My homelab journey actually began this summer! I've come a long way in six months being a total newbie. It started with an impulse buy of an N100 based laptop that I bought, determined to finally learn Linux after trying to make the switch several times previously. Watching Linux videos on youtube led me to finding your channel and becoming exposed to the world of self-hosting and homelabbing in general. I went from one linux laptop, to standing up a ubuntu server on an old gaming PC that was just sitting in the basement, to then deploying a mini-PC as a OPNsense vm on proxmox... and now I've just stood up a Minisforum N5 (running TrueNAS virtually on proxmox) and another GMKtec M7 mini-pc also running proxmox that will become the new home for my services once I get them migrated over from the ubuntu server.
It's nothing fancy, but I'm really coming to appreciate the efficiency and convenience of these mini pcs. In 2026, I'll probably plan on focusing on upgrading my networking stack and getting into self-hosting LLMs! I feel more excited about taking on "tech projects" than I ever have before and am really excited to have found homelabbing as a hobby for myself and to provide services for my family.
Again, nothing fancy but here is my mini-homelab:
Between the two its 2x AMD CPUs (16 cores, 32 threads total)
96GB of LPDDR-5600
40TB (5x8GB) RAIDZ1 array
an open PCIe port for future nvme expansion
Plenty for my current needs with some headroom for future projects.
Current Setup
Everything is second hand except my boot drives, NAS storage drives and APs. I work in IT so sometimes when clients upgrades they as us to take the old machine to e-waste.
Network:
- Hardware firewall (local brand I work with)
- Ubiquity 24 port POE Edge switch
- Netgear 24 port non-POE switch
- Raspberry Pi 3 B+ with Pi-Hole
Layout:
- VLAN1 AKA Flat-LAN - All lab, and personal devices
- VLAN30 AKA Zoo - IOT devices
- VLAN59 AKA GreenZone - CCTV cameras and guests
- VLAN21 AKA FOB - Any device with port forwards - currently only NVR
NAS: Pithos
Runs Ubuntu Server 24-04 with MergerFS for data pool (no redundancy needed in my case), SMB, NFS & Syncthing (my PC syncs everything to the NAS and also backsup critical info to a cloud).
- i5 6th gen
- 4GB RAM
- 128GB Boot drive
- 2x 10TB Storage drives
Proxmox Node: ProxBox
- Ryzen 5 2600
- 48GB RAM
- 1TB Boot NVME (also houses VM storage, images & latest backup)
Supervisor VM (Docker Host)
- Nginx Proxy Manager
- Authentik
- Dockge
Orchestrator VM (Docker Host)
- n8n
Docker 2 VM (Docker Testing)
- Wazuh
Standalone LXCs
- Grist LXC
- Spoolman LXC (Helper Script)
- Ollama LXC
- Jellyfin
- Jellyseerr
- qBitTorrent
- Prowlarr
- Sonarr
- Radarr
- Lidarr
- Bazarr
Other VMs
- Fossil-PC (Windows 7 for a couple CCTV cameras that need Internet Explorer)
- Fedora Workstation testing (test apps and install methods before deploying it on my daily-drive PC)
- Fedora Cosmic testing (to see how Cosmic desktop is coming along)
- Windows 11 testing (I can't remember what this was for)
Home Assistant
i5 4th gen Mecer Mini PC with 245GB boot drive & 8GB RAM.
- DIY irrigation system in the back yard with ESP Home
- Alarm system automation - mostly broken due to API limits, when it worked I used the door open/closed states to trigger other automations and send notifications, now it is just scheduling
- Sunsynk Inverter - Used to use SolarSynk AddOn, but it no longer wants to connect to the inverter so I am rebuilding with KellerZA/SunSynk integration.
- Yeelights - got them as a discount sample form a supplier so I hooked them up, currently turns on around the time I usually feed the dogs.
2025 Changes
Home Assistant: Used to be a VM in ProxBox, but found a mini PC for a steal at a pawn shop and went bare-metal.
Pithos: Used to be a VM in ProxBox with drives passed through, but ended up with a client's e-waste PC (one busted RAM slot), so I transferred it to bare-metal.
ProxBox: Upgraded boot & VM storage from a 512GB NVME + 128GB SATA SSD to single 1TB NVME. Added 32GB RAM
2026 Changes
Home Assistant:
- Add Sonoff RF bridge and RF door magnets to replace the door open/closed state triggers that I lost with the alarm
- Add Sonoff Zigbee dongle to use with Zigbee no-neutral light switches (will pull in neutral to a couple as needed to use them as router)
- Add Zigbee water leak sensors to dishwasher, kitchen sink, and washing machine
- Ass Zigbee vibration sensors for washer & drier notifiactions
- Duplicate current ESP Home irrigation for the front yard
- Design and build ESP Home multi-sensor ceiling puck (similar look to Unifi AP) for temp, humidity, mmWave, IR Remote (rooms with dumb air-conditioners) - realistically this will only happen in 2027
- DIY ESP Home car-port gate and pedestrian gate triggers
Pithos:
- Add another 10TB+ drive or 2
- Upgrade PSU (I'm out of SATA ports)
Proxbox:
Orchestrator VM:
- Add WatchTower or alternative (looking at WUD right now)
- Add Teraform
- Add Ansible
Observer VM (Docker Host):
- Add Checkmk
- Maybe add something logging
- Maybe add Wazuh
- Might switch Checkmk for Prometheus & Grafana if I prefer them
- Might add Apprise if the need for a dedicated notification system comes in (right now n8n does it via Telegram after some basic checks)
Servarr VM (Docker Host):
- Remove all standalone Arr services and add to a single VM, except Jellyfin which is staying standalone.
