Small But Mighty Homelab: DeskPi 12U Running 20+ Services
Published: (January 2, 2026 at 06:58 AM EST)
1 min read
Source: Dev.to
Source: Dev.to
TL;DR
You don’t need a server room to run a powerful homelab. With a couple of Raspberry Pis, a mini PC, and a Jetson — all packed in a 12U rack — you can run 20+ services in a corner of a tiny apartment.
The Problem
Living in a 10 sqm studio apartment in Tokyo, space is precious. My homelab evolution:
- Metal rack – Just a Pi 4 + hard disk running Samba NAS
- TV rack – More services, but cluttered cables and dust everywhere
- DeskPi 12U rack – Vertical consolidation, clean look, dust‑free
What’s Inside
| Host | Role |
|---|---|
| Raspberry Pi 4 | Home Assistant |
| Raspberry Pi 5 | Monitoring (Grafana, Prometheus, Uptime Kuma) |
| Intel N305 Mini PC | Main Docker host (Proxmox + LXC) |
| Jetson Orin Nano Super | Local voice assistant |
| OpenWrt ONE | Router + WireGuard VPN + Nginx reverse proxy |
Both Pis are PoE‑powered — fewer cables, cleaner setup.
What It Runs
- Media: Jellyfin, Komga, Radarr, Sonarr, qBittorrent
- Apps: Vaultwarden, Immich, n8n, Syncthing
- Smart Home: Home Assistant + local voice control
- Monitoring: Grafana, Prometheus, Alertmanager, Uptime Kuma
All self‑hosted. No subscriptions. Full control.
Cost
~$1,000‑1,250 for the base hardware (excluding RAM/storage). Not cheap, but replaces multiple cloud subscriptions and keeps your data yours.
Full Guide
Want the complete architecture breakdown with:
- Mermaid network diagram
- Detailed hardware specs & reasoning
- Full cost breakdown table
- Lessons learned
Read the full post: Small But Mighty Homelab: DeskPi 12U Running 20+ Services