This should be the last minirack post for awhile as it's 99.9% finished. It was a very fun build, and it's a heluva-lot quieter than what it replaced. I did lose network bandwidth, but the new cluster does exactly what it's supposed to. Live migrations are fast enough, iSCSI network means that the VMs are snappy storage-wise. The PiKVM + Switch fits perfectly in the basement.

The dual fans fixed the issue of the top Minisforum MS-A2 baking from the heat of the RPis, and the QNAP switch is a beast. I definitely recommend building in a minirack as they're adorable and very, very capable.

Got the fan grills in which significantly lowers the chances of me putting a finger or cable into one of the rear ventilation fans which totally hasn't happened.

Okay, everything is buttoned up again, only almost stripped a rack hole out. However, time to leave things alone and see if it catches fire.

The shelves came in, got them installed. Should be big enough to hold the MS-A2s, but if not I'll have to source the full length ones. Seems stable as well.

Okay, front of the rack. Gonna need a 2U vented plate for the front but the shelves should work for the Minisforum MS-A2 nodes. Also should be enough room below that shelf for the bricks.

Holy crap, the Minisforums MS-A2s have shipped. I'm so friggin' excited to get those in and start finishing up the minirack.

Gonna need to manage some power cables in the minirack. Fortunately, found some hooks to 3D print and I've got a ton of red PLA that should work perfectly.

The PDU is assembled. Trimmed the corners off to clear out the holes in the rack ears. Fitment of the 3D printed part was absolutely perfect and fits in the rack like it's supposed to.

Time to dry some filament for the PDU ears of the minirack. I've got the PETG-CF (black) in the dryer and gonna give it a bit extra time considering it has been exposed to two weeks of South Carolina humidity while the air conditioning was out.

Installed the HDMI keystone jacks, replaced the power cable on the switch _behind_ the patch panel, and replaced the network cable running to the patch panel. Also placed an order for a PDU for the bottom of the rack. Still waiting on the HDMI cables to connect the jacks to the Raspberry Pis.

Okay, all of the Minisforums MS-A2 computers are now ordered. There's still the RAM upgrades that need to be ordered, but for right now the 32GB will be fine.

Next up:
- Getting/making the network cables
- 3D printing mounts for the MS-A2s for the rack
- 3D printing mounts for their PSUs
- Some sort of PDU to connect everything to

So, the next thing up for the minirack: getting the Proxmox node networking setup. I think this should be perfect for the Minisforums MS-A2 servers that are on the way... #homelab #minirack #networking #qnap

All of the Pis are now in the rack and operational. Looking really good, VPN is even operational. Now the wait starts for the other servers... #minirack #homelab

Primary, secondary DNS, and Pi-Hole moved over into its new home. The two `bind9` servers are running on #FreeBSD and the Pi-Hole server is running on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. I still need to move the VPN server in, but things are shaping up nicely. #homelab #minirack

Got the ears in for the Mikrotik CRS112-8P-4S-IN PoE switch that will be powering/networking all of the Raspberry Pis. After fixing a small assembly mistake on the minirack everything went very smoothly and fits perfectly. The next step up is to get into the serial console and get all of the PoE ports online. #homelab #minirack #mikrotik

So, the start of the next dumb project: a smol rack. I've got a 3D printer and the urge to see what all can be fit into this thing. #homelab #minirack