Over the last year or two, my interest in self-hosting solutions has continually grown. It started with a Plex server and a host of services to support it. Home Assistant has been a joy to learn for setting up simple automations around the house. My purchase of a Dream Router 7 opened up networking and other possibilities (such as utilizing Protect for local camera storage). Now, I’ve started looking into open source software such as Mealie and Planka for self-hosted solutions to every day issues around the house.
The catch with all of this is, it’s all been running on my primary PC and a raspberry Pi. Is that a big issue? Not really, but it will as my self-hosting grows. I want to be able to easily backup my services as well as keep everything under the same “roof”, instead of taking resources away from my development/gaming PC.
So, I’m finally making the plunge. Using old and refurbished parts on a budget, I’m building a dedicated PC for my homelab. I’m sure there will be ups and downs, probably a lot of cursing, but I’m excited for the journey.
Why am I writing about this? Cause fuck it, I can. Also, I think it’ll be cool to write out my journey, problems and solutions, and maybe, just maybe, it helps someone out in the future.
Let’s do it!