And if you do, what do you have?
I essentially have a bunch of RPi 4's that I use for:
So my Dev rpi is what I have used most for developing my Home Lab, particularly in recent times...
This is not something particularly new to me personally, I have had these RPi's over a number of years with a number of different things running on them.
My more recent foray has been into using containers, specifically within Docker, using Portainer. I had dabbled in this a while back for a "Home Lab" dashboard... which is still something I am looking into. My more recent interest has been in Valtwarden, Nginx, and Pi-Hole...
Alongside my NAS interest (I now have two Synoloigy NAS devices), the backup and restore options have also been of interest.
I would be interested to understand the people others have placed their trust in when venturing into these spaces....
Mine have been..., Although not limited to...
Home Lab:
Jim's Garage - https://www.youtube.com/@Jims-Garage
Christian Lempa - https://www.youtube.com/@christianlempa
NAS:
These are not the only sources I have used, btw.. Would be interested to also hear about other people's sources for their information.
My home lab is compact, physically it lives on a mac mini and an intel n150 running unraid. unraid’s primary job is to host backups from my mini and a usb-ip server for home assistant.
On the mini, i run HA with uptime kuma and scripted through VMware Fusion to connect/automate bluetooth devices ie ecoflow, apple watch/phone for presence and to visualize my network and host dashboards kinda like how people use granfana. I also run iobroker to pull in some data into HA that HA cant pull yet. I raw dog nginx to proxy a device to HE and as a web server for dashboard wallpaper. I also raw dog a java web app that allows RM to send http api calls to trigger apple scripts and shortcuts for things like opening/closing/automating ios apps, changing airplay destinations, backup HE and scrypted. I run CIFS as backup destination for HA and to serve movies.
For network security/firewall/IDS/IPS/Ad Block/VPN server. I use Firewalla. hard stop, IYKYK. It’s the most powerful network gear that is easy to use, that i’ve ever worked with… sometimes it's frustratingly simple. It notifies me when I've gone someplace sketchy.
passsword syncing and tv stuff is all handled by Apple, when your daily drivers are already Apple, they really make this simple.
I run Unraid as my primary home server. I really like its ease of use and strong user community. Lots of how-to videos available for just about anything you might want to run on it. I currently use it as file server, Plex server, TimeMachine backup server, etc… It backs up important documents to my MS One Drive using Duplicati, which encrypts and deduplicates everything for secure storage with minimal disk space usage.
I run a Home Assistant Yellow (RPi CM5 + 1TB NVME SSD) for integrating devices that are not well supported on Hubitat. I then use HADB to bring those devices into Hubitat. I also run InfluxDB, Node-RED, and Grafana as HA Add-Ons (I.e. managed docker containers) as well as a few other things. This has been much easier for me to manage and maintain then pure docker containers on Linux.
I have another “server” that is booted up weekly via a Wake on LAN packet every Saturday. That server then replicates most all of the data from the Unraid server to a local set of drives, and then automatically shuts down. This saves power and reduces the chance of a ransomware or other malicious attack on my data should someone infiltrate my home network.
For networking, I am running a full Ubiquiti UniFi network stack. The UDM-SE handles routing and firewall duties, as well as running UniFi Protect (network NVR) for about 5 outdoor cameras. These cameras are integrated with Hubitat using the built-in integration as well as will Apple Home via Scrypted running as a Docker Container on another standalone Raspberry Pi system.
All of the servers, hub, and network gear are powered via a UPS. Most of the ca eras are PoE so they stay up during short power outages as well.
I have a UGreen DXP4800+ NAS running Unraid with 28 tb of useable HDD and 2 tb of Cache NVME SSDs, one 4 tb external drive connected to it inside a small Fireproof safe bolted down to concrete as backup for all things that can't be easily found again (pictures, personal documents, source code etc.), several Docker containers mostly for Media that were moved off the main PC. I started moving things like the MQTT server off my RPi4, I did have a container running HA but never really got it working with HE as I'm missing personal time. I did leave Echo Speaks server on the RPi to not mess anything up as long as it's still working. When that dies, I will most likely repurpose the RPi as a retro gaming console to use on my Cruiser when we get bored.
