By Anthony As we progress down our path and growth in the learning and playing stages of our computer journey we can often find ourselves at a point where we think about a Homelab. Let me start off by saying Homelabs are an amazing place to learn, break, and learn some more, but in my opinion have a larger upfront cost, and one also needs to figure out what ones needs are for said Homelab.
So lets look at a few things about a Homelab that can find ourselves in.
- Testing our different OS’s.
- Testing different software.
- Need for certain software *Adguard, OwnCloud, Etc.
- You just want to.
- Anything else.
Lets start with a Homelab, you will need a dedicated computer for this, now this can be almost anything anymore, as our computers are getting so powerful even mobile cpu’s can run dozens of containers without problems. * Check out this little pc from Amazon its currently $189 Link * no Affiliate. Now this little pc has 16GB’s of ram and a 512GB HD in it, which is a great little starter pc if you want to install say Proxmox on it and test a few little vm’s on it. This is nothing powerful, your not really going to do any AI modeling on it, but it will run Windows, Linux, and other vm needs. At least a few of them 🙂
Next on the Homelab list is software, you want to try out different software, but your main desktop is perfectly setup and configured and you just don’t want to break it. Great! This is what a vm is for! Well at least one of the reason. So you have your Homelab, create a vm, and install that software and if it breaks, well just delete the vm and next!
You now want some new toys in your network, say your kids have pc’s of their own now, and you want some filtering going on. Great, Adguard or Pi-Hole. Fire up that Homelab and create a new vm and your off! Great!
Now you want a fileserver to backup your computer(s) to. Well that little pc from above won’t work unless you get a new HD or an external one and configure it and mount it as a share via a vm * Owncloud as an example, and your off. * Don’t forget to grab that external HD.
You just want to. I think this one kind of speaks for itself.
So as you can see a Homelab is a pretty cool thing to have, and play with. However it does have a larger upfront cost(s) and growth and more.
Now lets look at Not having a Homelab. But WAIT! How am I going to do all those cool things! Well lets talk about this and so some examples and things that I personally do.
Example 1. Testing different OS’s. For me, installing an OS is no big thing for me, I personally have install darn near every OS I can think of or at least used all the OS installers to be more truthful, and installing is no big deal for me. However I do like to test different OS’s. So for me, my personal computer has 64GB’s of ram in it, so I uses Virtual Manager, and just fire that up, create a local vm and test the OS that way. As for me I am just testing, so that if I love it that much after testing for some time, I will just reload my desktop. Again this is me.
Example 2. Different Software. This for me falls into that same idea as Example 1.
Example 3. Now this for me is the big one. I will use the two examples as for me and ad blocking service, and a fileserver seems to be pretty big ones, at least when I talk to people.
So Ad Blocking/Access Blocking. For me I don’t like ads and I don’t like telemetry. For me blocking this is important. What I have done is us Linode and setup a 1GB Linode and install Debian on it and then AdGuard. Just as if I was doing it at home, one of the big differences is now I can assign the DNS IP inside my router at home for everything in my home network, and then I can manually assign said IP to all my cellular devices / laptops so when were on the road the same blocks are happening. Yes this has a monthly bill attached to it of $5 but the freedom to have the same protection on your remote / out of office devices to me has some major perks. Plus honestly a $5 Linode can easily handle 100+ clients so you could honestly set up your parents on this as well to help them with those darn ads too.
Next one a File Server. There are several options and many opinions on this, for me I have used several but I find the two that work best are OwnCloud which has so many features and can be install either in a Homelab or on a VPS/Remote system. I will no be going over how to do this, but just note its not hard at all. Second is a cloud storage system.
Now for me, I need access to my data/files all the time from any location. So a local fileserver just doesn’t work for me. So what I do is I use InterServer.net’s Storage Server. Link, no Affiliate. This is a great solution that I use, which with a few clicks can install OwnCloud which will allow all those cool features, but for me I used it by itself. Allow me to explain. I currently have their 1TB plan which is $5/Month to which on my Mac and Windows box I have paired it with Mountain Duck. A killer piece of software that allows you to mount a ftp or sshd or what not as a drive letter. It is a paid for app, but its $35 one time with free upgrades, for me this is a great solution. While using it I can make out my internet connection so you can run live from this.
Now there are many many many reason a Homelab is a great thing, but I think one has to decide on what the ROI is and what the true desire is. For me, I us AdGuard, and a Fileserver, so the above is a perfect solution, costs me $10/month and I have everything I need. Plus if I want to test something, I have my desktop to fire up Virtual Manager or another Linode if I want a public facing system.
For this setup, your looking at $10/Month and a one time $35 purchase. The Homelab example for the sameish setup is $189 + $89 for the 1TB external drive. So simple math/tax/shipping $300. My above usage is $10/Month so it would take 30 months to spend the same monies, plus lets not forget the always on in your house, so thats real world what $3-$5 in power every month. So my above example just took it to what 60 months ROI? So again in my use case, remote hosting is the only want to go. Plus another example of growth, say your almost full at that 1TB mark, well you only purchased a 1TB external drive, so now you have to go and buy another drive, mount it, copy all your day, all that fun and very cool stuff, but still. Or in my case, I just click upgrade to 2TB and pay $3 more and nothing, the drive just upgrades, no reboot, no nothing.