My Setup

An ever updated list of the hardware and software that I make use of in my homelab and daily use.

Inspired by Paul Stamatiou‘s post about the stuff he uses daily, I thought I would do the same. Not only to let people get an idea of what I use daily but also so I can keep track of the hardware/software that I have installed.

Server

  • Intel Core i7-8700K – I wanted to make sure I had enough power no matter what I threw at the server. Everything is running in its own Docker container, and I have plenty of resources left.
  • Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB – Same as above, I wanted to make sure I didn’t run into issues with running out of memory.
  • Samsung 970 EVO Plus Series – 500GB PCIe NVMe – Initially, I had a 500GB SSD, but I was still seeing some random buffering issues with Plex. Since installing the M.2 drive the only bottleneck I run into is the network bandwidth.
  • Rosewill 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet Card – While the motherboard had a gigabit NIC already, I wanted to separate the NAS traffic from the rest of the traffic. The Synology and server are on a private VLAN directly on this NIC.
  • ASUS Prime Z370-A II
  • NVIDIA Quadro P2000 – This was added after the initial build as I wanted to offload some of the heavy lifting to a CPU.  I can now transcode up to 23 streams without hitting the CPU.
  • 2x Tripp Lite 1500VA Smart UPS – Provides plenty of power to the server and the rest of the networking equipment in case of a power outage.

Desktop

My Setup as of December 1st, 2020

Network

Server Rack – March 1st, 2023
  • Synology 8 bay NAS DiskStation DS1817+ – Over the years, I have gone from a Drobo, homebuilt server, QNAP, and finally, the Synology. This has been an excellent NAS; I wish I had gone this route.  The only issue is that I wish it were a Rackmount version though that would have increased the price by another 1-2k which is not worth it.
  • 8x WD 12TB Hard Drives – Total available storage is currently 72TB.
  • NavePoint 18U rack – The most recent upgrade, so much nicer than having everything on a baker’s rack.
  • Ultimate Dream Machine Pro (UDM-Pro) – To keep my network as fast as possible and with the newest hardware, I upgraded to the UDM-Pro and am glad I did. It has helped me to max out my download and upload speeds.
  • UniFi Switch – 24 Ports Managed (US-24-250W) – This was also an upgrade, as I didn’t account for future devices. I started with an eight-port switch, then 2, and then three before finally selling them off and replacing them with this beast.
  • 2x UniFi 5 port switch (USW-Flex-Mini) – I wanted to bring some hardwired locations to various areas of the house, and this helped in doing so with their small footprints. 
  • 6x Unifi6 Pro (U6-Pro-US) – With more and more of the devices on my network having Wi-Fi6, it was only a matter of time until it made sense to upgrade all of the access points to utilize Wi-Fi6.
  • MetroNet 1GB Fiber Internet – After waiting two years, MetroNet finally finished their build-out in my area. It was well worth the wait as it is a fraction of the cost of Xfinity and the stable speeds that they provide are simply fantastic.

Audio / Video recording

Software

  • Safari – Since the newest release, I have switched to Safari full-time, only using Chrome for random site testing.
  • Brave – While I use Safari for everything, I also use Brave daily, mainly for personal use, e.g., non-work-related stuff.
  • 1Password – I couldn’t imagine daily operations without 1Password.
  • Raycast – While I had been an Alfred user for many years, I switched to
    Raycast in Feb 2023 as it seemed to have better integration, and an updated more maintained interface. I hope someday I can get back to Alfred but it just seems like it has not innovated very much if at all over the years.
  • Alfred – This app boosted my productivity by allowing me to keep my hands on the keyboard instead of using the mouse to navigate/launch apps.
  • Transmit – Simply the best FTP client for OSX
  • TextMate2 – I gave Sublime a couple of tries, but Texmate2 works how I need it to.
  • Sequel Ace – When you need to access MySQL/MariaDB databases all day, this is a must.