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I've never understood why fiddling with IT equipment in your home is considering a "home lab" since you aren't necessarily creating anything (like a laboratory

I've never understood why fiddling with IT equipment in your home is considering a "home lab" since you aren't necessarily creating anything (like a laboratory would do), you are just integrating together other people's industrial components to serve non business purposes. The most egregious factor of this hobby is that you are often buying equipment that costs enterprise prices with your own money, whether or not it is used equipment.

noitpmeder 4y ago
You sound worked up. Most people who seriously invest like fiddling around and creating their own networking structure. It's a feature that they don't have to worry about "serving business needs"! I'm not sure what the difference is between this and any other moderately expensive hobby.
- loudthing 4y ago
  It's the phrase "homelab", I suppose. Why not call it "Home IT" or "Home Data Center" or "Home Network Infrastructure". Calling it a home laboratory sounds like enthusiasts are trying to escape some preconceived notions about the topic. I digress...
  - Karrot_Kream 4y ago
    You can actually do some crazy things with a homelab. I have a store-and-forward network joining roadwarrior machines to machines on my home network organized in a hub-spoke-ish model. It lets me access media from my home network even when I'm on some super oversubscribed AP (at 256 KB/s) at some crappy hotel with awful firewall rules (like only letting TCP traffic on 80 and 443 out) without opening any security holes on the network itself. I was able to experiment and deploy the network using the machines in my homelab. As far as the name, I think it comes from the term "networking lab" that netops actually use to trial out network topologies before deploying them in the field. It's a home networking lab, that's all.
  - dvtrn 4y ago
    I actually refer to mine as my “residential command and control center”, or “RCC”. :)
ghostly_s 4y ago
It's a place to experiment with the skills you use in your profession. I don't see what you're struggling with.
- loudthing 4y ago
  I guess I'm struggling with why I would buy the same commercial grade equipment to play with at home when my profession should be fulfilling the needs of that skill set. Sounds like if you feel like you need to do so, you're more than likely unfulfilled in your current career.
  - noitpmeder 4y ago
    People do this on their own time because they enjoy it! Why is this so hard to understand.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    "you're more than likely unfulfilled in your current career" Thats quite a lot of people, personally i would rather be planting trees, it i could pay the bill with that
  - thatsunlikely 4y ago
    That's why you buy the last generation of common enterprise components used when industries mass upgrade, which happens every few years. I built mine in 2018 and I paid $65 each for two E5 2670 v3 ($1600 MSRP, 2014 CPU), and $300 for a dual socket motherboard with 128GB of ram. Yeah it's not the latest and greatest but it's been going strong since then.
    - loudthing 4y ago
      That's awesome. Reminds me of retro computer enthusiasm. It's not about the hardware, it's about the experience and keeping classic tech alive.
      - thatsunlikely 4y ago
atty 4y ago
A lab is a place to experiment. The person conducting an experiment does not need to be pushing the envelope of human knowledge to enjoy and benefit from the process.
pkulak 4y ago
My "homelab" is only used for things that actually provide value to me. I host a Matrix server for chat, Home Assistant, a Minecraft server, plus a few hundred gigs of backups and photos/videos. I don't really know if I qualify though. All that's on a 2011 Dell, a 2-bay Synology nas, and a UPS I found on Amazon. I have zero urge to go out and buy a rack; it works great as is.
GekkePrutser 4y ago
I view those as separate things. I have a home ESXi server which I use to host all my own stuff. I don't consider that a lab as such. It's just my home production infrastructure. And then I have another ESXi which hosts the stuff I'm testing for work, and only work. In my work home lab I have full access which I don't do even in the testing environment at work due to fragmentation of responsibilities. Or if I do I step on people's toes when trying stuff out that belongs to their realm. Most things are interconnected so testing something at work usually gets slowed down by the need to involve other people who don't always have time or interest. That's where my own lab comes in. It's also a lot faster due to not needing VPN and having to deal with servers halfway across the world. And not having to deal with the evil SSL-MITM Internet proxy at work saves me SO much time.. Of course that work needs to be done to put it in production but a lot of stuff never makes it to that stage and then figuring how to smooth things with the proxy is just wasted effort.
mulmen 4y ago
Meh. My motorcycle is ostensibly for use in endurance racing. I use it to go out for coffee and sandwiches.
- mynameisnoone 4y ago
teh_klev 4y ago
> I've never understood why fiddling with IT equipment in your home is considering a "home lab" since you aren't necessarily creating anything To paraphrase the first item in the HN guidelines: "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."[0] You can get to explore configurations and scenarios you might never be able to do at work. But it's not about work, it's about scratching an itch. > The most egregious factor of this hobby is that you are often buying equipment that costs enterprise prices If you know where to look you can pick up enterprisey kit cheap. It may not be the latest and greatest, but it's probably good enough to play with. Just because you don't understand the attraction of this pastime (or any pastime) you don't get to judge or complain about folks who enjoy tinkering. Once upon a time I built out a home lab to run a piece of software called Zebra to learn about BGP4 and CIDR. It was about scratching an itch. If energy prices in the UK weren't so utterly bonkers at the moment then I'd love to build out a new lab to mess about with some stuff. Again, to scratch a curiosity itch. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
tomc1985 4y ago
Used this shit is crazy cheap. I picked up a 16-core Xeon monster with hyperthreading and 128gb of RAM for under a grand, and the power bill for it is maybe $20 a month
mynameisnoone 4y ago
rnd0 4y ago
Because you're experimenting. what happens when I use this combination, what would it take to be able to get this group of computers to do that task And learning also fits into this: like the computer version of a school chemistry laboratory. Setting up computers to perform tests for certification. For what it's worth I agree with you about the equipment -but I read on reddit a lot of /r/homelabbers getting equipment for work so that would make sense. I don't work in the field so for me personally it's more a question of wanting to experiment with software while not throwing away perfectly working (but old) computers.
andrewf 4y ago
When I was in college at the turn of the century, the rooms full of computers at university were called "labs". During the same timeframe, folks paying for a networking course+certification (eg Cisco's CCNA) would get access to a "lab" full of networking gear to play with. These days, the nomenclature survives, but the facilities are often virtualized or remote eg https://learningnetworkstore.cisco.com/cisco-learning-labs https://learningnetworkstore.cisco.com/cisco-learning-labs

