with my primary computer, but in my current house our fiber internet is terminated in a closet right off my office. The server + networking equipment ended up in a big pile and was quite messy.

I built the rack out of some poplar I had lying around. I got the rails + hardware and shelf from Amazon. I attached some adjustable feet to the bottom of the rack to allow me to get it perfectly level with my tower so that I could use the tops of both as a table for the monitor or to store other stuff in the future.

If I ever get access to a 3d printer I would love to print a face plate for my router as well as rack-mounting the Orange Pi. Would also be nice (and overkill) to get a patch panel to put in the top of it -- I think if I do that, I'll just get two and another set of rails for the back legs. Then, mount both patch panels to allow me to plug stuff into the back of the rack as well (it is about 18" deep). If I can find some cheap mini pcs I'd also like to add some separate compute to play with Kubernetes and other stuff without disrupting my main server.

Hardware pictured:

• Unraid server housed in a Fractal Design R2. It is an i3-12100 with 32 GB of RAM and 34 TB of storage. This runs my media server and a bunch of containers for various stuff.
• Monitor and keyboard for when Unraid decides not to boot correctly
• Eero 6 router + access point
• Orange Pi 3 LTS running the Internet Pi project
• TP-Link gigabit switch, unmanaged
• Cyberpower UPS
• 8U Rails + hardware from Amazon
• DeskPi Rack Mate rack shelf
• Adjustable furniture feet levelers (I wish I could have found smaller ones, they are way too big for the legs)