Built with second-hand hardware.Powered by curiosity.Never finished.
One human, one evolving AI, and a homelab assembled mostly from second-hand hardware. Not a showroom. A neverending experiment.
◈ rescued hardware⌁ actual measurements, never invented averages↗ built to change
EXHIBIT / 01
The Neverending Rack
Point at a machine. Follow the light. Click to pull it out and discover what it actually does.
RACK::EXPLORE
HOVER A DEVICE / CLICK TO EXPLORE
CURRENT / 20 OCTOBER 2026 / photographed hardware + owner's placement updates
ADASTRA / 22U / RACK 01◉ EXPLORATION MODE
DELUMINATOR / RARITAN PX324 OUTLETS • SPOT READINGS, NOT LIVE
OPEN
OPEN / NOTHING INSTALLED
B
C
D
L
G
F / 3U
OPEN
OPEN / NOTHING INSTALLED
I
J
OPEN
OPEN / NOTHING INSTALLED
B
C
D
OPEN
OPEN / NOTHING INSTALLED
G
F / 3U
OPEN
OPEN / NOTHING INSTALLED
L
I
J
SECOND-HAND HARDWARE / FIRST-CLASS CURIOSITY⌁
HOMELAB V1 // BEFORE THERE WAS A RACK
One motherboard. Two sideways drives. A lot of curiosity.
A stylised recreation of the actual early Unraid experiment, based on the owner's photograph. The exact assembly date has not been verified.
eBay HISTORY / AUGUST 20172 × £63.40 WD Red 2 TBPlus £6.99 red Cat6 cable (13 Aug 2017). These are confirmed historical purchases, not the full build cost.
No original assembly date or trustworthy total build cost has been established. Original photograph remains private until its publication is approved.
HOMELAB V2 // THE FLOOR SERVER
From the exposed bench to a proper case.
No Adastra cabinet yet. This black enclosure lived on the floor, with a meshed front and hot-swap 2.5-inch SSD capability.
V2 // ORIGINAL CASE ON THE FLOOR // RACK NOT YET BUILT
Photo-based styling. The case model, exact build date, installed drive count and RAM capacity are still to be verified.
HOMELAB V3 // THE X99 ERA
More expansion. More networking. Same curiosity.
Still a floor-server era, but the inside has changed. Explore the X99 motherboard, four-port Gigabit adapter and Corsair AX860 supply.
PURCHASED PARTS / RECEIPTS ARE NOT INSTALLATION DATESGA-X99-SLI £109 · AX860 £51 · quad-port NIC £24.95 The owner also purchased an E5-2650L v3 for £52.80 in June 2021. Its installation and the exact pictured expansion-card identities need verification. The £18.20 NIC listing showed Closed, but the owner confirms it was purchased too.
Four 1 Gb links can share up to approximately 4 Gb/s aggregate capacity across multiple traffic flows. One ordinary connection generally cannot use all four gigabits.
HOMELAB V4 // STILL ON THE FLOOR
The network begins to take shape.
Still no proper rack. Explore two documented snapshots of the floor stack as the hardware grew, and the first step toward Omada Wi-Fi.
APRIL–MAY 2022 ERA // STILL ON THE FLOOR // NOT TO SCALE
OUTSIDE THE FLOOR STACK / WIRELESS EVOLUTION
→
2022 eBay EVIDENCE / PURCHASE ≠ INSTALLATION DATEHP V1910 £59 · APC £118.54 · Dell R210 II £59.99 net Dell was £64.99, with £5 returned for a faulty Ethernet port. The original RetroPie Raspberry Pi was reused for Pi-hole, not bought for this stage. HP's 170 W PoE label is not measured electrical use.
This is a historical recreation, not a suggested physical layout. The equipment later moved into a rack. Photos remain private pending review.
V5 / THE LACK HACK / BUILD DATE UNKNOWN
A table. Four wheels. Apparently, a rack.
The first makeshift rack was an upside-down IKEA LACK side table with castors. This is a schematic only: we still need evidence to place each individual server on it.
Confirmed by the builder: inverted table and caster wheels. Not yet confirmed: which equipment occupied which level, and whether the £17.98 side-table receipt refers to this exact table. No photographs were published.
AFTER THIS STAGE / DNS HISTORY→When the server moved upstairs after the LACK stage, Pi-hole's Raspberry Pi was taken off DNS duty. The same Pi eventually returned as Time-Turner. Exact handover date unknown.
V6 / THE TWELVE-DRIVE REBUILD / 2023 PURCHASE RECORDS
Core i9. 128 GB RAM. Twelve spinning drives.