Docker VM (Docker Host):
- Any miscellaneous Docker containers I want to run full time
Standalone LXCs:
- Add Obico for 3D Printer monitoring
- Rebuild Spoolman from scratch without helper script
Hardware: Add a GTX 1070 of later and do shared GPU passthrough for Ollama, Jellyfin, and Obico.
Network:
- Replace the switches for a single 48 port, or 2 fully working 24 ports.
- Cable management in the rack
Story & Goals
I grew up on Windows and always put any shared media and documents on a Windows Share on my PC. At some point I ended up with some Amazon NAS that had a tiny IDE drive for boot and 4 drive bays in a compact format that I wanted to turn into a server. I came across OpenMediaVault and YouTubed my way to a working NAS which was great for the a couple years until the board died (it was e-waste when I got it).
Enter random i3 PC that was laying around (yes, also e-waste). I wanted to try something new and a friend had suggested Ubuntu with Webmin, so I ran that for a while.
Enter Dell Tower Server - Xeon something with 32GB RAM and a bunch of SAS drives of unknown age. You guessed it, e-waste. I spent most of early Covid fiddling with that, finding out about Proxmox and trying to figure out why the machine doesn't boot properly (damaged drive), and eventually got it working with Proxmox. This started my first iteration of today's ProxBox, then named pve.
pve ran that same Pithos VM that I killed earlier in the year, just without Syncthing, ran a Plex VM (didn't understand LXC yet), and a Windows Deployment Server VM (did this ever really work or was I just late to the party?)
When things started opening again a few months into Covid I got a new boot drive for pve, reloaded from scratch and named it Victor. I rebuilt Pithos as it was, rebuilt Plex into an LXC, restored my backup snapshot of Windows Deployment Server, and started playing with the Arr stack. I also added a Pi-Hole LXC, a pfsense VM, and at some point I had a WordPress testing VM on Victor, and I ran a QR Code server for a while as well.
The Dell server was fine for a few years when I had a makeshift server room (it was built for a 48U server rack with 3 crypto mining rigs and every GPU FB marketplace had to offer), but when Ethereum went POS, the rigs were sold and 'server room' broken down. Then the Dell was just too loud. I traded it for a Ryzen 5 3600 PC, and my former PC became the new server, it's name, Pandora (I have thing with names, even my 3D printers have them, but Proxmox is the only one that I never like long term). Pandora ran mostly the same things as Victor, but the Windows Deployment, WordPress and QR Code servers where no longer around. I have also swapped Plex for Jellyfin somewhere in this time and expanded my Arr stack into the standalone LXCs that I currently have.
When Proxmox 9 came out I decided to upgrade the boot drive and rename it to ProxBox. I also wanted to dive a little deeper into actually building the VMs and figuring out how they worked, rather than just copy-pasting helper scripts or parroting along with a YouTube video. Until now my end goal was having the working service, but now I want to learn more about how the service actually works under the hood. I had also been very opposed to Docker because I didn't understand it, and every time I tried doing something while following a video there would be something I change for my use case that broke it all (usually to do with volumes & permission). I am starting to see why everyone loves Docker so much, and have even gotten tempted to try Podman, but I think learning one at a time is a better move. Realistically I'll be rebuilding ProxBox in a year or two anyway, so I can transition everything to Podman then.
I also want to look at trying NextCloud again, I ran it briefly back on OpenMediaVault, but never really implemented it since I was daily-driving Windows and shortly after Mac (not e-waste for once, this one I actually bought on marketplace). I've been daily-driving Fedora the last year and replaced OneDrive with Syncthing for my off-device data sync (insert OneDrive alone isn't a backup rant here), and then I have an encrypted Deja Dup sending a copy off everything to OneDrive for off-site A, and an Acronis backup of "can't loose this stuff" for off-site B. I might swap Syncthing for Nextcloud if I like it, it will be convenient for the 3 times a year I leave the house and want to access a file on my phone, but I'm worried about speed since I've seen a lot of Reddit complaints about that, but I think it's outdated info.
I also want to start playing a little more with network security, and want to re-construct my VLAN layout so that stuff like the lab is on a dedicated VLAN, but Proxmox VLANs and I don't get a long yet.
My server rack is only 400mm deep so the NVR lives on top of it. The cable management was better, but some ports on the Edge Switch have started dying (which is why I added the Netgear), and now it is a crow's next.
Shallow server rack also means ProxBox (bottom) and Pithos (top) live on top of the safe in the next room. (I really need to dust off up there.)
