Here’s a full write-up on the first year of my Home-Lab: https://piefed.social/post/1002037
Since then I’ve now added networking and a self built 10" rack, I was undecided between MikroTik and UniFi but ended up going UniFI and I’m quite happy.
Building the 2020 Aluminum profile 10" server rack was a lot of fun and I learnt a lot of lessons along the way like:
- Cutting perfectly straight with a hacksaw is a bitch and nearly impossible (or at least for me) would not recommend.
- Buy a table saw or have them pre-cut
- Tapping threads yourself is a lot of fun, and I would recommend doing it yourself, worked perfectly every time.
- Bolt length and head size matters, even 1mm matters (that’s what she said)
It’s jankey I know, but I love it and it’s a lot less Jankey than when everything was just on my desk
Next step for me would be to buy a 3D Printer (Sovol S6 Plus Ace) and print custom racks for everything
Shout out to https://www.motedis.com/ for the Aluminum parts, they can cut and tap all the parts to your desired length if you don’t want to bother with that, but that’s half the fun (and frustration)
I didn’t grasp the scale at first and was wondering where you got the dog-sized disk drives
Looks great!
Table saws are dangerous, and to cut accurately and straight, you need to build an appropriate sled. You can get better safety and more bang for your buck cutting it over-dimension with a jigsaw or hacksaw, and then making a wooden jig to finish the end with a router.
You’re off to a great start! Working with adjustable aluminum extrusions is smart.
I think a miter/chop saw would be the best tool for the job, if we’re in the realm of power tools.
@Ek-Hou-Van-Braai That looks awesome! Is there a write-up on the build process? Because I’d like to build something similar but haven’t worked with such profiles nor did I ever own or build a rack.
E.g. I guess you used 20x20 Type B profiles?
Thanks!!
All the details you need are here: https://www.darkrym.com/posts/2025/05/my-rack-setup-2020-extrusion-diy-mini-rack/
I essentially copied this, but with different corner connections and made mine 28cm deep
I used 2020 Type B yes.
What are the unifi bits? I don’t recognize them but I’m no expert.
R/unifi was full of complaints but I bet a lot of it is selection bias. My UISP gear is pretty close to bulletproof.
Cool idea with the diy rack. I wonder how competitive it is with a “real” rack but it’s so dependent on location and what you want in it and so on.
So I have the UniFi Express 7 and a 2.5Gbps 8 port managed switch to go along with it. It’s overkill for my current needs but it allows me to expand on it a lot if I like.
It’s potentially cheaper to just buy a RackMate, or 3D print a 10" rack, but where’s the fun in that.
Cool. I’m considering replacing my aging Pfsense box (which there’s nothing wrong with) with a UI router; presently I don’t need more than 100mbit. The integrated wifi doesn’t meet my needs though.