Will be adding a 2Tb SSD on the NAS to save Camera footage when I start using Frigate as a NVR, waiting to get a Google Coral AI USB stick to get AI recognition working locally in Frigate.
All of this is connected to an Omada network and running a docker AdGuard Home DNS server, all DNS queries on the network are automatically sent to the AdGuard DNS server even if the DNS server is hardcoded in the device with a few VLANS that are not 100% setup yet as I'm pretty new to VLANs but I'm learning on my lunch breaks at work, connected to my main Home PC via a TailScale VPN tunnel.
I just got rid of my 2 RPI and moved everything to one Proxmox server running on a Beelink mini pc with a ssd (500GB) attached.
I installed Home Assiatant, Node Red, motioneye, InfluxDB, Grafana, Wireguard and other minor services on this mini pc.
All Proxmox and 4 Hubitat hubs are backed up into this setup as well.
Much easier to manage than the RPI option
Dell desktop running Xubuntu with:
Bitwarden
Node Red
Homepage
Nginix Proxy Manager
Nextcloud
Immich
Plex
Raspberry Pi3:
Uptime Kuma
PiHole sync'd using Nebula Sync
GPSMON
Unsuccessfully tried to create an NTP server but failed. I need to give it another shot.
Raspberry Pi4:
PiHole sync'd using Nebula Sync
Former host of Node Red
Raspberry Pi5:
Home Assistant
Raspberry Pi4:
Hyperion for home theater screen (does this count?)
Network:
Unifi controlled by Ultra Cloud Gateway running Wireguard
I tried unsuccessfully to install Open Media Vault on an old Dell laptop with only 4 GB of RAM, I wanted to then try TrueNAS but not enough RAM. I keep looking for a way to have a NAS but haven't found a good affordable way.
I have a Unifi Cloud Gateway Max to run my Unifi Gear. It provides wireguard VPN access
A Unraid server that runs on a Ryzen 5950x with 128 GB of ram several hardrives and such that uses docker and virtualization to create my Lab stuff in it.
I also run a N305 mini PC with Unraid for various tasks as well. It has 3 4TB nvme drives.
A Nvidia Jetson Nano Super for some AI tasks.
Some of the containers i run are influx Db, Grafana, Boinc, Duck DNS and a variety of other tools.
The lab environment changes a bit as work shifts between technologies.
I'm kinda new to the whole "Homelab" thing, but I'm evolving my system(s) into a homelab.
Like you, I started with some Raspberry Pi's awhile back to run a few things, Grafana, Node Red, Prometheus, etc. I also had built an i5 based Ubuntu Server NAS with a bunch of WD Red HDDs running ZFS.
Eventually, I moved the NAS to all flash, and discovered Docker.
Currently, I'm migrating the NAS to 3 smaller N150/N100 very low wattage NAS devices, and a couple of stupid small PCs.
After a disastrous experiment with TrueNAS, I'm running UnRaid, and Ubuntu Server.
I'm still learning Docker, but I'm running FoundryVTT, The NodeSonos container, and Jellyfin. Experimenting with a half dozen other containers including Technitium, Dockg, OpenMediaVault, and others and trying to find some rational backup system.
For funsies, I'm also running a mini GPS based NTP server.
All this is based around a ludicrously ever changing Ubiquiti Unifi infrastructure and Unifi Protect system.
I think I probably overdid things in every way possible, and probably should have stuck to the Pi's.
On the other hand...everyone needs a hobby or 10.
Lol
S.
Home lab here…
N100 MiniPC as my firewall / router running OPNSense plus unbound / adguard. Also have DNS over TLS setup along with DDNS and WireGuard for VPN for external access. Have WireGuard setup on my and my wife’s phones to auto connect as soon as we leave the house to our VPN so all our wireless communication is secure and routes through our home connection which is also secure and private.
I have multiple VLANs configured (guest, iot, work, cameras, trusted) and an ASUS RT-AX88U Pro configured as a wireless access point capable of handling multiple VLANs with individual SSID for each VLAN.
3 N305 MiniPC in a proxmox cluster running plex, zabbix, influxdb, grafana, homepage, home assistant OS in a VM, Homebridge, and scrypted to manage all my cameras.
