What is a HomeLab and How Do I Get Started?

What is a Home Lab and how do you get started? It's easy. You can get started today in a few different ways. You can virtualize your entire home lab or build it on an old PC, a Raspberry Pi, or even some enterprise servers. The choice is really up to you. You'll need to first establish some goals for your homelab to determine capacity for your workloads. After that, the rest is up to you. You can take it as far as you want to go, and remember each home lab is almost as unique as the individual who builds it!
Please share this with anyone who asks what a Home Lab is.
Video Notes: technotim.live/posts/we-are-h...
Support me on Patreon: / technotim
Sponsor me on GitHub: github.com/sponsors/timothyst...
Subscribe on Twitch: / technotim
Become a KZbin member: / @technotim
Merch Shop 🛍️: l.technotim.live/shop
Gear Recommendations: l.technotim.live/gear
Get Help in Our Discord Community: l.technotim.live/discord
2nd channel: / @technotimtalks
(Affiliate links may be included in this description. I may receive a small commission at no cost to you.)
► Rackmount Server Home Labkit.co/TechnoTim/rackmount-ho...
► Raspberry Pi Home Labkit.co/TechnoTim/best-raspber...
► Server Racks and Conversion Kitskit.co/TechnoTim/server-rack-...
► Home Lab Network Stackkit.co/TechnoTim/techno-tim-n...
Find Home Lab Servers on eBay!
► Dell R710 ebay.us/DAu4ah
► Dell R720 ebay.us/3JA8bG
► Dell R620 ebay.us/gATkrF
► Super Micro Super Servers ebay.us/aERQeB
⚙ All Gear Recommendations ⚙
► l.technotim.live/gear
00:00 - What is a Home Lab?
01:00 - What are your goals for a Home Lab?
01:30 - Free Home Lab - Virtualization
02:20 - Free Home Lab - "Old" Computer
03:36 - Upgrade Your Current PC
04:22 - Raspberry Pi
05:20 - Dedicated Server
06:32 - Enterprise Gear
07:56 - What is my Home Lab?
08:15 - Why I love HomeLabbing
09:29 - Stream Highlight - What is your channel all about?
"Akita Inu" is from Harris Heller's album Inu.
l.technotim.live/sb-music-lic...
#Homelab #RaspberryPi #TechnoTim
Thank you for watching!

[@TechnoTim]

What servers do you have in your home lab?

[@shoukomi-sama]

old pentium 4 one with ubuntu 18.04 lts.

[@carlosdurante]

amd 3300x, b450,8tb, 32gb, hosting nextcloud, bitwarden, swag, grafana, plex, Ubuntu and pop os, and etc... under unraid!

[@nortonofnorthamerica]

Web and mail server on a pi3

[@filipefigueiredo8271]

2 old laptops that I upgraded ram and storage from HDD to SSD, one that is open to the internet with an wireguard VPN, the other is an proxmox server, that I'll eventually open to the internet for some services like nextcloud and pihole with a neat little trick, connecting my home network to an VPS in the cloud that is connected to my home wireguard VPN, I would recommend this but I still need to test the latency I have between my home network and my VPS that is 3000km away from my lousy 20mbit upload speed, it's a work in progress but it's better than having 100 + requests per day of remote code injection into my private network, since botnets tend to avoid cloud providers as targets from what I've seen so far.

[@Merlinvn82]

An alternative "Home Lab" solution is to buy VPSs, with around 30$/year, you can have a VPS with 2.5Gb Ram, 3 vCpus, 40Gb SSD to play around without having to pay setup cost and electric bill.

[@TheThenewdiabolic]

For new people getting into home labs, be aware that enterprise server gear is LOUD. You definitely want a dedicated space for that away from people. The fans are not designed to be quiet.

[@Andy-jz1zw]

Is this forward thinking or did you learn the hard way? Great point

[@TheThenewdiabolic]

@@Andy-jz1zw worked in a server room.

[@ash_Psyyyy]

@@Andy-jz1zw the only reason i dont have a server isn't because its expensive its because the house is not suitable to have a server

[@kellanstevens]

I started running a server last year on one of my old laptops and slowly upgraded the ram and then transitioned to a micro pc, and this week I got my first enterprise server, with 64GB of ECC memory, 2x 6 core Xeon CPUs, im sooo excited to be able to run more stuff and at bigger scales. Thanks so much for all your videos, they've helped me so much start my server interest and I've just graduated highschool, I think im going to go into the server industry

[@TechnoTim]

That sounds awesome! Keep it up!

