--- title: "My First Homelab Storage Setup: HP Gen8 & Xpenology" description: "I have been meaning to post around some of the lab setup for a while. Although it changes frequently at present it's as below." date: 2018-01-06T17:39:20+00:00 modified: 2026-06-01T21:58:16+00:00 author: James Kilby categories: - Homelab - Storage - Synology - VCF - VMware - Networking - Ansible - Automation tags: - #Homelab - #Storage url: https://jameskilby.co.uk/2018/01/lab-storage/ image: https://jameskilby.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/og/lab-storage.png --- [Homelab](https://jameskilby.co.uk/category/homelab/) | [Storage](https://jameskilby.co.uk/category/storage/) | [Synology](https://jameskilby.co.uk/category/synology/) # My First Homelab Storage Setup: HP Gen8 & Xpenology By[James](https://jameskilby.co.uk)January 6, 2018 · Updated June 1, 2026 • 📖1 min read(197 words) 📅 **Published:** January 06, 2018• **Updated:** June 01, 2026 I have been meaning to post around some of the lab setup for a while. Although it changes frequently at present it’s as below. I will add some pics when I have tidied up the lab/cables…. My primary lab storage is all contained within an HP Gen8 Microserver. Currently Configured: 1x INTEL Core i3-4130 running at 2.3Ghz 16Gb of RAM 4x 1Gb/s NIC 2x 3TB WD Red 2x Intel SSD 320 Series 80GB, 25nm MLC This is running Xpenology. I have the 4 Nics split into two LACP bonds. One for the management traffic and one for pure NFS traffic. The 2x WD Reds are in an SHR configuration with the SSDs running as an SSD read-write cache. This gives me 2.6TB useable which is plenty to lab and store photos and media and with the RW cache, the perf is pretty damn good. I also have a DS216+II Synology with 2x 2TB WD Red’s this is my tier 2 lab storage, for backups ISO’s etc I am running a few apps/containers on the Xpenology install as it has a lot more ram/processing power. At the moment this consists of: Docker – GitLab Docker – PHPipam Plex ## 📚 Related Posts * [Homelab SSD Failure: How Synology RAID Saved My Data](https://jameskilby.co.uk/2022/11/homelab-bad-days-almost/) * [Can you really squeeze 96TB in 1U ?](https://jameskilby.co.uk/2024/09/can-you-really-squeeze-96tb-in-1u/) * [Homelab Storage Upgrade: Synology DS918 for VMware & NFS](https://jameskilby.co.uk/2019/02/lab-storage-2/) ## Similar Posts * [![Lab Update – Part 2 Storage Truenas Scale](https://jameskilby.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/maxresdefault-768x432.jpeg)](https://jameskilby.co.uk/2022/01/lab-update-part-2-storage/) [Homelab](https://jameskilby.co.uk/category/homelab/) | [Storage](https://jameskilby.co.uk/category/storage/) ### [Lab Update – Part 2 Storage Truenas Scale](https://jameskilby.co.uk/2022/01/lab-update-part-2-storage/) By[James](https://jameskilby.co.uk)January 11, 2022 · Updated June 1, 2026 The HP Z840 has changed its role to a permanent storage box running Truenas Scale. * [![VMware Holodeck on Older CPUs: Fixing Compatibility Issues](https://jameskilby.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/40oOd8IipPvtrPJs-1198788743-768x737.jpg)](https://jameskilby.co.uk/2024/01/holodeck-cpu-fixes/) [VCF](https://jameskilby.co.uk/category/vmware/vcf/) | [VMware](https://jameskilby.co.uk/category/vmware/) ### [VMware Holodeck on Older CPUs: Fixing Compatibility Issues](https://jameskilby.co.uk/2024/01/holodeck-cpu-fixes/) By[James](https://jameskilby.co.uk)January 18, 2024 · Updated June 1, 2026 How to deploy Holodeck with Legacy CPU’s * [Homelab](https://jameskilby.co.uk/category/homelab/) | [Networking](https://jameskilby.co.uk/category/networking/) ### [Homelab Network Upgrade: DACs, 40Gb/s vMotion & pfSense](https://jameskilby.co.uk/2022/01/lab-update-part-3-network/) By[James](https://jameskilby.co.uk)January 6, 2022 · Updated May 31, 2026 I have retired the WatchGuard Devices with the migration to PFSense running bare-metal in one of the Supermicro Nodes. * [![vSphere Power Management Ansible Playbooks with Semaphore](https://jameskilby.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/vsphere-power-management-ansible-768x403.png)](https://jameskilby.co.uk/2026/04/vsphere-power-management-driven-by-ansible/) [Ansible](https://jameskilby.co.uk/category/ansible/) | [Automation](https://jameskilby.co.uk/category/automation/) ### [Automating vSphere Power Management driven by Ansible and SemaphoreUI](https://jameskilby.co.uk/2026/04/vsphere-power-management-driven-by-ansible/) By[James](https://jameskilby.co.uk)April 15, 2026 · Updated June 1, 2026 In this post I’ll walk through how I use vSphere Power Management driven by Ansible and SemaphoreUI to automatically reduce ESXi host electricity consumption — saving real money on my Octopus Agile tariff by toggling hosts between Low Power and Balanced policies. 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