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The original was posted on /r/homelab by /u/Wasted-Friendship on 2023-08-08 22:51:37+00:00.

I am very new to this. I have been building my home lab one piece at a time to keep it hidden from the wife, but she recently saw the mess of devices and cables and asked me to organize it. Whew!

A few questions:

1.) Open vs closed rack? What are the advantages of each?

2.) Brand name vs generic? What’s the most versatile? Networking has become a hobby, and starting to play around with NUCs and Tinkerboard arrays.

3.) How big is enough? I have three rackable devices, a computer that will become a server instance, a Cyber Power UPS, and two Synology NAS devices. I was thinking 12U-15U, but I don’t want it so big that it draws attention.

4.) I am meshed through the house. Keep the primary unit outside of the cabinet, correct?

5.) I WFH and need something quiet. Do you upgrade the fans? Goes back to number 1. I presume more dust there, but easier to keep quiet since the devices are already in my office.

6.) I see a 600mm and 400mm in the device. I don’t know what those are. The holes for mounting?

7.) Does the depth matter?

Thanks in advance for the help…and for reading this far.

Peace,

WF