• Home
  • Home Office
    • Current Home Office
    • The Making Of Version 7
    • Home Office FAQ
    • Home Office Version 6
    • The Making Of Version 6
    • Home Office Version 5
    • Home Office Older than 5.0
    • Home Office Comments
    • Home Office Updates
    • Home Office Infringers
    • Home Office Thieves
  • Blog
  • Ignyter
  • Flickr
  • Twitter
  • About
  • Archive
  • Contact
  • PostsComments

Stefan Didak

Home of the World Famous Home Office Setup

  • The Whole Blog
  • Personal
    • Funny
    • Rant
    • Restaurants
    • Travel
  • Photography
  • Hardware
  • Software
    • Apple Software
    • Software Development
    • Windows Software
  • The Web
  • Web-Bits
  • WiLMa
You are here: Home / Stefan Didak’s Home Office Desktop

Stefan Didak’s Home Office Desktop

Are you looking for my other, previous, insane multi-monitor home office setups?
Version 6.0, Version 5.0, Before 5.0, The FAQ, and also:
Making Of 6.0, Making Of 7.0

This page is dedicated to “my biggest fan”. 🙂 A lot of thanks to Chris and Andrew over at Computers USA for building some of my new systems to-order and doing an amazingly wonderful job at it.

Other pages relating to the entire process of setting up this office can be found:
here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here

On this page, it’s all about the current version of the office, known as “version 7.0”.

Stefan Didak Home Office 6

CLICK THE PICTURE ABOVE IF YOU WANT TO GO TO THE OLD OFFICE PICTURES

THE NIGHT-TIME / NOCTURNAL PICTURES

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

A top view on the new office. Note that a lot of the pictures here were made with a Sigma 10-20mm lens because even though the office has quite comfortable dimensions, taking pictures to show an overview is very difficult because it needs a very wide angle lens. A fisheye would have worked better but then the images would be so warped they’d look weird and really bad.

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

Another top view, from the other side.

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

The main work area where I spend a lot less time than you might think.

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

Fewer lights. Read all about lighting in the Making Of section. The two monitors that are rotated at a 90 degree angle are the Eizo Flexscan S2431WH ones. The 3 x 30 inch screens are the Dell Ultrasharp U3011 ones (with a resolution of 2560×1600 per screen)

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

The server area with multi-color LED’s for backlighting. I just like the blue but the 12-strip LED lights can be (remote controlled) set to produce almost any color imaginable. Whatever the mood happens to be.

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

Same thing without the multi-color LED strips but some of the USB LED lights on. The monitors there, except for the iMac of course, are the  HP LP2475w monitors.

Stefan Didak Home Office Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

Or having all of the sets of lights on. The few dozen USB LED lights around the office are sold under many different brand names but you might be able to find them if you Google for 26 LED USB Lights.

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

Or just no lights at all except for a small one lighting up under the desks.

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

Have you noticed I like the LED lights? 🙂 On a sidenote, what you are seeing on the monitors is not a screensaver of any kind but a large high resolution background that spans the monitors. A little creative cutting and fitting is in order to get it to look like that but it’s real easy. It just takes some planning.

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

A different angle.

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

Big Data. Big Servers. Big Storage. How I control a small little network like this? You might want to read this post I wrote a little while ago.

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

Seamless backgrounds. 🙂

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

A view from the top.

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

Not too great a panorama attempt.

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

I should redo these shots because the background images don’t come out too well.

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

I should redo these shots because the background images don’t come out too well.

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

OK, well, let’s turn the screens off then, shall we?

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

Workstations.

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

Laptops and NAS storage.

THE DAYTIME / AFTERNOON PICTURES

Stefan Didak Home Office 7 Making Of

An attempt at a somewhat more panoramic view.

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

Daylight in the office. NASTY! I don’t like daylight. But I also couldn’t just board up the windows, you know. The blinds are good enough to keep the sun out but but not good enough to take these pictures during the summer months when streaks of sun would still manage to creep through. 🙂

Stefan Didak Home Office 7 Making Of

More daylight.

