Tag: homelab-hardware

Calculate true energy costs: watts, kWh, BTU output, and 5-year TCO for homelab hardware swaps. When efficiency pays back.

Dell R630/R730 and SuperMicro buying guide for 2026. Real idle power draw, how loud they get, what to avoid entirely, and how to read an eBay listing.

Cut rack cable clutter with Power over Ethernet. A no-nonsense guide to PoE standards, switch power budgets, and cleanly powering your home lab gear rack.

USB-C Power Delivery can cleanly power your entire mini-PC homelab. Here is what PD versions, cable wattage ratings, and UPS compatibility actually matter.

Used 10GbE NICs for your homelab in 2026: which Mellanox, Intel, or Chelsio card to buy, which ones to skip entirely, and exactly why the X540 runs hot.

Stop living with spaghetti rack cables. A practical guide to DIY patch panels, structured rack cabling, and a cable layout that will not haunt you at 2 AM.

SFP+ optics, DACs, AOCs, and fiber for home lab 10G networking, what to buy, what to avoid, and how to stop vendor lock-in from wrecking your wallet.

Your no-BS guide to buying a used GPU for local LLM inference in 2026. Budget tiers from $300 to $5,000 plus, real VRAM math, and tips to dodge the scams.