Built at Home · BUILT 01 · RACK
The rack: parts list
Everything in Built 01, the 10-inch rack my assistant lives in.
| Part | What it does |
|---|---|
| DeskPi RackMate T1 Plus (8U, 10-inch) | the frame; the deeper T1 Plus fits the NAS |
| UGREEN DXP2800 NAS + 2 × 4 TB drives (RAID 1) | storage and notes sync; mounted with a printed 10” bracket |
| 2U Raspberry Pi rack mount (holds 4 boards) | 2 × Raspberry Pi 5 + 1 × Raspberry Pi 4, one slot free |
| Raspberry Pi 5, 8 GB, 512 GB NVMe | runs the n8n automations |
| Raspberry Pi 5 | runs Home Assistant |
| Raspberry Pi 4 | drives the dashboards on the touchscreen |
| 7.84” 1280×400 touchscreen (2U) | live homelab dashboards |
| TP-Link TL-SG105 in a 1U mount + 12-port pass-through patch panel | every cable lands in one place |
| 1U power strip | one plug for the rack |
| Apple laptop (M3 Max, 48 GB), lid closed | runs the assistant; too wide for a 10” rack, so it sits on top |
Lessons
- Check depth before you buy a 10-inch rack: the first one was too shallow for the NAS.
- Mount the switch rear-facing so the cables stay behind the patch panel.
- Put monitoring on the Pis from day one: a monitor texts me when one goes down.