[@ccs4959]

How have things come along? I’m super interested!

[@Azuosph]

How has things been with you dude??? How’s the life after high school 3 years later!?

[@kellanstevens]

@@Azuosph @css4959 I am a full stack software developer working with the devops team at a international company. I’m having so much fun and I’ve come such a long way!

[@rockking1379]

My first server was given to me by the local school district IT director basically as a graduation gift. I used it for many years during my time at the first university. And they were super amazing and allowed me to put it in the CSCI department server room with public network access. I learned so much from that. Left that university and the server died shortly after the move. My second server was a retired McDonald’s store POS server. Used it for 3 years. Finally last year around may or so I built a new custom server based on a 3900X. I still have bigger plans for home lab but right now I’m making do with my current one.

[@johnmichaels4330]

Coming from the military, I still chuckle evrytime I see POS server 🤣

[@andrewbennett5733]

I used to be a musician and had a home recording studio, and it's funny how similar the process of building that up is to building up a home lab. I switched to software engineering about three years ago and have slowly gotten into self hosting and home labs, and I love this video! I'm definitely excited to keep upgrading, thanks for the inspiration, even if I am late to the party!

[@CraftComputing]

Great video Tim!

[@TechnoTim]

Thank you so much Jeff!

[@Noobish588]

@@TechnoTim Love your videos my dude, been binging them heavily

[@TechnoTim]

@@Noobish588 Thank you!

[@TechMeOut5]

I'm not kidding! As an enthusiast home lab junkie, the way you talk about home labs is genuinely touching!

[@TechnoTim]

Thank you!

[@bxsteez]

It's actually this channel that made me look at my previous setup and get more out of it. I use to have a media server that had dual xeon processors and 64gb of ecc ram and a rtx2060 super and two sa120s just for media. It all ran on windows and I always felt like that much power for media was such a waste. I found this channel and made the leap to virtualization and proxmox and it has changed EVERYTHING! Now I just have a weaker laptop and I remote into a windows VM or a Kubuntu VM. And with Guacamole and Ngnix I can do it anywhere

[@TechnoTim]

Thank you so much!

[@johnb6699]

Your videos are great. I’m an IT major and have been diving into virtualization for the last year. Decided it was time to upgrade my home network. Your videos have given me confidence

[@KG6ZVP]

This is seriously quality content. I haven't seen any of your other videos so I'm not going to comment there, but I expected to find yet another non-technical person either shilling off-the-shelf services or just promoting themselves and was pleasantly surprised to have assumed incorrectly. Your description of your home lab evolution and your upgrade recommendations was spot on. I now have a great summary video (yours) to send to people who want to get started learning and experimenting. Keep it up!

[@TechnoTim]

Thank you so much for the kind words!

[@killamixx]

What an awesome community. Everyone here has so much talent… I barely started my homelab with a dell latitude that I dual boot Ubuntu/ubuntu on (for reliability purposes I have two latest versions) I have so much to learn it’s overwhelming.

[@ckirkyg]

This video just like all content you share on KZbin has great value. You can rest assure if Tim has a new video it will be worth watching! Keep up the good work

[@jason-budney7624]

Nice video Tim! I caught your live stream yesterday, was the one with the dead mobo. After watching more of your videos yesterday I am seriously considering a complete overhaul of my setup to get the most of what I have. :) E-waste centers/stores are another great place to check for used gear at any level.

[@Practical-IT]

You make a great point about the e-waste/recycling centers. Another often overlooked resource is a local university. Many of them have surplus centers where they sell off-lease computers.

[@robertamerson2]

Thank you for the vids. Besides being informative and great ideas. What I love most is how SIMPLE it was to digest the information. This is sometimes the most important part for novice learns like my self. Keep up the good work!!

[@TechnoTim]

Thank you and welcome!

[@davidterceiro]

I just saw this video and I can't stop watching the rest of your channel really awesome content dude keep it up, you got a new sub!

[@andrewapperley]

I'm working on building out a home lab. The main requirement my wife gave me was "don't let it be too loud". Well that rules out old enterprise equipment even though its better value than what I went with. Im reusing an old NZXT Phantom case, power supply, and SSD (for a cache). Pair that with a Chinese x99 board, Xeon E5-2678 (12c/12t), and 32GB of DDR3 ECC ram. For storage I already have 2x 4TB Iron Wolf drives and I bought a 3rd. This will be taking over the job that my 2011 Mac Mini + 2 bay synology NAS have been doing for the past few years.