Meet the giant Fractal Design Meshify 2 XL. Every disk fitted beautifully. Actually changing one? Not so beautiful. This is the older tower case, not the present rackmount enclosure.
SIDE OPEN / INTERNAL HDD STORAGE
12/12 HDDs · internal replacement, not hot-swap
CONFIRMED PURCHASES, NOT A VERIFIED FULL BUILD TOTALFractal case £120 · Core i9 receipt £320 · NZXT Z690 £119.95 Two separate £125.99 Patriot orders are recorded. An Adaptec expander, IT HBA, Mini-SAS cables and 10 Gb parts also appear in the receipts. Not every purchased part is proven installed in this exact snapshot.
The installation date, CPU suffix and individual disk models are still unverified. Photographs and personal invoices are reference material only, not publicly hosted.
V7 / THE LITTLE WALL NETWORK / 2024 CABINET PURCHASE
Finally, the networking gets its own walls.
A small wall-mounted 6U network cabinet appears in the archive, with a TP-Link managed switch, a cable-management area and a UK power strip. The Fractal tower remained a separate computer.
6U // WALL-MOUNTED NETWORK
OPEN AREA / EXACT SLOT POSITION UNKNOWN
UK POWER STRIP▣ ▣ ▣ ▣
RECEIPTS / PHOTO ARRANGEMENT6U StarTech £53.82 · TP-Link switch £152.87 6U rack bought June 2024; TL-SG3428X bought October 2023. Exact rack assembly date unknown. The historical socket strip is not today's smart PDU.
Artwork follows the supplied wall-rack photographs but does not claim exact rack-unit placement or date. This scene is separate from both the LACK-table experiment and the later Adastra rack.
V8 / JUNE 2024 / THE WALL NETWORK LEVELS UP
One switch became two. And then came the yellow cables.
The wall-mounted network cabinet now contains two TP-Link switches, the newer 24-port PoE+ unit beneath the original managed switch. A handful of bright patch leads loop between them. This is a stylised interpretation of the supplied photographs.
6U // WALL NETWORK // THE TWO-SWITCH ERA
STRUCTURED CABLING EXPANDING
UK SOCKET STRIP▣ ▣ ▣ ▣
JUNE 2024 // PURCHASE HISTORY, NOT AN INSTALLATION DATEPoE+ switch £145.45 · Monoprice leads £14.60 · 4 keystones £11.56 The leads and four Digitus couplers were a single £26.16 Amazon order on 15 June. A 24-port Cat6 patch panel was purchased for £21.80 on 25 June, but is not visible as installed in these photographs.
Photo evidence: both TP-Link switches and yellow interconnections are visible. Exact PoE-switch model suffix and individual port mappings still need confirmation. Receipt-only patch panel deliberately not shown as fitted.
V9 / 2025 / THE FIREWALL DETOUR
I bought a drive case. It became the firewall.
The Dell R210 II disappeared from the later setup. An attempt to run pfSense on Unraid did not succeed. Then a WIZARD Wi20A case, bought with front hot-swap drive bays in mind, became the dedicated pfSense computer instead.
WALL NETWORK / TWO SWITCHES
→PFSENSE ON UNRAID / DIDN'T WORK→
EBAY / CASE PURCHASE / 2025WIZARD Wi20A · £39.11 total paid · 27 FEB 2025 Delivered 5 March. Original plan: front-access hot-swap drive bays. Actual use: dedicated pfSense. The £31.60 item detail is included within the £39.11 order and is not a second purchase.
Illustrative equipment positions, not measured dimensions. The older Dell's exact removal date, reason the Unraid pfSense attempt failed and the WIZARD's internal CPU/RAM are not yet confirmed. Historic user photos and receipts remain private.
V10 / MAY 2025 / THE SHORT-DEPTH HUNT
The giant tower had to go. The expensive drive cages could stay in the shop.
Three five-drive hot-swap cages were turning into an expensive plan, so the search shifted towards a short-depth rackmount NAS case. This new black chassis has twelve front-access drive positions and, underneath the lid, a PCIe problem waiting to be solved.
12-BAY RACKMOUNT NASSHORT-DEPTH HUNT / 2025
CASE OPEN / OWNER'S PHOTO-INSPIRED HARDWARECOMPONENT POSITIONS ARE STYLISED
⚠ OWNER-REPORTED PCIe LANE FAILURE / ROOT CAUSE UNVERIFIED
ALIEXPRESS / 25 MAY 2025 / SINGLE CHASSIS ORDER12-DISK NAS CASE · £172.19 ITEM · £220.13 TOTAL The order total is the amount recorded for the purchase, not an additional cost on top of the item price. We cannot determine the difference's breakdown from this screenshot.
