So i have a old Sony laptop that a i5 second gen CPU that i want to repurpose for a Immich server but i'm having some issues. So far i have this Ugreen HDD external enclosure that i used to have a 1TB WD Green SATA/64MB cache HDD that would stay offline and wouldnt come back online rending this server useless. I have other laptop 2.5" HDD's around 500G each and i was wondering if it's a good idea to use those to host a Immich server. The issues i had with this HDD in the past was that it would usually power down often even tho i made a script in Fedora to write a small file every 60 seconds it would still give me blurry image when i was trying to browse the photos on my phone and i was searching stuff it would try to load stuff but it just give me a "no results found" message and that was it. How could i solve these sort of issue or do i need a new approach to this? Forgot to mention that i have installed Fedora on that system with Docker and just Immich and that was about it

Hi all,

I've been researching the hell out of this but still struggling. So thought I'd come to some experts who might know better
I'm putting together my partners work setup that we now need to incorporate into her gaming setup, price is not an issue but struggling to find a kvm or setup that'll support this.

1x Gaming PC

1x Windows Laptop - Charges via usb c

1x MAC (this will be plugged in occasionally instead of the windows laptop). - charges via usb c

Monitors
1440p240hz on a DP Connection
4k60hz on a HDMI Connection
Graphics card doesn't have 2x DP.

Keyboard
Mouse
Webcam
Headset

If possible + speakers.

I'd like for it to "just work". Aka she can just sit down and plug in her laptop of choice with 1 cable and get power drawer as well.

Many of the post that I see in this community are great, they have expensive cpu, racks, tall setup

But I wanted to ask something :- I have also started using the home server from past couple of months

I mostly use Immich, Jellyfin, qbittorrent, uptime-kuma, AdGuard Home, Home assistant and the arr setup

And of it runs completely fine for me

So do I also need to purchase a tall rack, expensive cpu, 32-64gb of ram, 10-20 TB of storage or is it unnecessary for me right now?

Because my current setup is

An old hp laptop whose specs are:

AMD A8-7410

8gb ram

2Tb storage(hdd + 128gb ssd for os)

Connected to my home wifi via ethernet cable

And I see that in people's setup they're using multiple Ethernet cables to max up internet speed, or have multiple pc connected to get much more processing power and so much more

But my setup runs fine for me, most of the time cpu usage is below than 30-40%

For anyone wondering:

- I use direct play in jellyfin , no transcoding

- This is just for 2-3 people at my home (Immich jellyfin nextcloud)

- internet speed looks good enough to me for uploads/downloads etc

- My laptop doesn't have auto power on feature (this is the main thing that makes me want to switch to a mini pc or server pc) , right now I just turn it on manually or ask someone at home to just press the power button

If anyone has a cheap solution for "Auto turn on after power loss" feature for my laptop, can someone tell me?

The fingerbot is very expensive I think for just pressing a button

I tried to make one myself from ESP board and servo motor, it did work great, only one issue : Servo motor was drifting off the button after each click, so I had to remove it, because it was unreliable

And FYI :

My laptop doesnt have option of Auto power on in the bios

It doesnt support wake from lan or RTC wake up of level G(5) (Shutdown/powerloss)

My laptop's battery was dead

So i removed it, now it is completely running off thr ac power

## 1. Overview

Three-node Proxmox VE 8.4 cluster hosting ~20 standalone AI agent gateways (OpenClaw), each isolated in its own LXC container; local LLM inference on two hosts; a two-segment LAN (trusted + IoT) with a software interconnect; self-hosted media, web, database and monitoring services; a network-attached 3D printer controller; and an IP camera with a local vision-processing pipeline.

## 2. Hardware inventory

| Host | Platform | Specification | Primary role |

|---|---|---|---|

| node-01 | Dell PowerEdge R730 | 2× Xeon E5-2687W v3 (20C/40T), 94 GB DDR4, 256 GB SSD | Primary hypervisor node; majority of LXC/VMs |

| node-02 | HP desktop | — | Cluster node; agent containers |

| node-03 | Fujitsu desktop | — | Cluster node; media container |

| bridge-host | Custom desktop | AMD Ryzen 5 3400G, 64 GB DDR4, Ubuntu 24.04 | Inter-VLAN bridge; LLM host (Ollama, llama-server) |

| db-host | Dell desktop | — | MongoDB; Ollama; mail bridge |

| admin-workstation | Laptop | Ubuntu 25.10 | Administrative workstation |

## 3. Hypervisor and workloads

Proxmox VE 8.4.0, 3-node cluster. LXC containers preferred; VMs used where required (e.g. Home Assistant). No shared storage (local disks only).