noitpmeder 4y ago

You sound worked up. Most people who seriously invest like fiddling around and creating their own networking structure. It's a feature that they don't have to worry about "serving business needs"! I'm not sure what the difference is between this and any other moderately expensive hobby.

loudthing 4y ago
It's the phrase "homelab", I suppose. Why not call it "Home IT" or "Home Data Center" or "Home Network Infrastructure". Calling it a home laboratory sounds like enthusiasts are trying to escape some preconceived notions about the topic. I digress...
- Karrot_Kream 4y ago
  You can actually do some crazy things with a homelab. I have a store-and-forward network joining roadwarrior machines to machines on my home network organized in a hub-spoke-ish model. It lets me access media from my home network even when I'm on some super oversubscribed AP (at 256 KB/s) at some crappy hotel with awful firewall rules (like only letting TCP traffic on 80 and 443 out) without opening any security holes on the network itself. I was able to experiment and deploy the network using the machines in my homelab. As far as the name, I think it comes from the term "networking lab" that netops actually use to trial out network topologies before deploying them in the field. It's a home networking lab, that's all.
- dvtrn 4y ago
  I actually refer to mine as my “residential command and control center”, or “RCC”. :)

ghostly_s 4y ago

It's a place to experiment with the skills you use in your profession. I don't see what you're struggling with.

