Hi all, since ya’ll are self hosters, I’m sure you all deal with all sorts of different pieces of hardware, accessories, peripherals, and what not; just wondering if you could please share your favorite, solid, “go to” brands for overall things you need for your setup such as cables (all types), adapters, dongles, power accessories, hubs & docks, flash drives, you name it! I’m sure it varies depending on exactly what type of equipment you’re looking for but just looking for overall good brands to stick with for such things. I obviously know the main ones like Anker, Cable Matters, Ugreen, maybe Belkin, Idk. Would love to hear your recommendations! Thank you
None. One year, Lenovo has the best Linux support. Another it might not. One year, Logi makes a solid mouse. Another year they do not. One year, a company makes a great product. Another year there is a privacy scandal.
Look at what devs of the projects you use recommend, and read reviews withing 3 months of your purchase. Don’t pick a brand, pick a product.
Thank you
Anker for docks and dongs.
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Wait, computer have dongs now?
Plugs and condoms too. Don’t forget to wrap your strange usb outlets.
Fine
Docks and dongs! Two things you ought love lol
For most computer stuff, whatever has the best Linux support, because Linux is the operating system I use btw
Same, I am also a Linux user. What are your favorite brands?
Same here, I mostly let work buy Dell but at home I mostly bought Lenovo.
I have a Dell laptop, so maybe I should stick with dell devices if I add anything more. Currently searching for a docking station, so Dell is probably my top choice… Not what about all the cabling?! lol
I like the Dell docking station, one cable for charging, external screen, mouse, keyboard, audio devise, SD card reader, camera. Back during my MacBook days plugging everything in and out was a terrible experience.
Yup that sounds ideal! i’ve had so much trouble with the ONLY ports on my laptop, being two usb-c ports smh. Just over the years of wear and tear they both became loose and stopped working. Had a shop replace one and he salvaged the other with adding a bit more solder. I just want to get devices away from these dog gone ports and onto a dock lol
btw
🤔
Networking I really like TP-Link with their Omada range. It’s like Ubiquity.
Spinning Disk drives I always go Hitachi now.
USB thumb drives SanDisk have been pretty good for me.
Cables I like Ugreen, chargers I like Anker.
I’ve also found TP-Link to be the best bang for the buck when it comes to home labbing. I have several of their managed switches at home, a couple almost 10 years old, and they keep on trucking.
Perfect! Thank you
I was a die-hard Logitech fan for many years, but over the past five or so their quality has really gone downhill, with their prices remaining the same if not increasing. I have a full set of Logitech peripherals but when the time comes to replace them Logitech will not be in the running.
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I love the wheel toggle more than I could ever have imagined.
I’ve been using MX masters since the first model, my only gripe however is I always wear through the thumb pad button well before the rest of the mouse is showing any wear, the rubber was just not up to scratch. All of my 2s’s have a hole cut in the rubber there to get to the button below just to make it work.
The 3s that I have a couple of are pretty sturdy and seem to wear much better in that regard, and the metal scrollwheel on that model is better too as it doesn’t have rubber to wear out and go gummy either.
The stock pads always wear out super fast too, so I put glass on one of them and it’s been a game changer.
The rubber on mine turned sticky and I got rid of it. It was nasty to touch. I’d get another if it was a different material. Ended up with a G903 but not keen and want something new after just a year.
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I just searched glass mx master 3 pads and there were some available online.
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Then get some higher end Teflon ones, they last much longer than stock. or get generic glass circle pads, available as small round blanks that can be fit to any mouse.
Mine seem not available any more, they were a cheap chinese copy so might not have stayed in business.
This is great to know, thanks. What do you plan to use as replacements? and do you typically try to stay with the same brand for most of your gear or does that not matter?
I’m looking at Keychron for a keyboard. I recently replaced my Z-5500 surround speakers with a cheapo soundbar off Amazon. I’d like to get something comparable to the old Z-5500s (which were phenomenal) but I haven’t found anything similar yet. And Logitech doesn’t make anything in their league any more. Aside from those I haven’t really looked for anything else. If I were to find a brand that reliably offered good-quality products with the features I’m looking for I would happily buy a whole set from them, but I have no problem with mixing-and-matching brands either.