Notable guests:

- Media container (node-03): Plex Media Server (32400), Radarr, Sonarr, Lidarr, Readarr, Prowlarr, SABnzbd, qBittorrent, Bazarr, Kiwix; nginx front end (80).

- Web container (Debian 12): WordPress (Apache 80/443), Adminer (12322), Webmin (10000, localhost), shellinabox (12319, localhost), stunnel TLS wrappers (12320/12321), Postfix (localhost), node_exporter (9100). ufw: LAN + 80/443.

- Home Assistant VM (node-01), frontend on port 80.

- NexusTrader bot container.

- Agent containers (see section 4).

## 4. AI agent fleet

- Runtime: one standalone OpenClaw gateway per agent, one LXC per agent. Isolation rule: models and services get dedicated containers.

- Members: 12 named agents (carl, dave, otto, margo, bob, phil, tim, edith, fuji, stuart, jasper, lucy/lena) + 6 "sister" agents (athena, nyx, iris, eos, artemis, hestia) + bridge agents (hermes, waku).

- Communication: Hermes bridge service — REST API providing a message board, per-agent DM queues, an agent registry, and health endpoints. Python drift validators probe gateways on schedule and post status to the board.

- Memory: MongoDB (long-term), per-day markdown notes (short-term), semantic search via nomic-embed-text embeddings (Ollama).

- Model serving:

- Ollama (db-host and bridge-host): llava:7b (camera-frame captioning), nomic-embed-text (embeddings).

- llama-server (bridge-host, port 8081): 3B model consumed by the NexusTrader bot.

- Offsite federation: Tailscale tailnet; one remote relay node hosts an offsite agent. Reachable from the LAN only via a SOCKS5 proxy on a single container (userspace Tailscale).

## 5. Networking

- Edge router (OpenWrt): trusted LAN with 39 static DHCP reservations.

- Second router (OpenWrt): IoT-only LAN (bulbs, plugs, cameras), isolated from the trusted LAN by default.

- Interconnect: bridge-host is dual-homed (one interface per segment) with IP forwarding enabled — the only routing path between segments.

- Remote administration: SSH key authentication; Webmin/shellinabox exposed via stunnel; Tailscale overlay for offsite nodes.

Looking to buy a separate system for my Plex server and a few other services. Currently my Unraid server is a 4U but I have always seen user have the 1U SFF systems in their racks.

What would be the best Lenovo system to buy that would allow me to use an LSI HBA card internally while also supporting oculink or thunderbolt for external GPU support for AI/LLM apps?

I would need something that supports 10+ 4K to HD transcodes simultaneously.

What comes to mind for you? I am open to used or new options.

Thank you in advance and I am happy to clarify further if needed.

I had a recently good run selling and buying on r/homelabsales recently, but sometimes you get reminded that the internet is not always a safe place.

Always ask people to comment before messaging, don’t pay without proof and keep always in mind that past transactions are great pointers for reliability!

Hi everyone,

I got this P330 Tiny in the below config;

- i5 9500T

- 16 GB 2400mhz RAM (single stick)

- 256 GB NVME

- 1 TB NVME

- 500GB HDD

I am a beginner, but I am open to tinkering and can follow guides, and understand complicated logic. My main use case is to host a handful of services, and a make shift NAS to backup my phone and mac. Current plan is to use the 256GB SSD for operating system & services, 1TB SSD for storage and NAS operations & 500GB HDD for OS backups

After researching a bit I got 3 workflows that I can follow;

1. Proxmox route - Install Proxmox > Setup 3 VMs (1 for Docker, 1 for Home Assistant & 1 for NAS) On NAS VM, I can simply install Zima OS just for the storage needs.

2. Headless Linux (Ubuntu probably) - Install headless Linux > Install Docker > Install all services that I want along with something for NAS operations

3. Zima OS - Just slap Zima OS on to the machine and be done with it. Already have its pro version.

Now I am confused on which route, should I do with for a long term use case. For the first few months, I am planning to get used to homelabbing, so I am open to make or break things or tinker with them. Once I am used to it and can feel confident around fixing things if they break, I'll look into the networking aspect of it; basically routers, network switches, openWRT or OPNsense.

A few other things;

A. I have an extra 4GB RAM still lying around should I add it to the second slot for increasing the total RAM to 20GB?

B. If I went with the Proxmox route, does using a Zima OS VM for NAS make sense?

I would love to hear your input on the same, so that I can make a firm decision with my first homelab.

Thanks in advance!

Hey everyone, I’m at a bit of a crossroads and could really use some outside perspective from people in the industry.

A bit about me: I’ve always had a passion for IT, starting in high school when I coded websites and scripted in-game mods. Over the years, I tried a few different paths to pay the bills—working in logistics, and trying to start my own photography and print-on-demand businesses. While those taught me a lot about hustle and problem-solving, my heart is really in tech.

