Choosing between Proxmox and Incus? This simple guide breaks down the key differences to help you pick the right hypervisor for your lab or business.

A friend of mine was in a pickle the other day. At his job, they’re looking to replace their old virtualization setup. He’s a fan of Proxmox, but his colleague is making a strong case for something called Incus.

Their main job is to spin up virtual machines to test client products—firewalls, routers, all sorts of things—and then tear them down just as quickly. They don’t need clustering right now, but it’s something they might want down the road.

He asked for my take, and it got me thinking. This isn’t just a simple feature-by-feature comparison. It’s about two different philosophies for how to get things done. So, if you’re in a similar boat, let’s talk it through.

So, What’s Proxmox All About?

Think of Proxmox as the well-established, all-in-one toolkit. It’s been around for years and has a huge community. It’s built on a solid Debian Linux foundation and bundles everything you need into a single package.

With Proxmox, you get:
* A powerful web interface: This is its main attraction. You can manage virtual machines (using KVM for full virtualization) and Linux containers (LXC) right from your browser. No command line needed for 99% of tasks.
* Features galore: Clustering, high availability, various storage options, backups—it’s all built-in. You install it, and you have a complete, enterprise-ready platform.

Proxmox is like a Swiss Army knife. It has a tool for almost every situation, all neatly folded into one handle. It’s reliable, powerful, and you can manage your entire virtual world from a single, graphical dashboard. It’s the safe, comfortable, and incredibly capable choice.

And What’s the Deal with Incus?

Incus is the new kid on the block, but with a familiar face. It’s a fork of LXD, which was developed by Canonical (the makers of Ubuntu). The project’s lead developer forked it to create a truly community-driven version, and Incus was born.

Incus feels different. It’s leaner, faster, and more focused.
* Command-line first: While there are third-party web UIs, Incus is designed to be controlled from the terminal. This makes it incredibly powerful for automation and scripting.
* Blazing speed: Its reputation is built on speed, especially when creating and destroying system containers. It treats containers as first-class citizens, making them feel almost as lightweight as a regular process. It can also manage full virtual machines, just like Proxmox.

If Proxmox is a Swiss Army knife, Incus is a set of high-quality, perfectly weighted chef’s knives. Each one is designed for a specific purpose, and in the hands of a pro, they’re faster and more precise. It’s less of a “platform in a box” and more of a powerful component that you build your workflow around.

The Head-to-Head Breakdown

Let’s get down to it. When should you choose one over the other?

Management and Ease of Use

This is the biggest difference. Do you want a graphical interface where you can see and click on everything? Go with Proxmox. Its web UI is fantastic and makes managing a handful of servers incredibly simple.

Are you a developer or admin who lives in the terminal? Do you want to automate everything with scripts? You’ll probably love Incus. Its command-line client is clean, logical, and incredibly powerful.

The Core Philosophy

Proxmox gives you a complete, integrated solution. The experience is curated for you. This is great if you want something that just works out of the box without much fuss.

Incus gives you a powerful, streamlined tool. You have more freedom to build the exact system you want, but you also have to make more decisions. It’s more modular.

The Best Fit for the Job

So, back to my friend’s problem: spinning up and tearing down test VMs and containers all day.

For this specific task, Incus has a clear edge. Its speed is a massive advantage when you’re constantly creating and destroying instances. The clean command-line interface makes it trivial to write a simple script that says, “Create this VM with these specs, run my test, and then delete it.” It’s built for this kind of temporary, high-churn workload.

But that doesn’t mean Proxmox is a bad choice. If my friend’s team is more comfortable with a GUI, or if they also have a number of long-running, “pet” servers to manage, Proxmox might be the better all-around tool for the team. Its integrated backup and high-availability features are also more mature and easier to set up for persistent workloads.

My Final Take

There’s no single winner here. It truly depends on you and your team’s workflow.

• Choose Proxmox if: You value an all-in-one solution with a brilliant web UI and a rich, built-in feature set for a wide range of tasks.
• Choose Incus if: Your priority is speed and automation, you’re comfortable on the command line, and you prefer a more focused, modular tool for high-frequency tasks.

