I’m currently in the process of building my own homelab rack. While doing so, I’ve been searching for solutions and hardware that can help me improve and expand my setup.

Right now, my homelab situation is far from ideal it’s messy, unorganized, and accessing any system requires dismantling almost everything. Upgrading anything feels like open-heart surgery.

For this upgrade, I wanted a compact rack that:

Supports at least 6–7 units (or more) Is expandable and modular and is affordable (I’m not wealthy, I work a regular 9–5 job that mainly supports my family)

Despite that, I invest in my homelab because it helps me learn and grow my technical skills, and it has been very beneficial so far.

My proposed solution:

Extruded aluminium (like the material used in 3D printers): It’s sturdy, modular, expandable, and relatively inexpensive. -Minimal 3D printing: In India, especially in my state, 3D printing services are extremely expensive unless you own a printer yourself. -Affordable networking and cabling: I started sourcing tools to make my own Ethernet cables, looking for suppliers with the best price-to-performance ratio, and substituting components where possible as long as performance isn’t affected.

Where things started to get difficult:

Certain hardware, especially KVMs and rack-specific components, is a niche market in India and tends to be very expensive. I wanted to set up two IP-KVMs for my server systems because they are old, refurbished machines with occasional stability issues, so remote debugging would be helpful.

But products like JetKVM, PiKVM, and similar options are either not sold in India or cost a fortune when sourcing the parts individually.

Overall, the hardware costs here are surprisingly high. I’m already about $100 USD deep into what was supposed to be an “affordable” homelab rack, and I’ve hit a significant roadblock.