Well speaking of Amazon, I actually read that Amazon Basics is a great option for low level stuff like cables, chargers, adapters, etc.
Keychron hardware is solid and I have no complain in the typing department. In fact, having hot-swappable switch is very useful for extending the life of the keyboard as you can easily replace broken switches instead of replacing the whole keyboard (I already need to replace my W switch after a year). My only gripe is the shitty firmware, but I have an older model so I can’t say if the latest model still have shitty firmware.
I can simultaneously confirm Keychron makes a solid keyboard while also saying their shit. I have 1 White LED one that works perfectly. I have a RGB one that is in theory identical but it constantly drops Bluetooth connection, and constantly reppppppppppeats keys.
Cheaper than Logitech - that is for sure. Neither has any customer support.
I have updated the Firmware on both to no effect.
Might be similar issue with mine. It usually has some issues with dropping bluetooth connection and repeating keys when the battery is not full. My solution is to disconnect the battery and use it as a wired keyboard.
Remember power!
First and foremost, well-grounded power is essential. I haven’t done the whole house thing yet, but I am thinking about it and curious to know of other’s stories.
For surge protectors, I like GE wall taps for form factor and Furman racks when there is space & need.
For an uninterruptible power supply, I like APC. While they aren’t made in the USA like they used to (RIP), they have been reliable for me.
Network (ISP Modem, WIFI, Switch) and tower CPU are all driven by UPS power. APC UPS, at least, is always drawing off the battery, so the upstream electronics are protected…a massive surge is far more likely to take out the battery. For laptops, surge protection is enough.
I have not yet surge-protected the ISP lower power input… this is a real risk! I found a cheap one off Amazon, but I am worried it will degrade the network --> whole house may be better.
Note - I have had a lightning strike get sent down the cable line, enter the home, blow out the cable modem, traverse into the network switch, blow out the switch, and nuke every active ethernet port (NAS, Apple TV, etc.), as well as jump the wire into low power security, physically blowing a hard-wired security panel off the wall and damaging a few hard-wired security points. Pretty crazy!
Holy crap thats crazy! Are simple things like surge protectors pretty much equal? Is there a point in researching brands for such a presumably simple thing?
Depends, it’s all a gamble. Think of it like this … how much do you spend on your kit? A top end GPU is $1500 USD. A decent surge protector might cost $15. However suppose you cheap out and get one for $9.99…then a surge blows thru it and smokes your mobo&gpu. how much did that $5 in savings cost you?
there is quite a bit that goes into it. And yet it’s not magic. Also, protection does wear out as load & surge is applied. So it’s not really worth it to pay top end, over and over, at least imo.
Monoprice for cables.
Ahh good to know. Adding to the list lol I’ve heard the name mentioned a few times but never really looked into their stuff. Thanks
Servers: Supermicro. Dell in a pinch
Switches: HPE Aruba for 10gig, or Mellanox for 100gig
Routers: I’m not that picky, but I use Fortigate as I scavenged some leftovers at work
UPS: Eaton
Network cards: Intel for 10gig, IBM for 8 or 16gig, Mellanox for 100gig
Harddrives: Exos
RAID stuff: LSI MegaRaid.
GPU: Don’t really care, but I have a bunch of NVidia Quadro.Most of the above preferences are due to scavenging leftover hardware at work.
Wow wow wow, you guys are light years ahead of me in the equipment department. I plan to learn and utilize a lot of that stuff but I was more interested in the smaller everyday things like chargers, cables, flash drives, adapters, etc lol still great info though. I was super intruided by supermicros server selection when I went down that rabbit hole. Truth is, I’m not nearly ready for a server yet.
Depends on which aspect of you needs to be ready. Use case and functionality? Meh, now is as good time as any. Might as well get used to the differences from a desktop to servers early on. Especially if you still don’t really have the knowledge. Learn by doing!