Honestly, the best way to decide is to try both. Set up a spare machine and install them. Spend a day creating, managing, and destroying a few VMs and containers. One of them will just feel right for the way you work. For my friend, the speed of Incus was tempting, but the team’s familiarity with graphical tools meant Proxmox was the path of least resistance. And sometimes, that’s the most important factor of all.

Wondering if a different CPU can lower your server’s idle power usage? Discover the truth about TDP, C-states, and how to pick the right processor.

I have a confession. I love building out my homelab, but I have a constant, low-level anxiety about my power bill. Every time I add a new piece of gear, a little voice in the back of my head starts calculating the watts.

Maybe you’ve been there too. You’re looking at a new-to-you server, like a trusty Dell PowerEdge R330, and you start wondering how to keep its power appetite in check. This often leads to a simple, but important, question: Does the CPU you choose actually change how much power the server uses when it’s just sitting there, doing nothing?

Let’s say you’re looking at the list of compatible processors for the R330:

• Intel Xeon E3-1200 v5 or v6 series
• Intel Core i3 6100 series
• Intel Pentium G4500 & G4600 series
• Intel Celeron G3900 & G3930 series

Assuming everything else—the RAM, the drives, the power supply—stays exactly the same, does swapping the CPU make a real difference to the idle power draw?

The short answer is: Yes, it absolutely does. But the reasons why are probably not what you think.

The Big Misconception: TDP Isn’t the Whole Story

Most people’s first instinct is to look at a CPU’s TDP, or Thermal Design Power. It’s a number, measured in watts, that you see on every spec sheet. It feels like a direct measure of power consumption. A CPU with a 45W TDP must use less power than one with an 80W TDP, right?

Well, not exactly.

TDP is really a measure of heat output under load. It’s a guideline for choosing the right heatsink and cooling system to prevent the chip from overheating when it’s working hard. It’s not a direct measurement of electricity usage.

While a lower TDP often correlates with lower power use under load, it tells you very little about what happens when the server is idle. And for a homelab server that might spend 95% of its time waiting for instructions, the idle number is what really matters for your electric bill.

The Real Hero: Deeper Sleep with C-States

The magic behind low idle power isn’t TDP; it’s C-states.

Think of C-states as different levels of sleep for your processor. When your computer is doing nothing, it doesn’t just sit there running at full speed. It starts shutting down parts of the CPU to save power.

• C0 is the “fully awake” state. The CPU is executing instructions.
• C1, C2, C3… are progressively deeper sleep states.

A shallow sleep state might just halt the CPU clock. But a really deep C-state, like C6 or C7, can turn off entire cores, flush the cache, and reduce the voltage to almost zero. It’s the difference between a light nap and a full-on, deep hibernation.

This is where your choice of CPU becomes critical.

Generally speaking, higher-end processors in a family (like the Xeon E3s) and newer generation processors (like a v6 vs a v5) have more advanced power management. They can enter these deeper sleep states more aggressively and more effectively than their lower-end or older counterparts.

So, you might have a Celeron and a Xeon with a similar TDP. But at idle, the Xeon chip might be able to drop into a super-low-power C-state that the Celeron can’t access, resulting in a significantly lower power draw for the entire system.

So, Which CPU Should You Choose?

If your absolute priority is the lowest possible idle power for a machine like the Dell R330, you shouldn’t just grab the CPU with the lowest TDP.

Instead, my advice would be:

1. Favor Newer Generations: Given the choice between a Xeon E3 v5 and a Xeon E3 v6, go for the v6. The architectural improvements between generations almost always include better power management.
2. Xeons Are Often a Good Bet: Intel’s Xeon line is built for servers that are on 24/7. They are often better optimized for low-power idle states compared to the desktop-class Core i3, Pentium, or Celeron chips.
3. Look Beyond the Spec Sheet: Sometimes the best information comes from the community. Search forums for the specific CPU models you’re considering. You’ll often find posts from other homelabbers who have measured the real-world idle power draw.