[@noah123180]

"The Computer that I'm using right now is 5 years old" RTX 3000 Series Card waving trough the pc window :D

[@grimtagnbag]

Lucky

[@camerontgore]

Hi 👋 (Don't tap on the glass)

[@TechnoTim]

Good eye! Yeah, I recently upgraded my video card for better video rendering. It was supposed to be a full PC upgrade, but well, yeah, the market is crazy!

[@Kaussaq]

Loved the video! Im using an old Dell power edge that work were going to scrap. Works great for my make shift game servers!

[@neef68]

Amazing video. Clear, concise, informative... Just great! Thanks so much for uploading and sharing!

[@TechnoTim]

Thank you!!!

[@patrikwyde2265]

I really enjoyed this one. Thanks Tim!

[@chrisumali9841]

Thanks for the demo and info, have a great day

[@NicoVeenkamp]

Due to your channel and some others, I've started a HomeLab based on two older System76 laptops and a Lenovo ThinkCentre minicomputer. At the moment I've installed the Lenovo with ProxMox and am learning about VM's and Docker and the differences and requirements. Also how to handle networking and storage with these machines. In my network is also a Synology NAS and a USB attached External harddisk. Experimenting with building up Truenas in a VM and accessing the various kinds of storage. Loads of fun. Later on I want to try my hand in clustering the Lenovo with both of the System76 laptops and see how that works.

[@davidvasquez7927]

Been watching your videos for awhile now, this one really gave me really good, practical tips on where to get started

[@TechnoTim]

Glad you like them!

[@vinothkumarrajendran9715]

You are a great inspiration and a mentor for me to build my own home lab. Keep going man 👍

[@user-nk4ux1bh2z]

Your channel is so underrated... I hope more people find your videos. Keep up the good work! 👍

[@TechnoTim]

Thank you so much!

[@Pravardhanreddy]

I started home labbing on an rpi4. Absolutely love ur channel

[@ejkeebler]

100% hardest part is getting started. Paralysis by analysis. Have been using an old pc to serve Plex for 6 or so years now. Trying to be proactive and move to something more capable, enabling hardware transcode, have a real nas, real backups, maybe a firewall etc. Hard to pick something you wont grow out of in a year, but also nothing thats going to sit around not being used...

[@romayojr]

i started home labbing a few months back because of this video so thank you for the inspiration.

[@TechnoTim]

Thank you! Join the 100daysofhomelab!

[@merullshah]

I recently started labbing and I took my ancient laptop which has enough power for me to use it as my homelab Thanks Tim

[@Sprinkles-BtE]

I don't have any desire to build a homelab but wanted to know a little more about it, just so I had context to a mention of it (and "docker containers"), in an Intel processor slickdeal's thread I was reading. 😄I just have to say, you might be one of the best presentative speakers I've heard in a very long time. I was engaged for the whole video with only minimal initial interest - that has to be some sort of feat worth mentioning all on its own. You have my admiration, sir ... and after checking out your channel even more, my sub. lol!

[@TechnoTim]

Thank you!

[@hardwaredynasty]

I recently "downgraded" my server after going awhile without. My previous rig was ryzen. I had issues with pass-through on unraid VMs and needed a streaming editing rig on bare metal, so I more or less converted the system. Now I'm running a fx 6120 very budget system, mostly for video file storage and Emby server at the moment. Great video as always Tim, but particularly for folks just getting started.

[@JasonLeaman]

I think this is the best video on KZbin today !! DAMN this was so well made ! Keep this up Tim !!

[@TechnoTim]

Thank you so much!

[@LarsKniep]

I bought a desktop PC with an intel i7-2600k and 32GB ram, like 10 years ago. It turned into a server like 8 years ago and still running smoothly. Using docker primarily to host services i need.

[@makeitworktech]

Awesome video! Hadn't seen this one yet!

[@xandercode]

That's a great Idea Tim, Ill have a look for a rack mount case.

[@st.toussaint4632]

You made this so easy and simple to understand, thank you!

[@TechnoTim]

Glad it was helpful!

[@valterschmaltz]

I have 3 thin clients dell running Debian. I have tested docker swarm, I am surprised by how easy it is to setup and manage swarm. I am now going for a k3s cluster. I also have a core i5 mini PC running Debian and multiple self hosted apps like nextcloud, Plex, Madsonic, portainer, nginx Proxy manager, wireguard, adguard, pihole, code server, bitwarden, transmission, ghost and so. Keep up the good work.

