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Project MINI RACK

Jeff Geerling's first MINI RACK

A guide for miniature rack builds, for portable or compact Homelabs.

Some links in this repository are affiliate links—I earn for qualifying purchases. These links help fund the ongoing maintenance of this project :)

This repository is maintained by Jeff Geerling, who lives in the US. Sadly, mini rack gear is often only available in specific regions. For example, many vendors sell only in the UK or parts of Europe. So this repository is mainly focused on gear I'm able to acquire, living in the US. That doesn't mean its scope can't broaden over time, though.

Hardware

10" Mini Racks

At the center of every mini rack is a 10" or 'half-width' rack. A typical rack is 19" wide, but half-racks fit in more places. There are only a few manufacturers of mini racks, currently, and availability varies by country.

PDUs and UPSes

Every device in a rack needs power. If it's not provided by a PoE switch, it has to come from somewhere! A PDU, or Power Distribution Unit, takes one power source (usually AC wall power) and lets you plug multiple devices into it—whether through DC 12V adapters, USB-C, or AC outlets.

Some PDUs can be remotely managed, other PDUs are basically rack-mountable surge protectors. And yet others distribute power with more panache.

UPSes, or Uninterruptable Power Supplies, offer protection against brownouts or power loss, and usually have better power protection circuits as well.

Ongoing discussions:

Patch Panels

Patch panels help organize a mess of RJ45 network cables, USB, HDMI, Coax, or whatever other signals you'd like to pass through from the back to the front. Often mounted just above or below a switch for a tidy install.

Network Gear

The heart of every homelab is a network switch or router. There aren't a lot of switches that can natively mount in a 10" rack, but every year a couple new 'half rack' models are introduced.

In this section, gear will be split between devices which natively mount in a 10" rack (e.g. with hard-mounted rack ears), and devices which can fit in a 10" rack but require a shelf or 3D printed mounting adapter.

Rack-mountable gear

Gear that fits on a 10" shelf

Note: Some switches intended for full-width rack mount ears may work in a 10" rack with 'universal' rack ears, like the Pelopy Adjustable Universal Rack Mount Ear Kit. Alternatively, some switches (like the Zyxel) may have 3D printable ears on a site like Printables or Thingiverse.

3D Printable mini rack systems

Some makers have created entire mini rack 'systems', where you 3D print a faceplate (or cut it out of metal, like with SendCutSend), and insert different types of gear, like SBCs, SSDs, mini network switches, etc.

This section is for systems, not individual 3D printable parts. For parts like cable modem or mini switch mounts, please see the respective sections elsewhere.

Mini PC / Server Shelves

There are a variety of commercial options to mount Mini ITX motherboards (or SBC clusterboards, like the Turing Pi 2, or DeskPi Super6C!), or to mount Tiny/Mini/Micro PCs like a Lenovo M series computer.

SBC Shelves

SBCs, or Single Board Computers, are ideal for mini racks, due to their low power, thermal, and space requirements. You can often fit multiple SBCs per U of rack space, and there are many mini rack setups centered around an SBC cluster, or SBC routers or storage devices.

Disk Shelves

It can be difficult to adapt storage devices (especially full 3.5" hard drives!) into a mini rack, but there are always solutions—sometimes as simple as placing a 2-bay NAS on its side, or putting an entire 4-bay NAS on a shelf!

Shelves and Blanking Panels

Not all gear can be mounted on rack rails. And not every U of space needs to be filled. Often, a device needs extra room above or below for cooling or for an accessory that sticks out. In these cases, you can employ a rack shelf or blanking panels.

Cable Management

Mini racks can quickly turn from beauty into beast, once you start plugging things into each other! Larger racks usually have areas where cables can be routed for a tidy finish and easy maintenance, but mini racks often don't have room. So you can add on accessories to tidy up unsightly cable messes.

Example builds for inspiration

I'm not the first person to build a mini rack. In fact, the mini-homelab community's been thriving for years! Check out Reddit r/minilab for some extra inspiration.

Software

TODO

License

GPLv3 or later

Author

Jeff Geerling

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