Homelab

wait, they shut off? who knew.

Never.

My optiplex 9010 sff is what I use for experimenting with services and as a staging area for moving VMs to my main lab because it's air gapped. At max load it runs at 140w but it has a GTX 1650 that I use for gaming as well.

Otherwise the rest of my lab is only turned on when I'm using it or forget to turn it off when I leave the house. When I get a laptop again I'll leave it on more. None of it is more than $150 to replace though. It's a Hyve Zeus, Cisco isr 4331, and a catalyst 3750x so nothing heavy, just a little loud.

Never really shit my mini pcs down, sometimes I restart a proxmox node if I want it to use an updated kernal but that's it. I don't run large servers at home

I mean, so far the longest uptime I’ve seen at my current job is 9 years. Yes, that host should be patched. But given its role, and network access, it’s fine. Running strong. It is in a DC. Server grade hardware is designed with 24/7 operation in mind. Consumer hardware might be fine, but wasn’t designed with 24/7 critical operation in mind.

At home, I have some nucs on 24/7, and a r740 and nx3230 on 24/7. The rest is for true lab env and I only power on as needed.

It depends. I don't run anything public facing so security updates that need reboots are less of a concern to me

My Windows servers are rebooted once a month for patches. My Linux servers maybe once every couple months for kernel patches or if I screwed something up. My physical proxmox hosts? Twice in the last year. Once because I moved. The other time because I upgraded to proxmox 8.

I set up a cron job to reboot once a day. Its for my security cameras and I want to ensure access. But, if you dont have issues, you dont need to.

I shut down my NAS after work because I tend to not use it's services outside yet and saving like 2/3 of a day in electricity is worth it. For the machines that provide services like networking and security they run on UPS 24/7 up until there is a need to update or a UPS has a failure

Only when I swap or upgrade internal hardware.

These run 24/7/365.

ppl shut down there hosts? Since when? XD

Only when I type "shutdown" on the wrong console window.. New hardware or need to fix something.

So that's pretty rare 😂

Power failures, hardware upgrades.

My Proxmox VM host ran for well over a year and I had to shut it down to add more RAM when I finally bought it. A couple VMs on it ran for just as long. All Linux stuff. Windows guest have to reboot minimum every 90 days or things start getting weird, just a DC

I shut my 4U desktop off at night to save energy unless it's running some overnight compute job. NAS goes into sleep mode but stays on. Switch, router, home assistant NUC stay on.

It kind of also depends on the OS. And before the comments start; As with anything, situation & a bit of luck go a long way.

But Linux based machines can be left enabled for months, some times even years. Windows I Honestly wouldn't trust beyond a few months and even that would seem too much for my own taste.

I reboot my systems monthly most of the time, usually paired with updates. But my main host is Windows serv, which gets daily reboots (power savings, I don't need it on when I sleep), and the VMs on that are frozen & unfrozen so they are on for about a month or more until I do the above.

I have built a UPS with 200AH 12V battery with inverter charger for RV. It never fails with power so it runs like for months until I decided to put something in… let’s see

Shut down? Never, reboot when necessary.

My stuff only shuts down when the power goes out longer than my battery can hold

Fuck that. 3 years uptime and counting.

I don’t shut them down but I restart when I apply updates. Having a high uptime counter is not a badge of honor unless it’s a fancy HA system.

I suppose it depends what kind of hardware you're using. I have enterprise class servers that are meant to run 24/7 and they do. They'll be useless technologically before they wear out.

Sometimes I don’t need all the things running so I’ll kill a few pi’s and disks

I don't reboot servers in my homelab unless any update require me to do so. I do have a clustered Proxmox setup, so no downtime if the admin (aka me) doesn't screw up ;-)

The only valid reason (imho) to reboot unless any update requires it would be apps with memory leaks where a service restart doesn't fix the problem. Not often I face this problem these days, but earlier versions of Windows had the occasional habit...

Summer every day in the afternoon for heat and power usage (time of use bills triple from 3-9pm). Scripted to run on one host per site for must have apps.

Winter - once a month for the weekend after patch Tuesday. It’s a chance to check for cables being nibbled/cleaning/other things needing doing.

Fairly frequently,but no real schedule. 3wks-3months, whenever I get some time to update without it being a problem. Primarily for patching & new kernels reasons but has caught the odd disk issue where btrfs was struggling and I didn't catch when running.

Network services 24/7 (4 rpi3) Nas shutdowns every day at 23:30 and boots at 9:00, except we that boots at 10:00. Apci schedule management is embedded in firmware (qnap).

Servers shutdown at 23:15 and boots at 9:15 (we 10:15). For these rtcwake does the job.

WoL is enabled in case of.

Even though live kernel patching is a thing, I generally do a full reboot every month or two for the next big patch.

Full shut downs? Are we upgrading them, dusting them, or doing any other maintenance to them? That would be the only case besides UPS failure or power outage.

What are you guys even running that needs to be on?

I just got a Dell R510 and a HPe Proliant 360 g7, installed esx on them, but i cant find anything that would justify running them for 24/7.

I mean, besides a nas that holds some files.. i cant find anything worthy.. can only think about enterprise purposes which i dont meed at home.

So, to answer the question, they are always off untill i want to experiment

They have an off switch? who knew.

What uptimes are people looking at right now?

Whenever regular patching necessitates a reboot. Typically once a month.

Almost never since getting a whole home generator.

I have two hosts: raspberry pi that serves as a pi-hole and as a log of infrequent power outages, it goes 24/7, often with 100+ days of uptime (seeing the "(!)" sign in htop is so satisfying) and a SFF that shuts itself off nighty, provided nothing is happening on it (power is expensive).

old 486 slackware 4.0 server I had on a big UPS made it through several dorm/apartment moves without a shutdown. Something like 7 years of uptime when I finally retired it.

My stuff is pretty low powered so it runs 24/7 except one old machine I use as a last resort offline backup that I boot and sync to every few months.

When I’m adding hardware or decide to blow out my pc equipment (which is way less than I should). I have dogs and cats and their hair gets everywhere.

shutdown? - never :D

Everything in my lab is up 24/7 unless my UPS shuts it down in a power outage, if I'm doing any work inside the chassis or if I'm updating something. If you can handle the power bill, no real harm keeping it online all day.

Lol. 236 days and 107 days since the last reboots of my two servers.

Uhhhhh, never

Only when I'm installing/removing hardware. Probably like once a year on average.

Only shut down for maintenance if hardware breaks. Otherwise reboots are done to update firmwares, esxi.

Most things stay up 24/7

I have a couple machines I don't currently use for anything so they're powered off until needed.

I have a five 9s SLA with the wife for Plex.

Changes rarely get approved anyway.

She likes to sweat those assets.

Whenever there is a proxmox kernel update. Every few years to dust them If i get new hardware.

Mines been up for a whilehost uptime

You're rebooting them for update right?

​

right?

Hardware change or power outage

I keep the stuff running 24/7, barely once a year for cleanup pretty much / upgrades or whatever. Don't mind me I still got to get a UPS for when the electricity goes down which it hasn't happen in the past years

Once a month to install patch Tuesday updates because my only host is still running Microsoft Hyper-V 2019 server. Planning to switch to Proxmox that but gonna take a while so I haven't got myself around to do it.