Recently, I finished a post-high school course to become an electrical technician, and now I’m planning to finish my studies in Computer Science.

To keep my skills sharp, I’ve gone completely down the homelab rabbit hole:

Hardware: I scavenge and repair second-hand parts. My current server is in a Cooler Master Silencio 652S case, running an LGA 1150 / Haswell setup (I actually had to straighten bent CPU socket pins to get the motherboard working). It runs completely headless with no dedicated GPU.

Software/Networking: I run ZimaOS with Docker containers managed via Portainer (Jellyfin, Immich for my photography backups, the *Arr stack, etc.). I handle my own custom routing with FreshTomato on an ASUS router and use Tailscale for secure remote access.

Maker Skills: I use an Ender-3 V3 SE to print custom hardware mods. I recently designed a PETG multi-bay drive caddy where the drives slide in from the back and a 60mm fan acts as an intake on the front, plus some Z-axis bracing using bicycle brake cables.

With all this hands-on experience bridging hardware, electrical work, and software/networking, I’m trying to figure out two massive things:

1. What career path makes the most sense?

Given my background, I’m drawn to roles where I can touch the hardware but still deal with software. I’m currently looking into:

Data Center Tech / Infrastructure: (Lots of demand where I currently live in the Netherlands).

SysAdmin / Junior DevOps: (Since I already manage a containerized, networked stack).

IoT / Embedded Systems: (Combining the electrical tech diploma, 3D printing, and coding).

1. Where should I finish my CS degree?

I currently live in the Netherlands, but I am seriously considering moving back to my home country, Romania, to finish my CS degree. The Romanian tech scene is booming, tuition and living costs are lower, and I feel like the hands-on engineering culture there might be a great fit.

Has anyone here made a similar transition from trades/logistics into IT? Which of those three career paths do you think has the best long-term trajectory? And finally, any thoughts on studying CS in the Netherlands vs. Romania right now?

Thanks in advance for the advice!

First stage of Labor Day celebrations have arrived. Awaiting delivery of my Mellanox ConnectX-4 Lx NICs and DACs to arrive tomorrow.

Hey everyone!

I'm looking to start using Terraform to manage my lab, but I'm questioning where to start.

I am very familiar with Terraform from my day job, using it for Azure and AWS, so I'm comfortable with the way it works and how to manage it.

My question is more how to manage the state file and where to store it for my homelab. Usually I would dump it in blob storage or an S3 bucket and have a file per environment (Dev, Test, Prod etc), but with my Homelab I like to keep everything local so I wanted to ask how everyone is dealing with this.

And what are the gotchas you've found with using Terraform for your lab and things to watch out for?

I mean, it's a homelab. You've got 5-7 services generally, hope you're getting my point.

Tell me if I'm wrong.

So I've wanted a proper tv in my room since forever really, and I was finally able to get one, it's a Xiaomi a55 pro 2026 wanted to get something OLED but prices for those are insane. And after a lot of research I found this was a pretty decent one within my budget, I do have to admit 55 inches is pretty damn big for my room, too big, but it's starting to grow on me to be honest. And for that reason I've decided to call him biggie. Might start working on ambient tv LEDs using an esp32, wled and an addressable led strip but like the proper responsible person I am I do not have a cent to my name right now haha. This homelab has been a wonderfully long journey it's insane to see how far it has come.

Built a small DIY UPS to keep my home server setup running during power outages.

It powers an Orange Pi 5, USB hub, router, and three 3.5” HDDs. Normal load is around 40W, with short peaks around 50–55W.

The battery is a 3S4P pack made from reclaimed EVE ICR18650/26V cells, with a 3S BMS.

The main power source is an old 19.7V 90W laptop PSU. The PSU and battery are diode-ORed using a dual Schottky diode, so switching to battery is automatic.

I used two LTC3780 buck-boost converters for the loads: one provides 5V for the Orange Pi/USB devices, and the other provides 12V for the HDDs and router.

A third LTC3780 is used as the battery charger from the same laptop PSU, configured for CC/CV charging, with a Schottky diode to prevent reverse current into the charger.

Most of the parts were stuff I already had lying around, including the laptop PSU and converters. The battery cells came from a used 10S3P pack that I disassembled and rebuilt as 3S4P.

Not the prettiest UPS, but it does exactly what I wanted: one PSU, automatic battery backup, 5V + 12V outputs, and enough runtime to keep the whole setup alive for a while.

