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Hardware

This document outlines the hardware setup for our Homelab — a cluster designed for data platform hosting, AI workloads, home automation, and general experimentation.

Server Rack

All cluster hardware (except the UPS and developer laptop) is mounted in a DeskPi RackMate T1-Plus — a compact, open-frame desktop rack designed for mini-PCs and SBCs.

Homelab cluster — May 2026
The current homelab cluster — May 2026

DeskPi RackMate T1-Plus
Form factor Desktop open-frame rack
Rack units 6U
Compatibility Mini-ITX, SBC clusters, 1U accessories
Source DeskPi RackMate T1-Plus

The T1-Plus sits on a shelf and holds the full cluster in a compact footprint. Its open-frame design provides good passive airflow across the SBCs and mini-PCs. Layout from top to bottom:

Slot Device
Top CHUWI UBox (AMD64 worker)
2nd HORACO 2.5GbE Managed Switch
3rd OrangePi stack (4 boards on acrylic standoffs — control plane + 3 ARM64 workers)
4th CWWK X86-P5 (NAS + AMD64 worker)
Bottom PDU / power strip

The CyberPower UPS sits beside the rack on the same shelf.

Architecture

graph TD
    Internet(["🌐 Internet"])
    Router["Home Router"]
    Tailscale["Tailscale VPN"]

    Internet --- Router
    Internet -. "zero-trust" .- Tailscale

    Router -->|"1 GbE"| Switch["HORACO Managed Switch\n2.5GbE 8-port + 10G SFP+"]

    Switch -->|"1 GbE"| CP["OrangePi 4 LTS\nControl Plane · 4 GB"]
    Switch -->|"1 GbE"| W1["OrangePi 5B #1\nARM64 Worker · 16 GB"]
    Switch -->|"1 GbE"| W2["OrangePi 5B #2\nARM64 Worker · 16 GB"]
    Switch -->|"1 GbE"| W3["OrangePi 5B #3\nARM64 Worker · 16 GB"]
    Switch -->|"2.5 GbE"| AMD["CHUWI UBox\nAMD64 Worker · 32 GB"]
    Switch -->|"2.5 GbE"| NAS["CWWK X86-P5\nNAS + AMD64 Worker · 16 GB"]
    Switch -->|"1 GbE"| Laptop["Developer Laptop\nWSL2"]

    UPS["CyberPower UPS"] -->|"NUT · graceful shutdown"| NAS
    Tailscale -. "remote access" .- Switch

The cluster has evolved over time as hardware was added and replaced. The current generation combines a lightweight ARM control plane with x86 mini-PCs as the primary compute workhorses.

  1. Control Plane — OrangePi 4 LTS (4 GB RAM)
    • Hosts the K3s control plane; low resource requirements make it a good fit.
    • Connected to the home network switch as the cluster entry point.
  2. ARM64 Workers — OrangePi 5B × 3 (16 GB RAM each)
    • RK3588 SoC — 8-core ARM Cortex-A76/A55, integrated NVMe storage.
    • Original worker nodes; suitable for lightweight and multi-arch workloads.
  3. AMD64 Worker — CHUWI UBox (AMD 6600H, 32 GB RAM)
    • High-performance mini-PC; used for compute-heavy jobs (Spark, Trino, LLM inference).
  4. NAS + Worker — CWWK X86-P5 (Intel N305, 16 GB RAM, RAID 3×1TB HDD + 128 GB NVMe)
    • Acts as the NFS file server and a Kubernetes worker simultaneously.
    • RAID array provides bulk storage for media and backups.
  5. CyberPower UPS
    • Protects the cluster against power outages and ensures a clean, graceful shutdown.
    • Integrated with TrueNAS via the NUT protocol — when power is lost TrueNAS triggers a coordinated cluster-wide shutdown.
    • Power metrics are exported via a Prometheus exporter and visualised in Grafana.
  6. HORACO 2.5GbE Managed Switch (8-port 2.5GBASE-T + 10G SFP+)
    • The NAS (CWWK X86-P5) and the AMD64 worker (CHUWI UBox) both have 2.5GbE NICs and connect at full speed.
    • OrangePi nodes connect at 1 GbE; port isolation ensures the NAS sustains 2.5 GbE throughput to multiple 1G clients simultaneously without bottlenecking.
    • VLAN support segments cluster traffic away from the home router network.
  7. Developer Laptop (WSL2)
    • Connected to the cluster over the local network; used as a dev/overflow worker node.

Networking

  1. Local Network
    • All cluster nodes connect via the HORACO managed switch with static IP addresses configured at the OS level.
    • The NAS and AMD64 worker run at 2.5 GbE; OrangePi nodes run at 1 GbE.
    • VLANs isolate cluster-internal traffic from the home router network, preventing unnecessary broadcast traffic from reaching the rest of the LAN.
  2. Communication Flow
    • Intra-cluster traffic stays on the local switch.
    • External access is handled by Tailscale VPN — no port forwarding required.
    • Traefik routes HTTP/HTTPS traffic to the correct services via IngressRoutes.

Storage

  1. SD Card / eMMC
    • OS is stored on microSDXC Class 10 (OrangePi) or eMMC (mini-PCs).
  2. NVMe SSD
    • Each OrangePi 5B has an internal NVMe SSD for data and Longhorn storage.
    • The CWWK NAS has an additional 128 GB NVMe for fast metadata storage.
  3. RAID Array
    • The CWWK NAS provides 3×1 TB RAID storage, shared via NFS for media and large files.
  4. Kubernetes Storage Services
    • Longhorn provides distributed block storage across worker nodes.
    • Garage provides S3-compatible object storage for the data lake and backups.

Hardware Components

The current hardware used in the cluster. The list has evolved since the initial setup — see Lessons Learned for context on hardware choices.

Servers

Device Specs Role
OrangePi 4 LTS 4 GB RAM, RK3399, microSD Control Plane
OrangePi 5B × 3 16 GB RAM, RK3588, internal NVMe ARM64 Workers
CHUWI UBox AMD 6600H, 32 GB RAM AMD64 Worker
CWWK X86-P5 Intel N305, 16 GB RAM, 3×1 TB RAID HDD + 128 GB NVMe NAS + AMD64 Worker

Networking & Power

Device Notes
HORACO 2.5GbE Managed Switch 8-port + 10G SFP+ 2.5 GbE to NAS and AMD64 worker; 1 GbE to OrangePi nodes; VLAN support
CyberPower UPS Protects against power outages; NUT integration with TrueNAS for graceful shutdown; monitored via Prometheus + Grafana