Budget? True, they can be pricey, even on the after market. But if you or a friend works anywhere that had servers, chances are that the IT department might have something that’d otherwise end up in the trash. A good example here is this VM server with rather old CPUs and 256G of RAM. It wasn’t fit for its pyrpose anymore, and its hardware configuration made it a bad match for our storage clusters. Today it’s a minecraft server for my kids and their friends.
EDIT: Actually, the older PowerEdge servers feom Dell aren’t that pricey on my local marketplace.
Damn son, are you me back when I worked at a MSP? Good taste in gear 💪😎💪
Nah, I work for a geophysical company with a bunch of storage clusters and data crunchers around the world.
Routers - Netgate / pfSense. Best router GUI I’ve found. If you understand what you want to make happen, chances are you can figure out how to make it happen without touching a CLI. And generally free of Cisco for license bullshit.
Routing and WiFi- Ubiquiti. Not as flexible as pfSense but even easier to use and if you do both routing and WiFi with them you get a bunch of cool analytics. Their surveillance package is great too as long as you use their cameras, pretty much the best mobile surveillance app I’ve found. Door access system also gets a mention.
Synology for almost everything they do, but particularly storage, backup, surveillance (they support almost every camera, albeit with a license requirement) and hosting of self hosted apps using a nice docker GUI. Not as much bang for buck vs. an old PC in terms of CPU power, but very easy to use.
For home automation- Home Assistant or HomeSeer. Both are open platforms that support almost everything. Home Assistant pulls lightly ahead for me because it’s free and has more 3rd party integrations, even if it has a steeper hearing curve in some areas and some rough edges that require tweaking for basic usability (specifically, Z-Wave requires the ‘z-wave js ui’ plugin to take real control over a Z-Wave mesh, and Z-Wave door locks need the Keymaster plugin to get any sort of user code management, neither are straightforward to install). That said- pair Home Assistant with a Z-Wave dongle and some Inovelli light switches and you have a really beautiful setup with insane flexibility.
Thank you! Pfsense is one thing I’m confused about… Its a software, right? Does it matter the type of router you use it on? Or do you buy routers that specifically have it installed?
It’s sort of both.
Netgate is the company that develops pfSense. They make pfSense available as a download that you can run on your own hardware or your own VM. They also sell pfSense routers that have official support and a free upgrade to their slightly nicer ‘pfSense Plus’ version. I generally recommend the official hardware (support the project and all that, and it’s good quality if a bit more expensive). However if you want to save a few bucks you can get a cheap NUC-type PC with a few Intel Ethernet ports from Protectli or similar brands on Amazon.
So would a router running pfsense then also become my primary WiFi routers too? Or is it best to keep pfsense strictly as a firewall and have a separate router strictly for WiFi?
So would a router running pfsense then also become my primary WiFi routers too? Or is it best to keep pfsense strictly as a firewall and have a separate router strictly for WiFi?
pfSense doesn’t really do WiFi. So you’d use it as a router/firewall, then have something else do your WiFi. I generally recommend Ubiquiti.
It’s worth noting that a ‘WiFi router’ is usually 3 separate things in one box- a router/firewall, a WiFi access point, and a small switch of usually 4-6 ports. In a home you usually want these things in the same place so they’re in one box. In an enterprise, the router/firewall is usually in the basement where there’s no WiFi, network switches may be in many places and a tiny one in the router won’t help you, and WiFi is up by where the workers are. So it’s that sort of setup that pfSense is designed for.
The way I have my place set up- a pfSense machine is the router/firewall. I then use Netgear managed switches (there’s a few, mainly GS110TP’s), and Ubiquiti WiFi. The Ubiquiti controller runs inside Docker on a small Synology box. Highly recommend this setup.
But I’d just as highly recommend going Ubiquiti all the way. Dream Machine Pro SE is a great base router/firewall, and it has a built in PoE switch so you can hang a few U6 Pro access points off it. You get a bit more flexibility with pfSense but in most home environments it’s not needed.