[@MrSpecialR]

My homelab consists of a bunch of Raspberry Pi for a local DNS and ad blocking, OpenVPN, simple Webservers for personal projects, docker hosts, local email server. I got a Jetson Nano for a Jellyfin server (getting it to work was a feat on its own, I had to recompile ffmpeg a bunch of times, build the jellyfin project, modify its source code and manually install .NET Core because it isn't in a repository for ARM) , a Rock Pi S, because it was interesting and very cheap, it's a headless SBC that has 4 cores. I started with an old optiplex with hardware from over 10 years ago and it's surprisingly doing a good job and I recently added three small form factor PC's that don't use much power or space for a low-end Proxmox server, a dedicated OPNSense box and a normal everyday linux PC. It's amazing what you can do without too much space, money and electricity requirements. tl;dr a lot of things that are small, have low energy consumption and are cheap.

[@ff1077]

Starting out mine pretty small with a few Raspberry Pi 4s and a couple of spare PCs gained from close friends and a internet stranger. Hopefully going to upgrade to a full server rack.

[@morosis82]

Just a small comment, rackmount gear is not the only way to get enterprise features. If you don't need a rack full of kit, a tower server can provide a lot of the same functions in a tower format. Think HP ML350p or Dell T620 for example. Dual processors, hundreds of GB RAM and something like 12 disks are possible in these machines, which would be enough for most people.

[@carlosdurante]

Cheers from Brazil... you are doing great videos my friend!!

[@valterschmaltz]

Brazuca aqui tmb

[@victornecromancer]

Viva aos brazucas!!!

[@MindCaged]

I've started on this somewhat recently. I fired up my old desktop that I think came out in 2009. Unplugged the hard drive that was in it to preserve the original windows XP OS, plugged in a spare hard drive shucked from an old usb 2.0 external drive, and installed linux mint on a partition. Surprisingly despite its age, it actually has enough compute to run quite a few regular tasks like web browsing, video watching. With the h264ify extension it even plays youtube smoothly, which is one of the reasons I replaced it originally because it was lagging on youtube. I'm sure it could handle stuff like LibreOffice no problem though I haven't tested, and I don't really need that functionality on a spare machine. It actually outperforms some laptops I have, though to be fair one of them is basically a potato, they built that thing on the cheap, not enough storage, which you can't replace easily, and the cpu is garbage despite having good specs on the surface. I've had my challenges, some pretty obscure or confusing and frustrating errors when I try to follow the guides on how to do things. Stuff like permission errors especially. I'm not used to having to grant everything permissions to do stuff. I have picked up the terminal pretty quick though since there's things I haven't figured out how to do with the gui apps, if you even can. Like Using a text editor to edit protected files, only to find out after editing I can't save it since it wasn't run with elevated permissions, and I don't know if there's a way to grant them through the gui or not, of if I have to sudo them from the terminal which is how I have been doing it. There's also hardware issues, like the graphics card is very old and nouveau lets it run seemingly perfectly for regular usage, but I can't tell if it's allowing hardware acceleration for decoding. I got an unsupported version of the old proprietary driver working with a lot of help from google and somebody who put in the work to make a modified version for newer kernals, but I can't tell if it's working any better yet, need to do more testing, I did notice an annoying bug where the initial resolution on boot is defaulting to a low setting, haven't figured that one out yet, but when the gui boots it fixes itself. I managed to install jellyfin, and it seems to actually have enough horsepower to run a single transcode to a client, it's basically consuming the whole processor to do so however. Got cockpit installed for remote management along with some extensions for file managing and file sharing control. Managed to get pihole installed in a podman container, though I had a lot of issues with the firewall and other hassles. Not sure if I'm going to leave it running though, I didn't notice any spectacular drop in ads despite installing several block lists. I toyed with trying to reinstall jellyfin in a container, but I find containers a bit clunky to work with, apparently I need to delete and recreate a container from an image if I want to change /any/ settings like port forwarding and shared volumes, or at least that's my understanding. If I could pull it off though it would make it easy to shut down and start up the server from cockpit while tracking how much RAM it's using which is important since this old thing doesn't have a lot. Also got to the point where I have the GUI disabled by default on boot, and can just start it manually if I need it, which I still do for some things. Mostly to save on the limited RAM. I'd love to be able to run a local modded minecraft server on it, but I use a ton of mods that consequently require tons of RAM and CPU, which this thing just doesn't have and I can't really upgrade any further because there's only two slots. The motherboard is actually limiting me in several ways, only 2 RAM slots, only 2 SATA v1 plugs, 2 32 bit PCI slots, 1 1x PCIe slot that's somewhat blocked by the graphics card in the single x16 slot. It's PCIe v1.0 BTW. The Ethernet is only 100 Mbps, A spare Wifi dongle I have is actually faster so I disconnected the network cable because it's actually faster that way. I recently saw some videos about those Beelink Mini PCs and they sound really good on the surface, but I just don't know if I'm ready to pull the trigger yet, and I'd hate to mothball this old desktop again if I put all my server stuff on the min pc, though it'd be a lot more energy efficient and just plain more powerful.