The photos establish the twelve-bay front, red handles and open internal layout, not the exact motherboard fault, HDD occupancy or whether the finished build was already operational on the purchase date. The SLZB-06 Zigbee adapter shown elsewhere in the same order-list screenshot is a different project.
V11 / JUN–JUL 2025 / PROXMOX HAS ENTERED THE CHAT
Two little Lenovos. Proxmox experiments. The old pfSense box keeps working.
The first Tiny wasn't the model needed for your PCIe plans. The next was an M920q, ready for a riser and networking experiments. OPNsense and AdGuard Home were still being experimented with, and the physical pfSense firewall remained active. Home Assistant had not been installed on the M910q yet.
WALL CABINET / TWO TP-LINK SWITCHES
▥ ▥ ▥ ▥ ▥ ▥ ▥ ▥ ▥ ▥● ● ●
▥ ▥ ▥ ▥ ▥ ▥ ▥ ▥ ▥ ▥● ●
▣ TV / UNRAIDThe photo partly hides the machines. This layout is illustrative, not an exact cabinet placement.
$ proxmox / opnsense / adguard-home [WORK IN PROGRESS]
PCIe / MULTIPORT NICATTEMPTED
PORT SEPARATIONNOT ACHIEVED AS WANTED
WAN THROUGH HOSTDECLINED BY OWNER
The virtual firewall experiment was ongoing; the physical pfSense PC was still in use. Port-splitting cause isn't verified.
Purchase dates are not verified installation dates. The photographed TV and wall cabinet establish the setting, but neither pictured Tiny can be securely located behind the screen. Neither Silicom listing proves which card was actually installed in the M920q. The unrelated iPod from the purchase screenshot is not included in this exhibit. By this stage, the earlier Raspberry Pi to Unraid AdGuard Home DNS handover had already happened; the M920q networking/AdGuard idea was a separate experiment.
V12 / MAR 2026 / REPLACEMENT CAST: DELL ENTERS
The Lenovos disappear. Durmstrang takes the stage. pfSense refuses to leave.
A Dell OptiPlex 5070 SFF joins the family. The two Tiny PCs from V11 are not included in this arrangement. The physical stack is TV resting on the Dell, Dell resting on Unraid. The blue-lit WIZARD desktop is still a separate, live pfSense firewall.
UP ABOVE / THE WALL NETWORK CABINET
TP-LINK / 24 PORT▤ ▤ ▤ ▤ ▤ ▤ ▤ ▤ ▤ ▤● ● ●
TP-LINK / NETWORK▤ ▤ ▤ ▤ ▤ ▤ ▤ ▤ ▤ ▤● ●
POWER / WALL-MOUNTED STRIP ▣ ▣ ▣ ◉ ▣
BLAUPUNKT / TV
▸ HISTORICAL VIEW
LENOVO TINY PCS / NOT IN THIS SCENEFIREWALL / PHYSICAL pfSense CONTINUES
▸ EBAY / DELL OPTIPLEX 5070 SFF19 MAR 2026 ORDERED£162.58 TOTAL PAID
Seller listing: Intel Core i5-9500, 16 GB RAM, 256 GB NVMe, 500 GB HDD and Windows 11 Pro. Delivered 23 March 2026. The photographed installation date and as-installed specifications are not verified. The blue fan belongs to the existing pfSense machine; it is not evidence pfSense ran on Durmstrang. Device shapes are stylised and original household photographs and purchase screenshots remain private.
V13 / MARCH 2026 / THE FIREWALL HANDOVER IS PREPARED
OPNsense joins Durmstrang. The old pfSense machine keeps the lights on.
Durmstrang now has an OPNsense installation for learning and testing. The intention is to take over the existing 2.5 Gb WAN from the physical pfSense machine when everything is ready. The handover has not happened in this version; OPNsense's installation mode and the exact cutover date are not verified.
01 / SERVING THE NETWORKpfSenseWIZARD tower / physical firewall
PHYSICAL STACK / TV → DELL → UNRAIDWAN CUTOVER / NOT YET
▸ THE DELL NETWORKING UPGRADE / MARCH 2026Click a purchased component for its receipt and story
⌁ HISTORICAL DNS HANDOFF
The networking cards were purchased on 24 March 2026, but their fitting dates, port mapping and exact OPNsense installation method have not been established. The rack panel and cheap monitor are purchases, not confirmed installed components. This is a historical re-creation without the original private receipts or household photos.