It’s a bit counter-intuitive, isn’t it? Choosing a more powerful and “power-hungry” Xeon might actually save you more money on electricity in the long run than a “weaker” Celeron, all because of how it behaves when it’s doing nothing at all. It’s not about how much work it can do, but how well it can sleep. And for a server that’s always on, that’s a feature worth paying attention to.

Thinking about building a home lab to level up your IT skills? Follow this journey of building a powerful home network with Proxmox, OPNsense, and more.

It Starts with a Question: “Could I do that?”

It’s funny how big projects start. Mine began with a simple thought while looking into a career change: “I wonder if I could learn networking for real?” Not just plugging in a Wi-Fi router, but the nuts and bolts of how data actually moves.

Reading about it is one thing. Doing it is another.

So, I decided to build a home lab. A small stack of dedicated hardware that would let me experiment, break things, and learn in a hands-on way. What started as a curiosity has turned into a full-blown (and incredibly fun) project that’s teaching me more than any textbook could.

I wanted to share a look inside my setup, not to show off, but to show what’s possible when you’re curious.

What’s in the Rack? A Guided Tour

My setup is a mix of new, used, and even trash-rescued gear. It’s not about having the most expensive equipment; it’s about having the right tools for the job. Here’s a breakdown from top to bottom.

The Core Network & Security

• Firewall: At the top of my rack is a Sophos XG 135 box, but it’s not running the stock software. I installed OPNsense on it. Think of a firewall as the security guard for your entire network. OPNsense is an open-source firewall that gives me incredible control over my network’s security, far beyond what a typical consumer router offers. I can create advanced rules, monitor traffic, and run a VPN.
• Switch: Below that is a Cisco SG300-10. If the firewall is the security guard, the switch is the traffic cop. It directs all the data flowing between the devices on my network. This is a managed switch, which means I can configure it to prioritize certain traffic (like video calls) or segment my network into different zones for security.
• Router: A Cisco 1921 router handles the connection to the wider internet. It’s a solid, reliable piece of enterprise-grade hardware that forms the backbone of the whole operation.

The Brains: Virtualization and Services

This is where things get really interesting. Instead of having a dozen different physical machines for different tasks, I use virtualization.

• Proxmox Host: I have an Intel NUC (a small, powerful computer) running Proxmox. Proxmox is a platform that lets you run multiple, independent “virtual machines” (VMs) on a single physical computer. It’s like having a whole fleet of computers in one tiny box. My plan is to spin up different environments here—maybe a web server, a development environment for coding, or a media server.
• Pi-hole: On an old laptop, I’m running Pi-hole. It’s a network-wide ad blocker. Any device that connects to my network—my phone, my TV, my laptop—has ads blocked at the source. It’s surprisingly effective and one of my favorite parts of the setup.
• Home Assistant: A Raspberry Pi is dedicated to running Home Assistant (HAOS). This is the central hub for all my smart home stuff, allowing me to automate and control everything from one place.
• Network Attached Storage (NAS): For storage, I’m using a Beelink mini PC as my NAS. This is the central file cabinet for the whole network. I’m loading all my important files onto it, which I can then access from any device.

The Best Part: Found in the Trash

My favorite part of this whole setup? The Wi-Fi. I found three Cisco 3720i access points (APs) in the trash. These are enterprise-grade APs, the kind you’d find in an office building.

They were designed to be managed by a central controller, which I don’t have. So, I learned how to “flash” them to autonomous mode. This lets them work independently. It was a fantastic learning experience, and now I have a super-robust Wi-Fi network that covers my entire home, all built from someone else’s garbage.

Why Bother Doing All This?

This project is about more than just tinkering. It’s a career-building tool.

Every piece of equipment is teaching me a valuable, real-world skill.
* Managing the OPNsense firewall is teaching me network security.
* Configuring the Cisco switch and router is teaching me enterprise networking.
* Using Proxmox is teaching me virtualization, a fundamental skill in modern IT.
* Setting up the NAS and other services is teaching me server administration.