[@steventran9288]

Great video. I'm actually in the process of ordering the parts currently, I just managed to get a 24u Netshelter CX rack. I have 2 Supermicro D-1541 boards I will be transferring to Supermicro CSE-504-203B 1u chassis. I'll be transferring my dual Xeon Supermicro X9DRL-IF motherboard to 4u chassis. My Ubiquiti Dream Machine Pro and US-16-XG 10G switch are in the rack, I'm waiting on the 24 port POE and cable management supplies to arrive. I also have an old 4u 45 Drives Storinator chassis I will be upgrading to work with SATA 3 drives I'll be adding in. Thats not including my dual PC Lian Li DK-05 desk project I'm building with 3090's and 5950's.

[@JokeryEU]

still got my PC from 90s :) still works ;) , lifespan can be 20+y too, depending how cold you keep it and dust free

[@jessemurdock2406]

Hell yeah Tim. I'm glad the almighty algorithm showed me this video!

[@vladislavkaras491]

Using an old PC with i5-4460S as a game server and for some other stuff in future, that requires 24/7. Thanks for the video!

[@TerraMagnus]

Check out "Mini" form factor corporate PC's. They are often very quiet, very cool-running, and very *cheap*. You could put a stack of them on a bookshelf and they'd probably go unnoticed.

[@Zc4sh]

Love your videos man

[@unknown_channel_name]

Well, I am using my old PC as a Plex server and docker for torrent client and other stuff. I got to learn a lot while tinkering with it.

[@javandijkhuizen]

For the last year I have started building a mini Homelab with 2 NUC6i5 computers and 2 Orico HDD Dockingstations containing 8 3TB harddisks. I use proxmox as a virtualizer. But now I am looking into the possibility of building a more professional system.

[@philiprhome3824]

my homelab consists of my own PC with two vms as kubernetes workers

[@GlitchYGO-ve5hg]

Best video ever seen long time ago in IT.

[@Zc4sh]

Next video title suggestion: 'Decentralized cloud services brought to us by blockchain solutions such as ethereum and cardano: the future is here guys'

[@iAbdulla_AJ]

Nice video motivated me to build a home security lab as well, but I would like to ask you if you have any tools you used to monitor the network and the endpoints in your lab. Could you please make a video to show that 🙏

[@Andy-jz1zw]

Brilliant clear cut video. Thanks for your time and effort. Got a like and a sub from me

[@TechnoTim]

thank you!

[@TrueNAS]

Great video, Tim!

[@TechnoTim]

Thank you so much! And thank you for a great product!

[@Practical-IT]

Nice video Tim. Raspbian was renamed to Raspberry Pi OS in 2020. I've been doing "home lab" experiments and learning exercises since 1998 when I first installed Linux (pre-RHEL Red Hat) on a 486DX4/120. Nobody really called it a home lab back then. I was, however accused on more than one occasion of being "addicted" to computers.

[@CrypticConsole]

LoL. Imagine calling it an addiction, it's practically free therapy

[@johnmichaels4330]

Linux was my gateway drug as well. I heard about this os that was free no matter what and very robust. That appealed to my 15yo rebellious self. Started with a pentium ll 366 dual boot. 🤣 thanks for bringing back the memories.

[@93davve93]

Great video, really inspiring!

[@TechnoTim]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@ImARichard]

My homelab is two raspberry pi 4's(one 4GB, and one 8GB), and parts from an old hackintosh I made nearly 10 years ago. Star of that mess is the i3-2120T with 4GB of DDR3. And I recently slapped my old GTX 1060 in that rig, though I haven't done anything with it yet. Im currently running a Docker swarm cluster with 31 containers divided up between the 3 of them.