V14 / MARCH 2026 / THE FIRST PROPER RACK
Twenty-two units of possibility. And pfSense still won't retire.
A real Adastra 22U cabinet, just 450 mm deep, joins the story. Both Lenovo Tinys are back, Durmstrang and Unraid have moved inside, and the blue-fan pfSense tower still sits on top doing its job. This is based on owner photos dated 30 March 2026.
HARDWARE ARCHIVE / 30.03.2026RECONSTRUCTION • NOT LIVE TELEMETRY
adastra22U / 450 mm
EARLY CAT6 PATCH PANEL / INSTALLED AT THIS STAGE
CAT6
▣ ▣ ▣ ▣ ▣ ▣ ▣ ▣ ▣ ▣ ▣ ▣ ▣ ▣ ▣ ▣
◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯ ◯
OPEN SPACE / ALLOW ROOM TO GROW
CABINET // THE BIG STEP UP
22U
19-inch Adastra 450 mm depth
FIREWALLpfSense still LIVEOPNsense cutover not yet claimed
LENOVO2 × ThinkCentre TinyBoth back in the rack
HISTORY RULENothing erasedOriginal prices belong to the same devices
Stylised from the dated photographs. Front hardware order is broadly visible; exact U positions and all cabling are intentionally illustrative. The yellow leads and the early patch panel belong to this chapter, not necessarily the October configuration.
Evidence: £204.00 total paid 26 March 2026 (includes buyer protection), delivery 27 March, and owner gallery photographs dated 30 March 2026. Those images show the populated 22U cabinet, both Lenovos returning, the Dell, the Unraid chassis and a separate physical pfSense tower perched on top. No original receipt or household photograph has been added to the public-site source tree.
V15 / APRIL 2026 / A NEW CHAPTER
New home. New firewall. pfSense finally retires.
On 9 April 2026, the bungalow move and the real OPNsense WAN cutover happened. The owner confirms that if OPNsense had not worked that day, there would have been no internet. pfSense finally retired from firewall duty.
WAN HANDOVER⇢COMPLETED
Historical transition schematic, not an asserted rack photograph. Both the move and live OPNsense firewall takeover are confirmed for 9 April 2026; the cutover hour and physical fate of the old WIZARD case are not known.
V16 / 5 OCTOBER 2026 / THE LITTLE CLOCK KEEPER
Once a games console. Then DNS. Now the rack has a Time-Turner.
A dated 5 October 2026, 15:21 photo shows the original recycled Raspberry Pi installed at the rack front, its little fan glowing beneath Kreacher. This close-up recreates only that visible area, not the entire cabinet.
HISTORICAL RACK CLOSE-UP / 05.10.2026PHOTO-INSPIRED / NOT LIVE
21201918
FRONT PATCH CONNECTIONS▣ ▣ ▣ ▣ ▣ ▣ ▣ ▣ ▣ ▣ ▣ ▣
THREE CAREERSRETROPIE → PI-HOLE → TIME-TURNERONE PHYSICAL RASPBERRY PI
RACK BELOW / DETAILS NOT VERIFIED IN THIS PHOTO
THE NEXT PIECE OF THE CLOCKUptronics GPS/RTC board
Ordered 5 October 2026 for £47.99. Delivered 6 October. It had not yet arrived when the rack photo was taken on the 5th.
This chapter does not claim the GPS/RTC daughterboard was already fitted, that PPS was commissioned on 5 October, or that the pictured close-up establishes exact rack U coordinates. Original gallery and order screenshots stay private.
Four Fawkes laptops now sit above Unraid, connected to one basic PDU fed from the Raritan. G is above F. No keystone panel yet.
↖ PDU horizontally presented for explorationPhoto-informed order • exact physical U labels still to verify
↺ RACK HISTORY / WHERE THE OLD MACHINES WENT
Nothing useful is forgotten here. Machines that have served their time still belong in the story.
Earlier laptop shelfBefore the move, two Toshiba laptops appeared on the shelf above Beauxbaton. Use the version selector to see this layout.
The Dell continuesThe Dell OptiPlex 5070 is still in the current rack. Its eventual replacement will receive a dated historical entry when the change actually happens.
Experiments and reflections, clearly attributed when Ravel writes his own entries.
ravel@quest:~$04 / WORKSHOP
The Workshop
3D-printed brackets, custom lighting, repairs and the joy of reusing hardware.
sulprax@quest:~$
THE ROOM WILL GROW
One day, Ravel gets his own place on the wall.
The future P3 case belongs beside the rack, not inside it. When the lab changes, the website changes with it. This is a living exhibit, not a frozen diagram.