1 GMKTek K11 minipc running Proxmox, hosting Proxmox datacenter manager as well as a Ubuntu VM Remote Desktop.
1 Beelink MiniPC that runs bare metal Proxmox Backup Server that backs up all my VMs and LXC nightly to separate storage on the beelink.
Have a 6 drive QNAP NAS that handles all my media and storage including my proxmox storage. I have an additional 2 drive NAS and a 4 drive NAS that are configured in Scrypted that handle my NVR storage needs.
All my devices are connected via Mikrotik cloud switches which have 10g fiber trunks between each switch including a 10g fiber connection to my media NAS. Everything else is connected to 2.5gb networking.
Love this. Smart. I'll be stealing this for my own stack. I'm now thinking some of those Pi 5s with SSDs (or just a good external drive of some type) might be useful for focused backups of key data using this.
Do you just use cron and rsync for the backup?
S.
With unraid it could also be zfs snapshots. I do that between my large server and the mini pc n305 system. That helps reduce the amount of data being shared between the systems.
Your storage pools do need to use ZFS to do so though.
Well… not exactly. I spent a significant portion of my professional career developing for and supporting MS Windows systems. So, since I already had this old Windows box up and running, I just added some drives to it and wrote a robocopy script. The system automatically runs it when the system starts up and then automatically shuts itself back down. I have enough delays in the scripts that afford me ample opportunity to interrupt the process to prevent the server from shutting down if I want to access the system.
This design does not support versioning of the replicated files, but that is not important to me. I just wanted an easy to access copy of all of my data in case the Unraid server has a catastrophic event.
Oh, good point. Yeah, I'm running ZFS on the Ubuntu Server NAS, I could do snapshots there.
I'm running btrfs on the N150 unraid NASes, as they have limited RAM, and btrfs is supposed to be better with limited RAM than ZFS. But, it too supports snapshots I think.
Seems like tomorrow might bring some changes to the Homelab!
Test!
S
I do, it is security focused. I still need to do more work on it. Has Kali Linux, Ubuntu Server and Ubuntu desktop. Planning to do windows server and parrotOS.
Saw a few people mention wanting to learn docker better. For me it was getting Portainer setup, and then learning how the docker-compose files work (aka Stacks in Portainer). I take the example compose file for any app, convert the volumes to defined volumes instead of bind mounts and away you go. Once you have the stack setup it is very easy to adjust the settings, start/stop, update the container, etc... Let me know if anyone needs help getting an app running.
I currently have two old mini PCs that were being scrapped at work. One is some really low power media PC with a Celeron N4200. Running Windows 10 (stupidly and now a PITA to switch) with VirtualBox running DietPi (debian variant) with Influx, Grafana, Node Red, Adguard Home, Minecraft servers, HA (docker), Uptime Kuma, nginx proxy manager (just found this and I love it). Absolutely nothing is running on windows anymore except VirtualBox 
The other is an HP ProDesk i3 4th gen, running Windows with Plex and some related services 
. It actually handles Plex like a champ, I have had two remote transcodes and a local stream going all at once with no issues. I sort of like having Windows to RDP into, especially for the GUI of a couple apps I run on there.
Making plans now to overhaul the whole thing so this thread is good for ideas. Going to keep it to two devices still. Plex box with some sort of storage system, and then something small again for the homelab stuff (possibly even just running on a NAS / storage server).
This... I have found the same. I am only starting, and want to get to a stage where things are being done consistently on my dev/test rpi so that when I set things up for real they are done configured in the same way.
I have several devices in my home lab. 2 Pis (a 4 and a 3B+) are running Pi Hole + Unbound + keepalived. Another (a Pi 5) is for hosting UnifiOS/Network App. Another Pi5 for Home Assistant. A Pi chinese Pi Zero clone (MQ Pro RiscV) is running a small web server to host a bunch of audio files that get played on speakers around the house by Hubitat (things like the doorbell chime, "Front Door Open", etc), another small chinese Pi Zero clone thing running NUT to track all my UPS's. 2 Hubitats (a C5 and a C8 Pro). An old AMD PhenomII X4 machine doing NAS duty. And an old Core2Quad machine hosting a bunch of VMs for playing around with.
Along similar lines....
What do people use for time-based logging? Do people still use InfluxDB? I do currently... But am open to alternatives... Perhaps this is a topic of it's own...
Download the Hubitat app