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

Daylight hitting the “server” area. OK, sure the iMac is not a server, actually.

Stefan Didak Home Office 7 Making Of

The “server” work area.

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

The “server” work area on the left and the “workstation” work area on the right.

Stefan Didak Home Office 7 Making Of

Decided to “tarnish” the server work area with the iMac because it was more convenient for me to have it near where I would use it the most. The old Sinclair ZX-81 is still on the wall there if you pay close attention.

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

Difficult to take pictures like that because I’m only so tall and holding the camera that high without knowing what you’re aiming at. This picture took a few attempts but I think it was worth being able to show a “top” view of the office like this. There’s an easter egg in the picture. Hint it’s in the little top alcove near the top of the roof. No prizes if you guess what it is there…

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

Laptops and mobile stuff.

Stefan Didak Home Office 7 Making Of

Big storage. Big data. Big servers. That and cameras and lenses I use frequently.

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

A view from behind the monitors on the “server” area.

Stefan Didak Home Office 7 Making Of

Workstations! Linux, Linux, Windows, Windows.

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

A top view from the other side of the office.

Stefan Didak Home Office 7 Making Of

Someone asked me for pictures underneath the desks. Well, there are plenty of those on the “making of” page that goes along with this version of the office but just in case you missed it… underneath the desks. 🙂

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

Mac Pro. Beast UPS. Rack with audio, networking and power. And a VMware ESX system. The two switches at the bottom of the rack are a HP Procurve 1800-24G and a HP Procurve 1810-24G, both with 24 gigabit ports. Above it sits a DLink DSR-500 WiFi router (dual WAN).

Stefan Didak Home Office 7 Making Of

A stack of Mini ITX Xeon servers and a few Atom’s that run the DNS and automation on the network.

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

A somewhat different angle. 🙂

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

StarTech DisplayPort Switch Boxes. And my “dock” for the MacBook Retina.

Stefan Didak Home Office 7 Making Of

Rack goodness. Pushed in far enough below the desk so cables won’t stick out. The audio equipment in the top of the rack is made up out of two Behringer Eurorack Pro RX1602, 16 channel line mixers that provides me a central place to control the volume of many of the systems while being able to hear all of them without having to go over the speakers. There is also a Behringer DEQ1024 (Digital Stereo 31-Band 24-Bit/96 kHz Equalizer, Feedback Destroyer/Dynamics Processor) and a Behringer DEQ2496 digital equalizer. The small box at the top is a Behringer MiniAmp AMP800 headphone amplifier with multiple inputs and outputs (since I have headphones on quite a lot).

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

The Mac Retina with its skull and crossbones. Just because it was funny.

Stefan Didak Home Office 7 Making Of

VMware ESX Xeon Server with 8 x 3TB WD RED drives and 4 x 2TB storage.

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

USB 3.0 HUB for the Macbook Retina. Nothing attached at the time of taking this picture.

Stefan Didak Home Office 7 Making Of

A few handy things I keep around in easy reach.

Stefan Didak Home Office 7 Making Of

Big Data. Big Storage. Big Servers. Heavy.

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

Because I ran out of network ports on the other side of the room I had to get another small switch in there. I can really recommend these small Cisco gigabit switches. Lots of config optios.

Stefan Didak Home Office 7 Making Of

Tablet. Mouse. Extra keyboards to switch depending on what I’m doing.

Stefan Didak Home Office 7 Making Of

Mobile storage.

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

Workstations with lots of storage.

Stefan Didak Home Office 7 Making Of

That’s my NAS box. 🙂 More storage. Can never have enough storage!

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

The Netgear CENTRIA is not actually running the main internet connection in the house but rather is used because it has great WiFi that reaches all way throughout and around the house. And there’s a few more WiFi routers on my network, actually. They have really funny names but I can’t publish those here because the government would likely not think they’re funny at all. 🙂

Stefan Didak Home Office 7 Making Of

Sometimes are regular calculator is much more efficient than a computer.

