I published a quick blog of my modest homelab setup. It’s nothing flashy or pricey. Just a bunch of repurposed pieces that get the job done.
My goal? To show that you don’t need a perfect or expensive setup to start experimenting. Use what you have, tinker, and build something that works for you.
What equipment have you repurposed for your homelab?
https://www.teklynk.com/blog/under-the-stairs-my-2026-homelab-tour
@teklynk My only critique is do you know the idle consumption of that gaming PC? Idle power has gotten better over time. I saw a blog post that pegged ~2012 era AMD desktops around 40 W idle.
You are doing Plex transcodes, but that may be able to shift to Intel QuickSync on a newer Intel CPU.
@BigHeadMode I have smart plugs connected to each machine to monitor power consumption and cost. The main server with a GTX 1080 I has an idle of 80w and costs $5.37 a month. Keep in mind that it also has 4 spinning hard drives (24tb). QuickSync on this CPU is not great. It was a very noticeable difference when I installed the dedicated Nvidia GPU. The Mac Mini uses 13w and costs .21 cents a month. I do not have subscription services like Netflix. I completely cut the cord years ago. This setup is all that I pay for and it is still cheaper than one streaming subscription.
@teklynk I believe QuickSync has improved over time (later generations), but I could be making that up. I know newer CPUs support h265 which might help. (brand new CPUs may do AV1?). but yeah reasonable tradeoffs to use the big PC for that.
@BigHeadMode You are correct. QuickSync has improved in later generation CPU's. The main big PC is an older Haswell i7-4790k. Maybe in a few years when my current PC is turned into the next media server iteration, I will forego the dedicated GPU since it has a newer gen CPU.
"Quick Sync on the i7-4790K supports H.264 encoding and decoding, making it suitable for common video workflows.
However, the quality of Quick Sync on Haswell-generation processors like the i7-4790K is considered poor by some users, especially when compared to newer generations."
@teklynk Nice! Much more organized than my pile of NUCs, switches, and old repurposed laptops and PCs loosely connected in a "network".