Wow thanks for the info, sounds like some hefty stuff to learn lol. So I’m kinda broke and can’t afford new hardware ATM. I only have a tp Link archer ax1800 WiFi 6 router and a belkin rt3200 because I read its great for openwrt. Wellll openwrt completely overwhelmed me so I never got a chance to properly implement it. One of these days I’ll need to sit down with more patience and try to understand the firmware better
Try dd-wrt firmware. Lets you dip your toe into the water so to speak, with a lot less of the complication of openwrt. At least it used to when I last used it several years ago.
If you have a spare old PC, pfSense is a great way to screw around. Even if it only has one NIC there is (or at least used to be) basic hostap support so you could use the builtin wifi card as a base station. Otherwise spend $20 on a supported USB-Ethernet adapter and you’ve got yourself a router to play with.
thanks but I dont think either of my routers are dd-wrt compatible unfortunately
I’ve been liking Mikrotik stuff for networking lately. Not as user friendly GUI as Ubiquiti but definitely not as expensive.
I have a few Mikrotik switches mixed in with my Unifi rig, they are excellent bang for buck, well featured, easy to program and have a huge model selection covering basically every possible use case.
Just bought a Mikrotik LHGG kit for LTE internet and went from about 3-5 Mbit/s down with a TP-link (archer 400 something) to 30-150mbit/s down and much more stable. I’m really impressed with it and WinBox and will for sure have a good look at their switches when it comes to putting up the home network infrastructure. Though, as you said, you need to know what you are doing and need a better understanding of networking but it also gives you a better flexibility and more things that are possible to do.
I have heard alot of really good things about Mikrotik. I haven’t explored them as I haven’t had many networking needs, but maybe I’ll take a look at their offerings. Thanks
For networks, much of it depends on budget and requirement. Do you want home security cameras on your network? Are you someone who works with large files all the time? Do you have gig plus Internet speeds? Do you own or rent? Lots of factors can affect choices. Start from there and build the infrastructure that works for your need. Don’t go looking to build a monster you’ll never really get moving, that’s a waste. Brand will become a factor once you look at the capabilities you need, you’ll see names come up over and over. At the consumer level, there are a few but price is also a factor. Not much help, I know.
I gotcha, that makes sense. I’m really at the beginning of my homelab or self hosting journey. I’ve been exploring alot of random aspects and keep forgetting to think about the basic things first. My problem is figuring out how to start and setup things properly, but that’s a whole other thread/story lol
Do you have any recommendations for home security cameras that are PoE?
I like NVR systems with PoE, Lorex makes some good ones and they do a decent job at trying to secure your device. Granted, that same security makes it more challenging to reset a password, but it’s good to know someone jacking your NVR wouldn’t be able to just use it.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters Git Popular version control system, primarily for code NAS Network-Attached Storage NUC Next Unit of Computing brand of Intel small computers NVR Network Video Recorder (generally for CCTV) PSU Power Supply Unit Plex Brand of media server package PoE Power over Ethernet RAID Redundant Array of Independent Disks for mass storage SSD Solid State Drive mass storage Unifi Ubiquiti WiFi hardware brand VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting)
11 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 7 acronyms.
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good info! I am interested in NUCs just not quite yet ;)
Asus. Seems to always be quality.
They just laid off a shit ton of employees and the RMA has gone downhill recently. Shame evga are not around in the gpu space.
That’s always a recommended brand. Never had much luck with their laptops, but had a real old Asus router that I liked.
my last 4 or 5 computer builds have been Asus motherboards and i;ve had great luck with them, and my mini-pcs are all Asus PN50/51 Ryzen based NUC-alikes, they are excellent. I use one as my main workstation modded into a fanless case.
I feel like their quality slipped lately however, might be part of their cost cutting before they restructured recently. will have to keep an eye on how they do in the future.
For ultra-budget laptops however, I lean towards Lenovo they have been so good to me over the years.
Yep. I’m sure they’ve made some duds, but they are my go to brand. Have been impressed in one way or another with everything I’ve had from them.
My number two is Lenovo.
There was a time I’d avoid Western Digital cause everything they made fails, and I mostly leaned toward SanDisk cause they were very reliable, and well, my avoidance list got larger.
