Just before we get into the rest of the rack, I thought it might be useful to discuss why I want a lot of this connectivity. Mainly this is to distribute my home-based services.
Right now, I am running the DeskPi RackMate T1 mini rack. It used to hold several HP EliteDesk G3 units but I have removed these and added a Minisforum MS-01. This is currently running all the services that I need.
Several units of space beneath this, is a Raspberry Pi 4 and a Raspberry Pi 5. The Pi4 is running PiHole, the Pi5 has an NVMe mod, a 1tb NVMe drive attached, and is just being used to test containers with Portainer.
The MS-01 currently runs containers for:
Plex
Nextcloud
PiHole
CasaOS
qbittorrent via CasaOS
I am also using it for VMs to test out new Linux releases as well as looking at new templates I may want to put into everyday usage.
Ultimately this rack is amazing. It’s small and sits in the corner. It’s expensive, granted, but it’s sleek and holds the gear that I need to play with all the nerdy VM and container things that make my life easier. Atop the rack is a small 1GB switch which is only used to give connection to the two Pi SBCs.
I definately give this a 10/10. The Pi shelf and extenders were fiddly but ultimately give more utility than just sitting them on a rack shelf. The MS-01 is powerful enough that it runs everything and doesnt skip a beat – I’ll probably make another post specifically about this in the future – and I have lots of room for expansion.
The Unifi Toolless Rack below it, really just ensures that I a) have a lot of storage to play with via the UNAS Pro (this houses my Plex collection amongst other things) and b) offers enough connectivity power to gain access to what I need, when I need it. I love it. It’s so much more sexy than the 25U bulk of iron that I was using before!