This isn’t theoretical knowledge. It’s practical experience. It’s something I can talk about in an interview and put on a resume. I didn’t just read about virtual environments; I’m building them. I didn’t just study network diagrams; I cabled my own.

If you’re curious about IT or networking, I can’t recommend this enough. You don’t need a huge budget. Start with an old computer or a Raspberry Pi. The goal isn’t to build a massive server rack overnight. The goal is to start learning. The rest will follow.

Want to build a homelab but don’t know where to start? This guide shows you how to begin for free on your PC and scale up affordably. No experience needed.

I see you. You’ve been scrolling through a subreddit or watching a YouTube video, looking at these incredible home server setups—gleaming racks of machines, slick dashboards, and people running their own private Netflix. It looks amazing. And then comes the little voice in your head: “That looks complicated. And expensive.”

I get it. It’s easy to get excited and want to jump straight to the finish line, buying a fancy NAS or a decommissioned server. But I’ve seen friends get discouraged when the reality of a complex project hits. We’ve all got that pile of well-intentioned hobby gear collecting dust in a corner, right?

So, before you spend a ton of cash just to find out this isn’t for you, let’s talk about how to start small. Here’s a simple, low-risk way to dip your toes into the world of homelabbing.

Start for Free, On the Computer You Already Own

Hardware is expensive. But learning is free. Your first step shouldn’t involve a shopping cart; it should happen on the computer you’re using right now.

The magic trick here is something called virtualization. All it means is you can use a piece of free software to run a separate, virtual computer inside your current one. It’s like a digital sandbox. You can install a new operating system, mess things up, and just delete it and start over without ever affecting your main PC.

Here’s how to begin:

• Download VirtualBox. It’s a free and widely-used tool that lets you create these virtual machines (VMs).
• Pick an OS to play with. A great place to start is with a server-focused operating system. I’d suggest Ubuntu Server. It’s incredibly popular, which means there are thousands of guides and tutorials out there to help you.
• Give yourself a simple project. Don’t try to build your own cloud storage system on day one. Start with something fun and well-documented, like spinning up a private Minecraft server for you and your friends. The goal isn’t to create a perfect, permanent service; it’s to learn how a server OS works, how to use the command line, and how to install software.

Spend some time here. See if you enjoy the process of tinkering, problem-solving, and learning. If you do, then it’s time to think about hardware.

Ready for Hardware? Don’t Break the Bank

Okay, so you’ve been running a few things in VirtualBox and you’re hooked. You’re ready to have a dedicated machine that can run 24/7 without slowing down your gaming rig. This is the point where many people think they need to drop $1,000 on new gear. You don’t.

The world of used computer hardware is your best friend. A desktop computer from the last 10 years is more than powerful enough to run dozens of applications for your homelab. An old Intel i5 or an early-generation AMD Ryzen CPU can be found incredibly cheap on secondhand marketplaces, and they have all the horsepower you need to get started.

Look for used office PCs from brands like Dell or HP. They are built to be reliable, they’re power-efficient, and they’re often sold for next to nothing when businesses upgrade. This machine will become your dedicated server. You can install your server OS directly onto it and start running services like Docker, which lets you easily manage multiple applications in “containers.” Think of it as the next step up from a single VM.

Access Your Lab from Anywhere (The Safe Way)

Once your lab is running on its own hardware, you’ll inevitably want to access it from outside your house. Maybe you want to stream your legally acquired media, access your files, or show a friend a project you’re hosting.

The old-school way to do this was to open ports on your home router. Please, don’t do this, especially when you’re starting out. The internet is constantly being scanned by automated bots looking for open doors into people’s networks. A simple misconfiguration could expose your entire home network to a stranger. It’s a risk you don’t need to take.

Instead, use a tool like Tailscale.

Tailscale is a free service (for personal use) that creates a secure, private network between your devices. You install the app on your server, your phone, and your laptop. Once they’re all logged into your Tailscale account, they can talk to each other as if they were in the same room. No open ports, no complex firewall rules. It just works. It’s secure, easy to set up, and perfect for a beginner.