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

The little number 9 guy next to a stack of 3 Mini ITX Xeon servers.

Stefan Didak Home Office 7 Making Of

Atom servers on the Ignyter network. You can have a lot of fun with those LCD displays on those boxes. Some extra storage that keeps extra backups of the most important stuff on the network.

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

Servers and their backup power.

Stefan Didak Home Office 7 Making Of

More servers and a little more backup power.

Stefan Didak Home Office FAQ

The iMac, sitting next to the server area.

Updates by E-Mail

Subscribe to the feed if you wish to receive e-mail updates when I post new stuff.

Beware of Copyright

Read all about how AwareBear, a company owned by Andre Leite Alves, stole one of my pictures, pasted himself in it, and used it on their computer repair brochures.

Also, please visit the
Office Thieves Hall Of Shame!

About Stefan Didak

Hi. I'm Stefan Didak
...and I do not work at NASA
...and also not for the NSA
...not even for the CIA
...and not at CERN either!

The pictures on this page are of my home office desktop which, since I first published these pictures, have been causing a lot of chatter on various web forums and blogs.

The attention my home office has received is quite stunning and way more than I would have expected. Since things have gotten out of control in terms of questions regarding the setup, the hardware, and what on earth I am using all this for, and what kind of electricity bills it results in, I have decided to setup a FAQ and a comments page where you can read what others had to say, or leave a comment of your own.

Swag?

My wife has been trying to convince me that I should start offering crazy-home-office swag like t-shirts and coffee mugs. While I think that would be hilariously funny I'm not sure I should put in the effort to set something like that up. Perhaps I should ask the visitors of this page what they think of that idea. If you like the idea of crazy-office swag, leave a comment.

The Specs

People have asked me to list some specs on the systems in the home office. I will make an attempt at that but am not sure how up to date I can keep it since there are expansions, upgrades, changes, and quite a lot of enhancements taking place every few months.

Summary

The 7.0 office:

  • 18 Workstations/Servers
  • 4 Laptops
  • 548 TB of total storage
  • Some stuff not pictured here

The 6.0 office:

  • 14 Workstations/Servers
  • 5 Laptops
  • 125 TB of total storage
  • Some systems not pictured here

The old 5.0 office:

  • 9 Systems
  • 3 Laptops
  • 38 TB of total storage

Small 7.0 Office Images

Some 7.0 Specs

SYSTEM 'ARGON'

Base:
Intel S5520HCR
Dual Xeon X5680 6-Core 3.33Ghz
64GB RAM

Chassis:
Chieftec Arena 2000B

Storage:
48 TB RAID-6 storage
4TB WD RED x 12

Details:
3 x RAID Hotswap Backplane
LSI MegaRAID SAS 9280-16i4e + BBU

Network:
Intel E1G44ET

System weight:
A whopping 72 Kg

SYSTEM 'XENON'

Base:
Apple Mac Pro
12-Core Dual 3.33 Xeon's

Memory:
128GB RAM

Storage:
16 TB Soft RAID-10 storage
6 TB Backup storage
1 TB SSD storage
2 x OWC Electra SSD 480GB
4 x 4TB Seagate ST4000DM000
2 x 3TB Ext. FW800 Storage

SYSTEM 'POSEIDON'

Base:
2 x Intel Xeon W5580
Supermicro X8DA6
64 GB DDR3 ECC RAM

Chassis:
Lian-Li Armorsuit PC-P80

Storage:
32 TB RAID-6 storage
16 x 2TB Seagate

Details:
4 x Lian-Li EX-H34 cages
Adaptec 51645 RAID
20 ports SAS PCI-X
With 512 MB Cache
Single 1200 Watt PSU

Graphics:
Asus GTX285 HTDI/1GD3

SYSTEM 'ATLAS'

