My 2026 Homelab Tour (Rack + Servers + Network + Storage)

Posted Feb 26, 2026 Updated Apr 13, 2026

By Techno Tim

12 min read

My homelab has changed again… 2026.

This year turned into a full evolution: network upgrades, compute refreshes, storage testing, and a bunch of power/UPS changes that change how I run (and recover) everything.

Self-hosting guide next - subscribe for the follow up.

Watch the video

The wall of tech (everything that doesn’t fit the rack)

Before we even touch the rack, let’s start with the wall stuff that keeps everything running:

Internet coming in: I have two fiber lines coming to the house - one buried line coming in from the front, and one coming in from the back of the house overhead/from the pole - but I’ve fully switched to one provider as the primary which is Quantum Internet.
Old fiber ONT: my previous fiber gear is still here, but currently unplugged. USI, while great, is twice the price and half the speed of Quantum. I used them for years, and a great service, but I am able to have fiber internet with Quantum + T-Mobile 5G Home Internet as a backup for the same price. USI needs to lower their price now that they have real competition.
Backup internet (5G): my backup right now is T-Mobile Home Internet over 5G - it’s cheaper than keeping a second fiber line, and it’s already failed over a few times without issues when my primary internet goes down. I was also hoping to use it with the UniFi 5G Max, but the SIM is locked to T-Mobile’s gateway.
UniFi phone: mounted on a 3D-printed bracket from earlier testing (I don’t run UniFi Talk full time, I was only testing it).
Hue hubs (yes, four): I still run multiple Hue hubs because of Hue Play - I have three Play setups, and each one needs its own hub.
Small PoE switch (wall): PoE powers a small switch on the wall, which the Hue hubs connect through.
Whole-home wiring: this is where all the home cable runs land; it’s older Cat5e, punched down and still doing the job (yes, even for 10Gb in places). The wall of tech

Power outages: coordinated shutdown

One of the most important reliability pieces I have in place is what happens when the power goes out.

This Raspberry Pi was already here last year, still running NUT Server and talking to multiple UPS units over USB (all the USB cables you see plugged in).
The goal is a controlled, coordinated shutdown (instead of hoping everything survives).

Raspberry Pi running NUT Server

Small note: if you’re rotating SSH keys with Ansible, add the new key first, make sure you can log in, then remove the old one - ask me how I know 🤦.

Backup DNS

My Pi Zero was also here last year, still running Pi-hole as backup DNS if the rack is down.

Pi Zero running Pi-hole for backup DNS

OTA TV

An HDHomeRun provides over-the-air TV, connected into Plex for DVR/live TV.

HDHomeRun for OTA TV

Wall power + battery backup

This whole wall is powered by power strips and backed up by a UPS, so all of this wall gear stays online when power flickers.

Wall UPS keeping the wall gear online

Zigbee, IoT, and the “make dumb stuff smart” corner

A few highlights from the wall-side automation gear:

Broadlink: used for RF control to make a dumb ceiling fan act smart (including “remembering” its last state via automation).
SMLIGHT (SLZB-06): running as my Zigbee coordinator, with ~80+ Zigbee devices (leak sensors, switches, motion sensors, etc.).
UniFi Sensor (test gear): a UniFi motion sensor I was testing.
UniFi SuperLink: testing UniFi’s closed sensor ecosystem (environment sensor + motion sensor).
UniFi Siren: PoE powered; I’d love to tie this into smoke alarm / alerting in the future.

Zigbee, IoT, and the ‘make dumb stuff smart’ corner - Broadlink, SMLIGHT coordinator, UniFi sensors

The rack (network, storage, compute, and control)

The core switch upgrade

UniFi USW Pro XG 48 PoE

The big upgrade on the network side.

48 ports total (mix of 10GbE and 2.5GbE)
All PoE+++
25Gb uplink ports (I’m using multiple uplinks/LAG to the gateway)

It’s also the first UniFi switch I’ve owned where I can actually hear the fan under load - not super loud, just noticeable when it’s moving air. USW Pro XG 48 PoE with dark-mode LEDs

USW Pro XG 48 PoE with standard LED lighting

Gateway + core uplinks

UniFi EFG (25Gb gateway)

This is my core gateway and it’s way more than I need, but it gives me tons of headroom.

One reason this does make sense for my setup is that I can keep IDS/IPS turned on and still push around ~13 Gb/s, so I’m not forced to pick between security features and performance.

USW Pro XG Aggregation (25Gb)

This is the core aggregation switch upgrade that ties the backbone together and lets me build out faster uplinks through the rack. It’s also where all of my 10G links from the servers connect, and it’ll be a great down the road if/when I run fiber through the house.

USW Pro XG Aggregation - 25Gb backbone connecting all servers

Remote power + clean cable paths

USB PDU Pro: makes it easy to power-cycle individual devices remotely.
I’m still working on cable cleanup - brush panels, cable routing, and making the front of the rack as clean as possible while still making efficient use of the space I have.

UniFi PDU Pro for remote power cycling and individual outlet management

Storage + cameras (keep it local)

UniFi UNVR (local Protect recordings)

My camera footage stays local on the UNVR.

It’s set up with four 8TB drives in RAID 5. I can get about 2 months of 24/7 recordings on 12 cameras. I love Protect and not relying on the cloud.

UPS strategy

I split UPS power into two buckets - networking and servers.

1U Eaton UPS (networking + PoE)

The 1U Eaton UPS is dedicated to all of the networking gear, so my network can stay up independently from my servers.