loudthing 4y ago
I guess I'm struggling with why I would buy the same commercial grade equipment to play with at home when my profession should be fulfilling the needs of that skill set. Sounds like if you feel like you need to do so, you're more than likely unfulfilled in your current career.
- noitpmeder 4y ago
  People do this on their own time because they enjoy it! Why is this so hard to understand.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  "you're more than likely unfulfilled in your current career" Thats quite a lot of people, personally i would rather be planting trees, it i could pay the bill with that
- thatsunlikely 4y ago
  That's why you buy the last generation of common enterprise components used when industries mass upgrade, which happens every few years. I built mine in 2018 and I paid $65 each for two E5 2670 v3 ($1600 MSRP, 2014 CPU), and $300 for a dual socket motherboard with 128GB of ram. Yeah it's not the latest and greatest but it's been going strong since then.
  - loudthing 4y ago
    That's awesome. Reminds me of retro computer enthusiasm. It's not about the hardware, it's about the experience and keeping classic tech alive.
    - thatsunlikely 4y ago

atty 4y ago

A lab is a place to experiment. The person conducting an experiment does not need to be pushing the envelope of human knowledge to enjoy and benefit from the process.

pkulak 4y ago

My "homelab" is only used for things that actually provide value to me. I host a Matrix server for chat, Home Assistant, a Minecraft server, plus a few hundred gigs of backups and photos/videos. I don't really know if I qualify though. All that's on a 2011 Dell, a 2-bay Synology nas, and a UPS I found on Amazon. I have zero urge to go out and buy a rack; it works great as is.

GekkePrutser 4y ago

I view those as separate things. I have a home ESXi server which I use to host all my own stuff. I don't consider that a lab as such. It's just my home production infrastructure. And then I have another ESXi which hosts the stuff I'm testing for work, and only work. In my work home lab I have full access which I don't do even in the testing environment at work due to fragmentation of responsibilities. Or if I do I step on people's toes when trying stuff out that belongs to their realm. Most things are interconnected so testing something at work usually gets slowed down by the need to involve other people who don't always have time or interest. That's where my own lab comes in. It's also a lot faster due to not needing VPN and having to deal with servers halfway across the world. And not having to deal with the evil SSL-MITM Internet proxy at work saves me SO much time.. Of course that work needs to be done to put it in production but a lot of stuff never makes it to that stage and then figuring how to smooth things with the proxy is just wasted effort.

mulmen 4y ago

Meh. My motorcycle is ostensibly for use in endurance racing. I use it to go out for coffee and sandwiches.

mynameisnoone 4y ago

teh_klev 4y ago

> I've never understood why fiddling with IT equipment in your home is considering a "home lab" since you aren't necessarily creating anything To paraphrase the first item in the HN guidelines: "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."[0] You can get to explore configurations and scenarios you might never be able to do at work. But it's not about work, it's about scratching an itch. > The most egregious factor of this hobby is that you are often buying equipment that costs enterprise prices If you know where to look you can pick up enterprisey kit cheap. It may not be the latest and greatest, but it's probably good enough to play with. Just because you don't understand the attraction of this pastime (or any pastime) you don't get to judge or complain about folks who enjoy tinkering. Once upon a time I built out a home lab to run a piece of software called Zebra to learn about BGP4 and CIDR. It was about scratching an itch. If energy prices in the UK weren't so utterly bonkers at the moment then I'd love to build out a new lab to mess about with some stuff. Again, to scratch a curiosity itch. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

tomc1985 4y ago

Used this shit is crazy cheap. I picked up a 16-core Xeon monster with hyperthreading and 128gb of RAM for under a grand, and the power bill for it is maybe $20 a month

mynameisnoone 4y ago

rnd0 4y ago

Because you're experimenting. what happens when I use this combination, what would it take to be able to get this group of computers to do that task And learning also fits into this: like the computer version of a school chemistry laboratory. Setting up computers to perform tests for certification. For what it's worth I agree with you about the equipment -but I read on reddit a lot of /r/homelabbers getting equipment for work so that would make sense. I don't work in the field so for me personally it's more a question of wanting to experiment with software while not throwing away perfectly working (but old) computers.

andrewf 4y ago

When I was in college at the turn of the century, the rooms full of computers at university were called "labs". During the same timeframe, folks paying for a networking course+certification (eg Cisco's CCNA) would get access to a "lab" full of networking gear to play with. These days, the nomenclature survives, but the facilities are often virtualized or remote eg https://learningnetworkstore.cisco.com/cisco-learning-labs https://learningnetworkstore.cisco.com/cisco-learning-labs