Base:
SuperMicro X9SCI-LN4
Xeon E3-1265L V2 Quad Core
32GB (4x8GB) ECC DDR3 1600

Chassis:
Fractal Design Black Pearl XL R2

Storage:
24TB RAID-5 Storage
8TB "Transit" Storage
60GB System SSD
8 x 3TB WD RED (RAID6)
4 x 2TB Seagate (Icy Dock)

Details:
1 x IcyDock MB454SPF-B
8 Port LSI 9265-8i RAID + BBU
Hydro H80 CPU Cooler
Cooler Master Power Supply 800W

Network:
4 x Gbit LAN

SYSTEM 'ZEUS'

Base:
SuperMicroX8SAX
Intel Xeon W3670 6-Core 3.2Ghz
24GB 6x4GB DDR3 1333

Chassis:
Lian-Li Armorsuit PC-P80

Storage:
24 TB RAID-6 storage
3TB WD RED x 8
OCZ 60GB Agility 3 SSD 6Gbps

Details:
2 x IcyDock MB454SPF-B
LSI MegaRAID SAS 9265-8i + BBU
Cooler Master Silent Pro M1000
Corsair H100 Hydro Liquid Cooling

Graphics:
EAH6970 DCII/2DI4S/2GD5 2GB

Network:
Intel PRO/1000 Quad Port

SYSTEM 'ARIES'

Base:
Intel DQ77KB Mini-ITX
Xeon E3-1265L V2 2.5-3.5Ghz 4-Core
16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600 SO-DIMM

Chassis:
Lian-Li PC-Q05B Mini-ITX

Storage:
250GB mSATA SSD
2 x HGST Travelstar 1TB 2.5" 7200

Details:
Intel BXHTS1155LP CPU Cooler

SYSTEM 'ARTEMIS'

Base:
Intel DQ77KB Mini-ITX
Xeon E3-1265L V2 2.5-3.5Ghz 4-Core
16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600 SO-DIMM

Chassis:
Lian-Li PC-Q05B Mini-ITX

Storage:
250GB mSATA SSD
2 x HGST Travelstar 1TB 2.5" 7200

Details:
Intel BXHTS1155LP CPU Cooler

SYSTEM 'ATHENA'

Base:
Intel DQ77KB Mini-ITX
Xeon E3-1265L V2 2.5-3.5Ghz 4-Core
16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600 SO-DIMM

Chassis:
Lian-Li PC-Q05B Mini-ITX

Storage:
250GB mSATA SSD
2 x HGST Travelstar 1TB 2.5" 7200

Details:
Intel BXHTS1155LP CPU Cooler

SYSTEM 'NITROUS'

Base:
ASUS Rampage III Extreme
i7-990X 3.46GHz 12MB LGA1366
24GB 6x4GB DDR3 1333

Chassis:
Lian-Li Armorsuit PC-P80

Storage:
16TB RAID5 Storage
Intel 510 250GB SATA3
8 x Hitachi 2TB 6Gbps HDs

Details:
LSI MegaRAID SAS LSI9280-8e + BBU
2 x IcyDock MB454SPF-B
Cooler Master Silent Pro M1000
Corsair H100 Hydro Liquid Cooling

Graphics:
Asus EAH6970 2GB DDR5

SYSTEM 'OCTANE'

Base:
ASUS Rampage III Formula
i7-990X 3.46GHz 12MB LGA1366
24GB 6x4GB DDR3 1333

Chassis:
Lian-Li Armorsuit PC-P80

Storage:
16TB RAID5 Storage
Intel 510 250GB SATA3
8 x Hitachi 2TB 6Gbps HDs

Details:
LSI MegaRAID SAS LSI9280-8e + BBU
2 x IcyDock MB454SPF-B
Cooler Master Silent Pro M1000
Corsair H100 Hydro Liquid Cooling

Graphics:
Asus EAH6970 2GB DDR5

SYSTEM 'OXYGEN'