[@themoodude]

Started off by dipping my toe in with an old NAS box with a built-in web server. Quickly outgrew that and repurposed my desktop hardware after an upgrade to create my first 24/7 box running WS2012. That's since had some upgrades over time, and became my storage server, my Plex server, Web server, DB server, Hyper-V virtualisation server amongst other bits. I've introduced Raspberry Pis over the years (with 1 as my Home Assistant box and 2 as DIY CCTV Cameras). My latest introduction was a Proxmox box (which now houses my old Hyper-V VMs plus some others). Just wish I hadn't set up my storage on Windows using storage spaces, as I now cannot migrate to TrueNAS / any other solution that's just not quite so bloated. Should've just bought a hardware RAID card to begin with, then it'd be simpler to migrate as the RAID configuration would be handled by the card itself. My biggest annoyance however is that in my rented 1bed flat I don't have space for a server rack, nor do I have anywhere I could fit a rackmount server where the noise wouldn't be a problem. I've managed to home my current 2 towers plus a switch and a Pi in my airing cupboard (not ideal but they maintain a low enough temp), but this then means my phone line is elsewhere in the flat so the router is elsewhere. I'd love to start playing with a managed switch and a pfsense edge router, but until I can get it all in one place that's just a dream.

[@brymstoner]

been coding since ~96-97, and homelab'ing since ~2002. over the years i've hosted countless web, file, radio, and game servers. my lab currently consists of 6 servers. all amd apu-based quad cores. always been an amd user. they're all consumer grade pc's bought new and re/multipurposed. 2 switches; one managed 8 port maxed and one 48 port unmanaged to support lab expansion. running everything 24/7 through 3 displays typically consumes ~6.5kWh per day, or roughly £1.75 at 28p per kWh. aiming to get it mostly off grid before the october energy price hike (first of 5 significant hikes!).

[@einsteinx2]

Speaking of old computers, you may think it’s slow but plenty of people run home labs on Raspberry Pi’s and even an older desktop or laptop probably has more power and resources (storage, ram) than a Pi. And with how expensive and hard to get Pi’s are these days, even a used small form factor (SFF) office PC from eBay for about $100-150 is a great way to start and about the same price as a marked up Pi, but probably more powerful in basically every way. They even don’t use too much electricity. More than a Pi, but somewhere in the 10-50 watt range which is very reasonable.

[@richardmarsey6434]

I tinker got a old dual p3 slot 1 board put away. Actively I have 2 truenas with 5 drives each. Then I have a dual x5687 with proxmox. And 4 pi 4's for retropie and a pihole. Been playing around for 20 years

[@javy__air]

I'm late to the party. But this is def my new favorite channel. Thank you so much for making these videos. I have been planning on creating a homelab for so long but there were just these little nuances that made me hesitant to just do it. After subscribing and watching only two of your videos I feel confident enough to get started. Off to buy some Raspberry Pis!!!!

[@TechnoTim]

You got this! Thank you!

[@javy__air]

@@TechnoTim ^^^not only my new favorite channel, but also my new favorite KZbinr!!! 🤩

[@alexplane3279]

Hi Tim , great video again , could see if you can put something together under kubernetes ancher like having a tftp server adius server\ldap for home lab setup ?

[@--Tanjumul]

Now a days a part of my daily activities is to watch Craft computing and TechnoTim .

[@TechnoTim]

me too!

[@shinzoken1]

Well, you made me take the jump eventually. started out with just a simple WSL solution at first, got a little carried away with game server hosting, soo i already had an older pc converted to one that could run them. i just hated the fact that i had to run my personal webserver on my desktop wich i used for all round things. So i'm currently waiting eagerly for my first RPI to arrive :)

[@ValeriyPolushkin]

great topic

[@ControlTheGuh]

Homelab community is one of the best out there ime

[@CrypticConsole]

Nice guide

[@dispeakble]

please publish a video to completely wipe data on external breach. I love your backup videos

[@andypippin7148]

Right now, my Homelab is a 4U Threadripper, a QNAP NAS, and a 10gig Ubiquiti Switch. In typical homelab fashion, I tried an experiment and ended up with a completely borked system. The only problem was my music, movies, and TV shows weren't available. Unhappy family. So now with the UDM-Pro, I hope to have a "stable" subnet and a "whatever" subnet. Eventually I'll get my Picoclusters and render machine into play once I have enough power and cooling.