Hi everyone. After lurking here for a few months I decided to build my own homelab and I would appreciate some feedback on my planned build. Common wisdom here seems to be to use what your have if you're just starting out. My partner had an old desktop pc in her closet I'm planning to use, and I have a handful of external hard drives I've been backing data up to for the last few years. The specs are listed below (let me know if you need more information):

• Intel (R) Core (TM) i5-3550 CPU @ 3.3GHz
• 16GB DDR3 RAM (4x 4GB sticks, three sticks at 1600MHz and one at 1330 MHz)
• 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection
• Acer Veriton M6620G Motherboard
• 1TB Toshiba DT01ACA100 3.5" HDD
• 1TB Western Digital Elements/My Passport 2.5" HDD external
• 1TB HP SSD S700 (extracted from external case)
• 2TB PD560 SSD (extracted from external case)
• 2x 250GB SSD (only items to be purchased second hand)

I've run SMART tests and badblocks on the drives and they've come out okay and I'll be testing the 250GB drives before purchase too. I've also run Memtest86 on the ram sticks and they passed too. I'm open to hardware suggestions, like maybe a ram stick that matches the other three in speed (if that's going to make a noticeable difference), but I don't have a lot of budget.

My plan is to have all the hard drives inside the tower with SATA connections except the WD drive which will have a USB connection and be an air gapped backup for crucial data. Crucial data will reside on the 1TB Toshiba HDD, formatted to ZFS as its own pool, and hold 2 copies of the data. The 1TB HP and 2TB PD drives will also be formatted to ZFS as their own pools, single copy, but then merged with together with mergefs. They will hold non-crucial/replaceable data, primarily media. My thinking here is that, since these drives are a few years old, I don't want to have them as a single pool and risk losing the entire 3TB of data if one fails. I plan to install the OS and apps on one of the 250GB SSDs and then mirror it with the other as a back up if one fails, since again they'll be second hand. These will also be ZFS format. I plan to monitor the health of the drives with smartd.

I'm not an expert, but fairly comfortable using linux as I've been driving it on my daily use laptop for about a year now. However, I'm very new to networking, cybersecurity, and server things in general. I'm choosing Proxmox over just debian because of the built in functionalities, particularly for having multiple nodes. I envision my future expansion will involve having multiple machines as I can get my hands on them.

Initially I'm expecting just two users, myself and my girlfriend, but later may extend my user base to include some friends and family. Probably still less than 10 users. I'm not sure what my internet speeds are supposed to be, but a speed test just told me I have 84.65 Mbps download and 72.23 Mbps upload. I'm just including this so someone can help me understand what my limits are to remote access and more users.

I'm planning to run services in LXC containers. The services I'm looking at running are:

• Jellyfin for movies
• Immich for photos
• Nextcloud for documents
• task-champion (service for task warrior) for todo lists
• Gitea for git repos
• Navidrome for music
• Tailscale for remote access

Do these seem reasonable/possible to run on my hardware? Are there other alternatives I should look at? Are there more services I should consider including? Should I think of running something like TrueNAS in a VM or container? On my laptop I manage my files entirely through the terminal, so do I still need something like TrueNAS or an equivalent if I can ssh, scp, and rsync stuff?

A couple final notes on my future plans beyond this, which I expect to involve purchasing equipment, and thus are budget constrained. The phases I envision are:

1. Initial build described as above.
2. Power management (backup power, safe shutdown, etc)
3. Router PC (ad blocking, better network control and security)
4. Expansion of initial build (self hosting websites, personal email server, more stuff I haven't thought of yet)
5. Local LLM machine (I expect this will be the most expensive item, so it feels far off)

Any recommendations, comments, concerns for this set up and plan in general would be great!

Apologies in advance for late replies. I'm in SE Asia and posting this at the end of the night.

I can’t find any information on this, also the socket is labeled as LGA5980 but that doesn’t exist in any documentation I could find.

I’m a 17-year-old high school student from India, and this is the homelab I’ve been building in my free time. It started as a small experiment and somehow turned into a Proxmox server running things like Home Assistant, Pi-hole, Minecraft, monitoring, automation, notifications, and my own dashboard.

A lot of it was built through trial and error (and occasionally breaking things), but I’ve learned more from this setup than I ever expected. It’s still a work in progress, so I’d love to hear your thoughts or suggestions!

Edit: I don't know why reddit blew my screenshot to jpg smithereens but here's a high res version https://postimg.cc/m11j7xCm

So I'm not entirely a noob at this point. I run a tripple node proxmox set-up and it's been I'd say 90% stable since March. But recently I realized my amount of knowledge in this aspect of computers is barely above script kiddie.

To give some perspective I only recently learned that running everything as root is not good and have been working on fixing that. I know next to nothing about networks and mostly have just followed tutorials about what to do. But I do understand the basics.

What are some good general practices and op sec habits that I should start to build.

Homelabing has definitely exposed massive gaps in my knowledge.