Base:
Dual Xeon E5472
Supermicro X7DWA-N
32 GB RAM

Chassis:
Lian-Li Armorsuit PC-P80

Storage:
32TB RAID5 Storage
Intel 510 250GB SATA3
16 x 2TB HGST HDD

Details:
Adaptec 51645 RAID
20 ports SAS PCI-X
With 512 MB Cache

SYSTEM 'CORTEX'

Base:
Intel D2500CCE
4GB RAM (2 x 2GB SO-DIMM)

Chassis:
Mini-Box

Storage:
2 x 30GB mSATA SSD

SYSTEM 'VORTEX'

Base:
Intel D2500CCE
4GB RAM (2 x 2GB SO-DIMM)

Chassis:
Mini-Box

Storage:
480GB SATA Sandisk SSD

SYSTEM 'BORON'

Base:
Apple 27 inch iMac
2.93Ghz Quad Core i7

Memory:
8GB RAM

Storage:
1TB HD

Graphics:
HD5750-1GB

SYSTEM 'HYDROGEN'

Base:
HP NW8710w Mobile Workstation
Intel Core2 Duo T7700
4 GB RAM

Storage:
120 GB 7200 rpm HD
500 GB WD Passport
500 GB WD Passport

Graphics:
NVIDIA Quadro FX 1600M 512MB
17 inch 1920 x 1200 (WUXGA)

Details:
Linux!

SYSTEM 'HALON'

Base:
Advance VX7670
Intel i7 975 Extreme
CLEVO D900F
12 GB DDR3 RAM

Storage:
3 x OWC 480 GB SSD

Graphics:
nVidia 280M-GTX 1GB RAM

Details:
Yes, it's a laptop!

Weight:
Heavy! 5.5 Kg.

Power:
A 240W Brick PSU.

SYSTEM 'HELIUM'

Base:
Apple 13 inch MacBook Air
2.13Ghz Core 2 Duo
4GB RAM

Storage:
256GB SSD
1TB WD Passport
1TB WD Passport

Business

  • 3am Solutions
  • Animagic
  • Author-izer
  • Fileslinger
  • Ignyter
  • Ignytion
  • Manticore Labs
  • Podcast Asylum

Favorite Tools

  • Altap Salamander
  • Input Director
  • MaxiVista
  • Power Pro
  • Powershell
  • Powershell Plus
  • Synergy
  • Visual Studio
  • Windows Layout Manager
  • XCode

Home Office

  • Home Office 5.0
  • Home Office 6.0
  • Home Office 7.0
  • Home Office Comments
  • Home Office FAQ
  • Home Office Older than 5.0
  • Home Office Thieves
  • Home Office Your Comments
  • Making Of Home Office 6.0
  • Making Of Home Office 7.0

Home Offices (Others)

  • Daniel Heth
  • Dennis Klein
  • Kevin Connolly
  • Mike Dixon
  • Mitch Haile
  • Scott Hanselman

Personal

  • Stefan on Flickr
  • Stefan on Twitter

Recommended

  • Bay Area Consultants Network
  • SF NewTech

Small 6.0 Office Images

Tags

Apple Autodesk Blogging California Copyright Drinks Exposed Exposure Food Free Freeware Fun Graphics Hardware Home Office Images Impersonation Infringement Legal Microsoft Misrepresentation Monitors Multi-Monitor Network Oakley Office 7.0 Beta Office Thief Photographs Photography Pictures Restaurant Review San Francisco Servers Software Software Development Theft Thief Thieves Travel USA Website Windows Wine WordPress

Posts By Date

January 2023
M T W T F S S
« Sep    
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
3031  

Latest tweets

  • Loading tweets...