This is Just the Beginning

That’s it. That’s the simple path:

1. Start with VirtualBox on your PC.
2. Move to cheap, used hardware.
3. Use Tailscale for secure remote access.

This journey is all about learning and building things that are useful (or just plain fun) for you. By starting small, you give yourself the chance to fall in love with the process without the pressure of a big investment. So go ahead, download VirtualBox, and see what you can build. You might be surprised where it takes you.

From a simple college project to a full-blown home server. A personal story about building a homelab, surviving data scares, and the joy of DIY tech.

It all started with a simple idea. I was in college, learning about IT, and I wanted to put some of that theory into practice. The plan was modest: set up a Proxmox server with a couple of virtual machines. Easy enough, right?

Well, that’s where the rabbit hole began.

A stubborn DNS issue sent me searching for answers, and one thing led to another. Before I knew it, I was at a recycling center buying a stack of used hard drives—five 4TB drives and two 1TB drives. My simple VM project was suddenly morphing into a full-blown backup server.

Assembling the Beast from Scraps and Deals

Most of the server is built from the bones of my old gaming PC. I found a bigger case for just $20, an Apevia Telstar Junior, which gave me a bit more room to work with. The heart of the machine is a Ryzen 7 5800X CPU with a whopping 96GB of DDR4 RAM.

Here’s a little secret: the giant Thermaltake Assassin CPU cooler is held in place with zip ties. I lost the metal brackets during the build, but hey, it works. The CPU usage rarely even cracks 50%, so it’s more than enough.

For networking, I wanted a fast connection between my main PC and the server, so I snagged two 10GbE network cards. My setup also includes a 2.5GbE card, but for some reason, I can’t get it to work. I think it might be because I have it in a 16x PCIe slot, but the lights on the switch tell me it’s connected. It’s one of those little mysteries I still need to solve.

The server needed a GPU because the CPU doesn’t have integrated graphics. A cheap NVIDIA Quadro 4000 does the trick. It’s not for gaming, just for getting a picture on the screen. To handle all those hard drives, I added a dedicated SATA controller card, which I passed through to a TrueNAS virtual machine. This is where I store everything—1:1 copies of my PC’s drives and all my Blender projects.

The Data Scare That Changed Everything

I’m not a command-line wizard. I’m especially paranoid about using rsync after one particularly terrifying incident.

I was trying to reformat my drives from NTFS to a new file system and needed to move all my data to the backup server first. I used rsync to copy everything over. The problem happened when I tried to move it all back. I typed the command wrong. In an instant, it looked like I had deleted my entire backup. All of it. Gone.

My heart sank. I spent the rest of the day frantically trying to recover the files. I almost shelled out hundreds of dollars for professional recovery software.

And then I found the problem. The files weren’t deleted at all. The rsync command had just completely messed up the file permissions. One simple chown command later, and everything was back. All my data was safe.

After that scare, I switched to a tool called FreeFileSync. It does the same thing as rsync but with a graphical user interface, which makes it much harder to accidentally wipe out your entire digital life. It’s a lesson I won’t forget.

What’s Next for the Homelab?

This server has been an incredible learning experience, but I’m already hitting its limits. The case is cramped, and I want to add even more hard drives. The next big upgrade will be a proper server case and motherboard that can handle more storage. I also want to get drives with matching speeds to avoid any bottlenecks.

Beyond just storage, I’m excited to explore more advanced topics. I want to set up my own proxy servers, mess with firewalls like pfSense, and build a media server for the house.

The ultimate dream? Building a dedicated render server for my Blender projects. My current GPU does the job, but offloading those heavy renders to a separate machine would be amazing. I’m hoping to find a way to have it power on automatically when a render starts and shut down when it’s finished to save on the electricity bill.

This whole journey started as a small college project, but it’s become a full-fledged hobby. Sixty percent of the time, I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing, but figuring things out—even through near-disasters—is what makes it so much fun. Every problem solved is a new skill learned. And it all started with one little server.

