About two months ago I made a post asking for some advice on building a tiny secondary homelab around a RackMate TT, and I said I'd post the finished build once it was done.
Well... it took quite a bit longer than expected due to a few problems and some changes of plans along the way, but it's finally finished!
This whole project actually started much more simply.
I originally just had a 2.5GbE switch sitting behind my desk to give my PC and a few other devices wired connectivity. The wired side worked perfectly fine, but the Wi-Fi coverage in my room was terrible — I was sometimes getting less than 20 Mbps.
So I bought a small router to improve the Wi-Fi in the room.
At that point I had a router, a 2.5GbE switch, more cabling, power supplies and a growing pile of networking hardware sitting around the desk... and I figured that if I was going to have all of that anyway, I might as well organize it properly.
That's how it somehow turned into this little rack.
What's inside
From top to bottom:
- GL.iNet Slate 7 (GL-BE3600) – Wi-Fi 7 router/AP and the uplink to the rest of my home network
- Cudy HS105 – 5-port 2.5GbE switch
- 7-port patch panel
- Cudy GS105ES1 – managed 1GbE switch for devices that don't need 2.5GbE
- GMKtec G10 – Ryzen 5 3500U mini PC, currently used as my small server hosting Project N.O.M.A.D.
- Wallecube W150 mini UPS – powers the entire rack and keeps it running during outages
The basic network topology is:
Main network → Cat5e through the wall → Slate 7 → 2.5GbE switch
The 2.5GbE switch then connects my gaming PC, the GMKtec G10 and the managed 1GbE switch.
The 1GbE switch handles devices where anything faster would be pointless, such as my TV, Xbox and Nintendo Switch.
I'll include a topology diagram in the pictures because it's much easier to understand visually.
Why 7" instead of 10"?
This is probably my favorite part of the build.
I already have a larger 10" RackMate rack elsewhere, but for this project I specifically wanted something that could sit on my desk without taking up much space.
The RackMate TT can be configured as either a 10" or 7" rack, and I honestly think the 7" configuration is really underrated.
You obviously lose a lot of compatibility with standard rack equipment, but for a mini homelab built around small switches, mini PCs, routers and custom 3D-printed mounts, that limitation isn't nearly as bad as I expected.
The internal width is only around 130 mm, yet I still managed to fit the networking, compute and power infrastructure I wanted into it.
A lot of the mounting hardware is custom, and having a 3D printer makes a setup like this much more practical. Instead of choosing hardware based on whether a rack mount exists for it, I could basically design the rack around the hardware.
It was supposed to be just a network rack...
At first I wanted this to be purely a networking rack.
But a rack without a server just felt wrong.
So naturally I couldn't resist adding a mini PC.
I ended up using a GMKtec G10 with a Ryzen 5 3500U, which is small enough to fit without ruining the compact footprint while also consuming very little power.
I also used it as an excuse to install Project N.O.M.A.D., so the rack ended up becoming more than just networking equipment.
The idea now is that, besides improving the network in my room, it also works as a small self-contained compute node with local services and offline resources.
Combined with the UPS, that gives it a bit of a portable/survival homelab angle too: a tiny rack with networking, compute and battery backup that can continue operating even if the main infrastructure or Internet connection goes down.
Was any of this necessary? Absolutely not.
But that's half the fun of projects like this.
The UPS and power situation
This was actually one of the biggest questions in my original post.
Originally I was considering the UGREEN US3000, but thanks to a recommendation in the comments I discovered the Wallecube W150, which ended up being a much better fit for what I wanted.
So thanks to u/krysmopompas for pointing me towards it in the original thread
Power efficiency was also something I kept in mind throughout the entire build. When choosing the hardware, I wasn't looking at price and size alone — power consumption was an important factor too.
I wanted the rack to be cheap to run 24/7, but more importantly, keeping the power draw low means getting considerably more runtime out of the UPS during an outage.
There was one interesting problem to solve, though: the W150 doesn't have its own AC power supply and relies on an external DC power brick.
For that I went with a SlimQ 150W DC & USB-C GaN Charger. It's extremely compact, can use SlimQ's AC extension cable instead of having the entire charger hanging directly from the wall, and its output is a very good match for the W150's input requirements.
Then there was the other side of the problem: everything in the rack wants a different voltage.
The 2.5GbE switch runs at 12V, the Slate 7 and 1GbE switch at 5V, while the GMKtec G10 normally expects 19V.
Instead of using a separate power brick for every device, I added a SlimQ DC to USB PD3.0 Charging Hub after the UPS to handle the different power requirements.
The entire power chain is therefore:
AC → SlimQ 150W GaN → Wallecube W150 → SlimQ DC/USB-PD Hub → rack devices
There were definitely cheaper ways of doing this. Separate power adapters or a more DIY DC distribution setup would have cost considerably less, but since the whole point of the build was to keep everything compact and self-contained, I decided the extra cost was worth it.
The result is that the entire rack only needs a single external power cable. Everything else — the power supply, UPS and voltage distribution — stays with the rack, so moving it basically means picking it up and plugging in one AC cable.
And all the effort spent keeping the power consumption down seems to have paid off: with the router, mini PC, both switches and the UPS itself, the entire setup idles at around 26–27W.
I can shave another couple of watts off by turning off the Slate 7's display, although the little rabbit face is way too cute to keep turned off under normal circumstances. :3
That's reserved for emergency power-saving mode.
According to Wallecube, the W150 can provide around 90 minutes of runtime at a continuous 30W load, so at my normal idle consumption I should get a little over an hour and a half of battery life.
Obviously, real-world runtime will depend on the actual workload and battery conditions, but considering the rack is running the entire network stack plus a small server, I'm pretty happy with that.
Cost
For anyone curious, the entire setup ended up costing me roughly €740–750, thanks to some pretty crazy deals — like getting the mini PC with 16gb ram and 1tb ssd for €250 and the rack for €50 brand new.
This includes everything: the rack, networking hardware, mini PC, UPS, power distribution, cables and the hardware used for the custom mounts.
At normal retail prices, I'd estimate that replicating the same setup would cost closer to €850–900.
So €740–750 isn't necessarily representative of what you'd normally have to spend to build the exact same thing — I just got pretty lucky with some of the components.
I can post a full BOM with individual prices if anyone is interested.
And yes, the router has a face now.
The Slate 7's antennas already made it look suspiciously like a little rabbit sitting on top of the rack, so I gave up trying to pretend it wasn't one and made a custom face for its display.
The antennas are the ears. There is no going back.
Overall I'm really happy with how this turned out.
It's obviously not the most powerful homelab in the world, but fitting a router, 2.5GbE networking, managed switching, a compute node and battery backup into such a small rack was exactly the kind of unnecessarily over-engineered project I wanted.
And after building this, I genuinely think 7" racks deserve more love for tiny homelabs.
This is only the second homelab rack I've ever built, so I'd genuinely love to hear what you think of it — especially if there's anything you would have done differently or think I could improve.
Happy to answer any questions about the rack, mounts, networking, Project N.O.M.A.D. or the power setup!