[@Zc4sh]

I'm currently studying abroad.. I use balena iot OS on rpi3 to run containerized pi-hole, nodejs node and other light RUN apps. (Cant wait to return home and start working on a real home lab project :D )

[@LuckyScamerdDaily]

Great video! I love the ricky booby hands!!!

[@TheDemiRoboto]

Serious question. How much is your power bill?

[@KnutBluetooth]

"Homelab" is just a new word for something quite a few people have been doing for decades thanks to Linux mostly. When you realize how dreadful most consoomer internet routers are (software never updated and cobbled up together in a hurry, lack of configurability and upgradeability, ISP shenanigans), assuming you know how to, it's easy enough to just set the consoomer router to bridge mode and have an old computer do the work properly. Then the next step is installing all kinds of network services that the machine can handle easily which would have been near impossible to have on the consoomer router. After that you get more machines on the local network. Soon enough you have a "homelab". My first Linux router was a Pentium 133 with 64Mb of RAM. It worked great for years 24/24h.

[@thebtm]

I converted a NAS VM to a RPi4 and get way better performance then I did while still getting the NAS as storage for the RPi4 with an SSD boot drive. I also have other enterprise level stuff that is fun to play with but I can't keep powered on in my office as it's too loud. I need to find a small rack for the basement.

[@CatMeowMeow]

I just got a server on creigs list for $50 with 2 8 thread xeons @ 2.3 ghz, 5 1tb hard drives, 32gb ecc ram with 7 extra slots for expansion, redundant power supplies and the whole shebang. Couldn't be happier! Such a lucky find

[@TechnoTim]

Great find! That's going to give you quite a bit of compute! What are you going to build??

[@kreigrastalovich2577]

Supermicro X9... series. Very cost effective. Recycling firms are good, you can get great prices - and haggle with them for extras and discounts. HBA cards etc. eBay. Stick to 1g networking to keep your costs down. You don't necessarily need managed switches.

[@in03]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="148">2:28</a> Honestly my favourite gif

[@eformance]

I had to chuckle because my *newest* computer is the same 4790k you had 3 generations ago. My rack-o-servers is 9yo equipment from my last job -- I bought all of the equipment last year when they closed the office. I have some equipment that is not worth turning on or even plugging in, 2U LGA771 servers that consume 25w just plugged in with IPMI running. I have a 1U sandy bridge server that consumes 35w turned on and idle, so I unplugged the 2U servers and made the 1U into my firewall, by unplugging the other servers I get a "free" firewall. My main NAS, with 2 CPUs and 16 drives actually consumed less power than the 2U LGA771 servers sitting idle. My stack ends up costing me about $60/mo to run.

[@Cotten-]

Nice video Tim. No one should ever trash a computer. Always donate it to someone who doesn't have one. You could completely change someone's life with that act alone.

[@TechnoTim]

Thanks! Totally agree! An old computer is better than no computer !

[@mr.lineleaf8111]

were do i get an enclosure for just disk storage and have be controlled by other computers? my current server and pc have all their bays filled with a mix of 500gb ssds and 2tb-4tb hdds.

[@KoolCreation]

Great video!

[@TechnoTim]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@JonathanTalksHW]

My core 2 duo dell inspiron 560 machine that’s in a super micro atx case with 4 hot swap hdd is my current NAS.. I don’t think it supports ecc memory but I’m planning on upgrading it

[@Inertia888]

I am currently trying to figure out the best use for a WindowsXP, service pack3, HP Pavilion zv6000 laptop. DDR3 (seems to be the only RAM I don't happen to have lying around) It's got tons of I/O. I'm thinking I'll start by putting a low-overhead Linux distro on it. Not sure yet if it's going to be possible to eliminate the OS that came pre-installed, and run it as a pure Linux machine or not.

[@travisaugustine7264]

I have a Lenovo ThinkServer from 2011, do you by chance have any tips or tricks to quiet this thing down? Right now it is only used on demand because it is so loud that it drives me completely crazy.

[@johnnsnow3891]

Hey Tim, I love your vids currently I acquired some enterprise gear (to many stuff according to my wife) and I do have some projects in mind but to be honest I have NO IDEA where to start.

[@jeffherdzina6716]

All wives think that. LOL.

