Homelab

I only have a passing interest in homelab stuff, but I just wanted to say that I got really excited because I thought those were a bunch of PS2s. Thought this was gonna be some weird FFXI or Battlefront LAN system.

Other than mounting the switch above and running the network cables up the rear there doesn’t seem to be a easy solution

Serious question what is this for...

what is the use case for this?

What are you running here?

Get a cheap UCS or super micro server on eBay. You can get a stupid number of cores and RAM for just about nothing, then you have one box, and altogether probably a LOT less power draw

Looks great now.

What about a bunch of poe power splitters and a poe switch ?

10" racks

Consolidate power might not be possible 12v? Even 20amps is 4-6 computers. Just get 10" pdu's they have 3 plugs. I know there's 17 computers and 3 switches that's like 7 pdu's..

20 shelves

2x 10u 10" racks..

You'll need to have a 10u empty to keep going for expandability.

Have a look here for some ideas racksolutions

Low hanging fruit: ditch the dumb switches and get a 48 port or something. Place it on the shelf above. If you’re using the two switches to ensure that you have more throughput per machine considering putting in a 10gbit uplink. Beyond that consider mounting/stacking the monitors differently and changing out the wood shelves for metal shelves for airflow. The trick is to know in which direction they dissipate heat. If they’re fanless the heat is gonna go up which will limit your ability to stack.

Get some 2x2 boards, a crown stapler, and window/door screen and make 3 panels big enough to cover the exposed sides. I did that and everyone said it looked cool. And it only cost like $40 because I already had the crown stapler.

The setup is fine since you're obviously trying to be budget conscience. I'd say cable management is really what you need more than anything else.

However, if you're handy with wood and a saw, or sheet metal and a brake (I assume you don't have a 3d printer):

• Stack them in sets of 4. The design of those NUCs allow them to be stacked without any thermal issues, as long as the ambient air is kept low enough.
• Put the power supplies for each stack at the bottom of the stack in a 2x2 pattern (two side by side and stacked 2 high) - they should then match the footprint of each NUC
• Set up a frame to hold each stack, I'd recommend 4 posts of 1/2"x2" flat stock wood (or 18GA steel strapping), 2 running along each side with 6"x6" platforms for each stack level to hold the frame together
• For stack platforms at a minimum I recommend one at the bottom to hold your termination points (see below), one about 1" above the bottom one for the power supplies, one separating the power supplies and NUCs, and if you're using sheet metal, one for each NUC. You can also add a cross bar at the top to use as a handle.
• For power, those DC bricks use a standard C13 connector, so I would recommend a short length 4xC13-to-1xC14 splitter so that you only have one C13 input for the entire stack of 4 NUCs (if you're in Asia, your local electronics shop should be able to make you a few splitters for pretty cheap if they don't already have ones kicking around)
• Both the NUCs and the DC bricks should be ziptied/string tied, or velco'ed to stack frame
• Route the single C14 input to the bottom of the stack to the termination level (will probably be about 6"
• Same for the network cables, run them down the side zip tied to frame and have them terminate at the bottom termination level. If you're decent at terminating, or if you know someone who is fast at it, you can just crimp custom length cables for each of the 4 NUCs. Otherwise it should be 2x12" cables and 2x18" cables.
• At the bottom I personally would recommend terminating with a CAT5e/CAT6 jack rather than a plug
• Then orient your termination points so they point forward, that way all the cable hide at the back of the stack

Once you have all your NUCs in modular stacks, you can just run network cables and C13 power cords neatly along the front of the shelf, and have them input at the bottom of each stack. Then just tie your runs to each stack in a neat bundle and mount your switches to the underside of those shelves.

If you need to service a stack, you can just disconnect the stack in question at the termination points at the bottom of the stack and lift the whole assembly out, without having to play with wires. If you want to be extra fancy, you can even set up grooves or guides on the shelf to ensure the stacks are always placed in the correct position.

Personally I'd buy big power supply at the voltage it needs, get some board with fuses and connect all to that.

But it seems you need few more shelves and pack of zip-ties first.

This looks like a problem that would be solved cheaper with less mess by a used Lenovo Thinkstation P720, a pair of Xeon Gold 6140s, a dozen 32GB DIMMs, a 4TB NVMe, and a copy of VMware.

Why on earth do you have so many minis?

you can replace the 17 power supplies with a server PSU... these should all be 12v DC input with a standard 2.1x5.5MM barrel connectors...

flip them up onto their face, with the rear facing up. if you want to get fancy you could even make a base that integrates a little wedge and rod for the power button.

get at least a 24 port switch and micro ethernet cables.

this could be cleaned up to a single row on one shelf with no visible wires other than the ethernet and power lead running up and to the back. 1 switch under the machines... 1 PSU instead of 17... even one power cord...

or a little cable management at the very least...

You could buy some cable track for the ethernet cables. It's pretty cheap too! you can even turn the boxes around and practice cable routing to make it nice!

Bonus points if you get a patch panel with keystone couplers to bring small cables to each unit.

Just close the door.

I would suggest to get a rack with shelves, rack mountable PDU strips, and a rack mountable switch.

How to make this better?

Replace with a real server and virtualize the snott out of it.

If only someone made a distributed power supply box for 19V (like for cctv) you cumulative ditch all the bricks.

I'm sure you could probably replace all of these with a single mid range cpu lmao.

IKEA kvissle

🤔

Stack them sideways and get a patch panel.

PoE perhaps? If those boxes support it, that would massively reduce your cable clutter

perhaps some context here would help?

replace them with on box = problems solved

Rack Mount Bays and PoE kits for them.

Get a mini rack system that fits on the big shelf and stack up the box things. Then go from there. And tie wraps for the power cables.

Meh, this isn't what is seems. OP is just being cute. My guess is that he is imaging these hosts from a WDS server or similar. I've done deployments that mimic this setup exactly (though considerably more neatly), and its very typical to misconstrue what is actually happening at a glance.

Mount the mini PC into shelves inside a server cabinet.

Patch panels for shorter and clean Ethernet cable runs.

Server rack mount power supply, instead of bricks plugged into power strips.

Why do you have 17 mini pc? What are you doing with them?

What is going on in this picture? What devices are there and what are they doing?

I was up against this last year, 130 Lenovo m75Q's, how to fit 130 into a 42u rack including powerbricks. Solution was 3d printing.