It also backs up the PoE switch, which keeps a lot of devices around the house online during an outage - access points, cameras, other switches, and more.

1U Eaton UPS - dedicated networking and PoE backup

Tripp Lite UPS + battery extension (servers)

The big UPS at the bottom powers the servers.

It’s a Tripp Lite with an external battery pack, and I typically see anywhere from ~60 to 100 minutes of runtime depending on the load.

Tripp Lite UPS with external battery pack

Tripp Lite UPS display showing estimated runtime

Proxmox cluster (compute + Kubernetes)

I’m still running a Proxmox cluster on a set of Intel NUCs.

Clustered for a single pane of glass and easy migrations
Kubernetes nodes inside Proxmox (plus VMs/LXCs for various workloads)

Intel NUC Proxmox cluster - running Kubernetes and various workloads

JetKVM row (remote console)

A whole row of JetKVMs gives me remote keyboard/video/mouse access over the network.

I have six of them in the rack, and they’re connected to six machines so I can get console access without dragging a monitor and keyboard around.

Six JetKVMs for remote console access to rack machines

UniFi AI + controller

AI Key + AI Port

AI Key: adds smarter detections and summaries on top of Protect events (classify/describe/transcribe).
AI Port: enables AI events on older or third-party cameras that can’t do it natively.

UniFi Cloud Key (controller)

An older Cloud Key I keep around for testing other UniFi apps (since the EFG only runs the UniFi Network App). The drive died, so I swapped it to an SSD.

Mini test box

Beelink EQ14

My small “test box” for containers - especially when I need to test Intel QuickSync.

3D-printed rack housing the UniFi AI Key and Beelink EQ14

Storage testing

UniFi UNAS Pro 4 (video coming soon)

I’ve been testing this device for a long time, and I’ll show how I’m using it in a future video.

It’s loaded with four 20TB drives in RAID 5.

One shelf (GPU + mini boxes)

These three live together on a shelf:

MinisForum MS-A1 + RTX 3090 (Oculink): used for testing that needs a dedicated GPU (including local AI testing/tutorials).
Beelink ME Mini: all-NVMe box that I like more as an app/Proxmox/LXC server than a traditional NAS.
Beelink ME Pro: a quiet hybrid mini NAS (NVMe + SATA) in an all meta case.

If I ever had to shrink the homelab, it’d probably come down to “bulk storage + app server + one flexible compute box,” and these smaller systems have been great for testing that idea.

Beelink ME Mini - all-NVMe compact server

Beelink ME Pro - quiet hybrid mini NAS (NVMe + SATA)

1U Supermicro server (new build, video coming soon)

This is a “new to me” 1U Supermicro server. It’s older hardware, but it checked all the boxes I needed: 1U, lots of drive bays, and IPMI.

It’s running an Intel Xeon E5-2680 v4, has 16GB DDR4, and four 22TB Exos drives.

Storinator (big plans)

This is the 45Drives Storinator AV60. Right now it’s powered off, but it’s one of the bigger “next steps” in the rack.

The plan is to rebuild it around an EPYC CPU that Wendell sent me, but I’ve been holding off because DDR5 (and the board I want) has been hard to justify and hard to find.

As soon as the parts situation calms down, I’m going to gut it and bring it back online.

Storinator AV60 - future EPYC rebuild

45Drives HL15 (all-in-one TrueNAS refresh)

My HL15 has changed a lot this year.

The goal was to build a better all-in-one system (since new builds and parts are annoying right now), so I upgraded this box pretty heavily:

10x 14TB drives for bulk storage
256GB DDR (slots are maxed out)
A better CPU (a Platinum upgrade from Patrick at Serve The Home)
Noctua 120mm fans, a Noctua Xeon cooler, and a Seasonic PRIME 1600W Noctua Edition PSU
More NVMe (including adapters to convert M.2 to U.2, and Oculink into PCIe lanes)
An NVIDIA RTX A2000 inside the chassis for the workloads that need it

It’s running TrueNAS with ZFS. Right now it’s set up as mirrored pairs, but I’m planning to revisit the ZFS layout to trade some IOPS for more usable capacity and resiliency.

HL15 loaded with drives for bulk storage, GPU, and NVMe

HL15 overhead view - all RAM slots filled

Backup internet (5G)

I’m using T-Mobile Home Internet over 5G as my backup link, and it’s already saved me a few times during outages.

The annoying part is that the SIM is locked to their gateway, which makes it impossible to use with the UniFi 5G Max. I really hope T-Mobile allows this or UniFi comes up with a way for us to use T-Mobile Home Internet with this device.

UniFi 5G Max with T-Mobile SIM as backup internet

What’s next

I’ll have a video soon on how I back up my servers.

I’ve also got another video coming that walks through the services running on all of these machines, and how I spread workloads across the rack.

📦 Gear list (affiliate)

Rack & Accessories

Network

Servers & Accessories

IoT & Sensors

Other gear mentioned

Accessories

Over the Air TV Gear

Intel NUC Mini Cluster

(Affiliate links may be included in this post. I may receive a small commission at no cost to you.)

Join the conversation

My homelab has changed again… 2026.
Full rack tour + upgrades: network, compute, storage, and power.
Video: https://t.co/lcq0qhznIh
Chapters are in the description. pic.twitter.com/P5J9jrasWQ
— Techno Tim (@TechnoTimLive) February 23, 2026

🤝 Support the channel and help keep this site ad-free

🛍️ Check out all merch: https://shop.technotim.com/

homelab

This post is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by the author.