[@toysareforboys1]

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time! Make a list of what needs to be done and scratch a few things off the list :)

[@TechnoTim]

Here's a great place to start! kzbin.info/www/bejne/iYe0nq2XiMaVe7M

[@This_Account]

I installed linux and started up a personal ssh server on an old (2010) Gateway ZX4800 that originally ran Windows 7 with it's own drivers that supported the touchscreen that was novel and pioneered the touch interfaces we have today. I inherited this device last year. I originally installed Lubuntu in a partitioned environment. But when I switched distros to try out Alpine, I couldn't figure out how to select partitions and whoops! There goes the Windows 7 recovery! lol, Glad I could try that without fear of something really bad. No personal data lost other than I personally like Windows 7.

[@albertmacana1136]

Another level of video content 🥶🥶 🇨🇱👋🏼👋🏼

[@felipecaetano426]

behold the bliss in the eyes of someone who arrived in the engineer's valhalla

[@TheoParis]

Nice video :)

[@InsaneNinja.0o0]

Just started with my Homelab with Lenovo thinkcentre m720q tiny i5-9400t, 16GB DRR4, Base Proxmox VM-Win10, VM-Ubuntu server 20.04 lts, Docker, Portainer. Next stop will be Truenas scale

[@alainmilette6460]

I've just switched to a 3650x m4 with dual 2670s to replace 3 old computers running my services! I now know my wife loves me cause she puts up with the noise. (Slightly audible in the basement and very much so in the room it's in!

[@guywhoknows]

Haha you're a bit like me, even down to the deskpro. I still have mine, it's a slot a was upgraded to 256mb and had a massive 8gb drive. It became my first server (web) as did my next DT, and then my work stations. DT/workstation were as powerful or became powerful as servers. I did start with other people's as I was a teacher and consultant back in 99/04 I went enterprise in 2010, with a few enterprise parts leading up to that. I think you went from home lab as a you can use xyz. Some board do take ECC memory. And there is always add in cards for drives. I think the big issue is finding cases that hold a lot of discs. (Storage servers and media servers) But there a hands on good way to learn and make mistakes. But it's just as bad if your systems provide you and your house hold services. I think a good start is a web server and securing it. And a NAS. Or both as a set of VM's.

[@hotstovejer]

Right now, my home lab consists of: Dell sff pc: core i5 third gen, 8 gigs of RAM, 120 gb ssd, running Proxmox, hosting my pfsense VM and a Canvas LMS container. Xeon e3-1200 series, 32 gb of ram, 120 gb ssd, running Proxmox, hosting 2019 server, keycloak and privacyidea container, and freeipa server. Dual xeon e5-2520, 128 gb of RAM, and a bunch of hard drives, running Unraid. Currently running all of my dockers. Future plan: 1 32 core Epyc 7002 series server, 128 Gb of ram on an Asrock rack mobo, NVME add in card with 4 1tb drives, raid 10 (or whatever the zfs equivalent is), with a video card for Plex transcoding. 1 8 core Epyc, 64 gb of ram, with 12 12tb HDDs for Truenas. Raspberry pi server rack with 4 pi4 for projects, redundancy Unifi Dream machine pro 10gb switch I've gimped along with old hardware long enough! :)

[@Acey_V]

I run 16 VMs on my Old PC(i5 2320 with 8gb DDR3 ram and 1.3TB HDD). All stuff that i have laying around so i spend 0€ on anything. Runs Great

[@haveaniceday7950]

What’s in the 16 vm and how are managing them?

[@ibrudiiv]

AMD 3200g running my whole house like a damn champ, plex spittin out 4k content, shitton of selfhosted stacks/containers. Waiting until I can finally upgrade my WS/Gaming rig. Have been waiting to upgrade to a 5950x and 6800xt (PCIe 4 plz when) and throw my current 2700x to my homelab server for even more lulz. Thanks as always for your vids, m8

[@TechnoTim]

Sounds awesome!

[@KevinJanGocong]

I'm running a media server and a NAS on a Raspberry Pi 4. MergerFS and Samba for the NAS. Sonarr, Radarr and Jellyfin for the media server.

[@williamskipper8945]

Thought provoking video! Hey Tim, I just jumped in waaay too deep. Got to start somewhere though right? Excited for the journey ahead 🛸

[@TechnoTim]

You’re never too deep!

[@williamskipper8945]

@@TechnoTim Ha... Well idk.. I purchased six (6) MASSIVE custom 44U mixed use Server Racks to be stationed at my home lab. I’m in way over my head, but I figure that I can begin to build out a sizeable mixed use lab operation... Got any tips?