Hmm I always though western digital was pretty decent for hard drives?
They are. Follow the backblaze drive failure reports for quality checks.
Western Digital owns SanDisk now fyi
That’s the joke.
I’ve had the exact opposite experience historically. Of 5 Seagate drives I’ve purchased over the last decade or so, only 1 of them is still working. Meanwhile 25+ WD hard drives are still in production over the same time with only 1 that started throwing smart errors a couple years back.
I believe Kingston has the fastest and smallest USB drive out there. I’ve never had an anker product that lasts long but Belkin seems to be good to me. I pick my WiFi routers based on what is supported by OpenWRT. Nitecore makes great batteries and chargers. My Caldigit dock is fantastic
Yea I’ve read Caldigit is the gold standard for docking stations; a bit pricy for me ATM though. I think I shall get a dell dock, which should work good with my dell laptop :) What about cables and adapters and chargers? have any specific favorites for those types of things?
Besides Nitecore for various battery types and cameras I don’t have a preference as long as it’s a quality brand so I don’t fry anything. I am waiting for higher output GaN chargers for USB-C specifically. I have yet to find any though if anyone else knows of any.
I need to look into GaN chargers. I keep hearing about them but not too sure why they’re so popular
As far as I care or know about they’re just incredibly small for how much power they can output.
I hear Ugreen has a real nice one, but you’re probably already aware of that.
What USB drive is the Kingston drive? I looked years ago but all of them sucked on write speed. The best one I found was SanDisk Extreme PRO USB 3.2. I think it is actually a solids state drive vs a traditional USB drive. It definitely isn’t the smallest flash drive, but I am not waiting 30 minutes to copy of 4GB ISO file to it.
The Kingston Data Traveler Max. It’s USB 3.2x2. I suppose it’s not as fast as the new USB4 devices but I suspect they’ll eventually release a new version. It’s the same speeds as the SanDisk Extreme V2 (non Pro). So very fast but not quite besting SanDisk but it has a smaller footprint going for it without a dongle essentially.
Oh wow that is really fast drive. I will have to take a look at that one. Glad to see other companies are starting to come out with fast drives.
A few years ago when I was looking the SanDisk was the only drive that was actually fast on writing. Every flash drive I found basically lied about the write speed. They would say oh it is 300mbps but when it would only be able to sustain that speed for a very short time then it would would drop to a slow crawl of 10mbps sometimes even less. One drive was 3mpbs. Or they wouldn’t advertise the write speed at all and just focus on read speeds.
There was those portable SSDs but they were still a little big and I wanted something small I could carry with keys.
It is nice to see more companies making them. I had to search a long time to find that drive. A good reason to have different options is that a firmware update it now available for those SanDisk drives we were talking about because a critical flaw was found within them.
Luckily is wasn’t those but the flash drive version. Why SanDisk has the same name for like 4 different products is beyond me.
https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-128GB-Extreme-Solid-State/dp/B08GYM5F8G
The feeling I get from Belkin is that the hardware is decent, but their software is always atrocious
Oh I also got a Belkin RT3200 router because I read it is the best budget router for OpenWRT, but I realized I am way in over my head with OpenWRT lol so I’ve backed off from that project for now. I shall get to it someday though
It’s definitely complicated for me too. It took me many videos and articles to figure out how to set it up. I realized ram and on board storage is very important for how many plugins you can use.
Thanks. could you clarify the ram issue? you mean just by setting up a swap? and on board storage, are you referring to creating a separate partition for storage? how would you get all three distros to automatically store things on that drive?
Memory and storage are the two big potential limitations. As you install various plugins under the “Software” section (If you choose to) your memory and storage space will quickly start to get eaten up as visualized under the “Software” and “Overview” sections. For instance, Adguard Home could be something worth installing but it’s also a heavy program. It requires 50MB of free memory and over 100MB of free storage. I have the memory but not the storage space required (even before any other plugins were installed). However there is a way to add extra root storage to your router via a USB drive but it’s also quite a process to get that sorted.