Follow @StefanDidak

Latest Home Office Updates

vape_station_1

Vape Station

After my recent “epic sized” blog post on ignorance about vaping a few people asked to see some pictures of my “vaping gear” in The Office. Well, I’m happy to oblige since I’ve now finally set things up in a way that work for me. It is, in part, thanks to one of our cats, Bece, that I ended up with more plastic display stands than I originally planned to get. As I was ordering a few things online she jumped up and walked straight over my MacBook Pro Retina. As I tried to get her to move her butt off of it she trampled a few times on the trackpad and it wasn’t until I placed the order that I noticed there were a few more things in there than I planned on. Ah, well… such things do happen. I guess she just likes vape gear and decided I should get more. Lots more. Perhaps I should “blame” her for all my vape related purchases, right Anyway, I have a few more mods, RBA’s and RDA’s on the way and thanks to Bece I know have enough holes to last me a while. Luckily those plastic stands were cheap so it didn’t result in any holes in my wallet.

Stefan Didak Famous NEW Home Office

New Home Office Pictures VERY SOON

I know, it’s been long overdue. But I’ve finally got to the editing of the pictures. Selecting the images for the “making of” section has really been a pain in the butt because there were so many and I have to pick the right images to reflect the things I’ll be writing about (and hopefully explaining). Tonight, and possibly tomorrow night I am going to shoot the night-time pictures, which is easier said than done because it still involves setting up some flashes and lighting to make the pictures actually reflect what it really looks like. With lots of reflective surfaces and areas of extremely low and high contrast (the environment versus the light emitted from the monitors) taking these shots is not as straightforward and easy a task as it might look. But I’m confident they will come out just fine since I had a few test runs over the past months.

Ignyter Network

WordPress, Ignytion DDT and the Home Office (aka the Ignyter Network)

I use WordPress. I use it a lot. I use it for most of my personal sites, business sites, I hack around with it and contort things to do what I need them to do. I’m not, however, one of those WordPress fanatics. In fact, you will hear me say a lot of nice things about Drupal, for example, even in public and even when talking to WordPress fans. I believe in using the right tool for the right job and in this case you can consider platforms of choice to be no different from any tool. One way I use WordPress is for something that nobody ever gets to really see (unless you visit my office and I happen to show you how I manage and control things): managing my vast number of systems, laptops, devices, and most of all the growing deployment of virtual machines. I used to keep track of network port diagrams via Microsoft Visio but since I am not using Windows as much these days and also don’t want to go back to keeping ASCII notes or document files I decided to put together a more proprietary and automated way to keep track of IP addresses, services provided systems and VM’s, passwords, installation and deployment notes, hardware notes, driver information, etc. And for that I decided to go with WordPress.

Tactical Assault Rifle

Home Office Security and Update

I know, I know, you had hoped for a major update with pictures of the new final completed Home Office 7.0 and instead you’re getting something completely different! In the meantime, people often ask me what I do about security and protection at home, especially with the office being a possible target of ill-willed criminals and other likeminded varmint. I normally don’t go into details about that and answer in rather broad terms that we have an excellent alarm system that is being monitored 24-7 by a professional security company. However, recently we extended the “home office defense system” (ha ha) with a new firewall and a thing that can fire very nicely at any kind of wall. And not just walls. Meet the home office protection device! You might wonder what on earth I’d need a tactical assault rifle for, amongst other things. The answer to that might be a long story.

Steven Dray Home Office Tattoo

The Home Office Tattoo?

This morning I woke up and checked my e-mail and found a message from one of the big fans of my office and website, Steven Dray. Attached were two images that certainly surprised me, to make an understatement. Steven has posted the images to his Facebook page and on Twitter but considering the content of the images I’m also posting it here with a little bit more information. It is, I suppose, flattering, but at the same time it brings up a few questions. I asked Steven Dray how he made the image because I couldn’t see any artifacts that are usually present when photoshopping or compositing an image. With my background in 3D computer graphics, rendering, and pixels in general, I would be able to tell and I couldn’t. So either this was a really amazing photoshop skill or not. I asked Steven about it and he told me it wasn’t a composite, it was real.

Page Top

Contact  ·  Privacy Policy  ·  Copyright © 2023 by Stefan Didak. All Rights Reserved  ·  Admin  ·  Log in