Starting a homelab? We break down the pros and cons of using containers (Docker) vs. a hypervisor like Proxmox on your first server. Find the best path.

You’ve got an old laptop gathering dust on a shelf. You know it’s still got some life in it, but you’re not sure what to do with it.

Here’s an idea: Turn it into a homelab.

A homelab is just a home server where you can run your own private services. Think of it as your own little corner of the internet. You can host a personal VPN, a password manager, game servers, a media center like Plex, and so much more. It’s a fantastic way to learn about tech and take back control of your data.

But when you first start, you hit a fundamental question: How should you run all these things? This usually boils down to two popular choices: using containers directly or using a hypervisor like Proxmox.

Let’s break down what that actually means.

What We’re Trying to Run

First, let’s get a picture of what a simple homelab might look like. Based on what most people want to start with, a typical list includes:

• A VPN: To securely access your home network from anywhere.
• A NAS (Network Attached Storage): A simple way to store and share files across your devices.
• A password manager: Something like Vaultwarden to keep your passwords secure and synced.
• Pi-hole: To block ads across your entire network.
• Fun stuff: Private servers for games like Valheim or FoundryVTT.

Down the line, you might want to add heavier hitters like a Plex or Jellyfin media server, or even a dedicated firewall like pfSense. The hardware in a typical 8th-gen i5 laptop with 16GB of RAM is more than enough to handle all of this.

The real question isn’t about power, it’s about the right way to set it all up.

Path #1: The Straight and Simple Docker Approach

This is often the most direct route.

Here’s how it works: You take your laptop, install a standard Linux operating system on it (like Ubuntu Server), and then you install Docker.

Docker is a container platform. Think of containers as lightweight, mini-packages that hold a single application and everything it needs to run. You can have a container for Pi-hole, another for Vaultwarden, and so on. They all run on top of your single Ubuntu operating system.

The Good:

• It’s simple to grasp. You learn one OS (Ubuntu) and one tool (Docker).
• It’s very popular. There are endless tutorials and guides for setting up just about anything with Docker.
• It’s efficient. Containers have very little overhead, so they don’t waste your laptop’s resources.

The Not-So-Good:

• It can be limiting. Some software, particularly networking tools like the pfSense firewall, can’t run in a container. They need a full-blown Virtual Machine (VM). With this setup, you’re stuck.
• It’s less isolated. All your containers share the same underlying OS kernel. If you make a mistake and mess up the core operating system, everything could come crashing down at once.

This path is great for getting your feet wet, but you might hit a wall sooner than you think.

Path #2: The Flexible Proxmox Approach

Now for the other option. Proxmox VE is a bit different. It’s a specialized operating system built for one purpose: running other operating systems. It’s a “hypervisor.”

You install Proxmox directly onto your bare laptop—it is the operating system. Then, from a handy web browser interface, you can create two kinds of things:

1. LXC Containers: These are a lot like Docker containers. They are lightweight, fast, and perfect for running most of your services like Pi-hole or a game server.
2. Full Virtual Machines (VMs): This is like having a complete, separate computer running inside your laptop. It has its own dedicated resources and its own full operating system. This is what you need for things like pfSense.

The Good:

• Ultimate Flexibility. You get the best of both worlds. You can use lightweight containers for most things and spin up a full VM whenever you need one. You’ll never hit a wall because a service requires a VM.
• Amazing Isolation. Each container and VM is its own little sandbox. If one crashes or you break something while tinkering, it won’t affect anything else. This is a huge deal.
• Snapshots are a Lifesaver. This is the killer feature. Before you try a risky update or a new configuration, you can take a “snapshot.” If something goes wrong, you can restore the container or VM to its previous state in a single click. It’s like a time machine for your server, and it makes learning so much less stressful.
• Central Management. Everything is managed from a single, clean web interface. No need to SSH into a command line for every little thing (though you still can!).

The Not-So-Good:

• Slightly Steeper Learning Curve. Just slightly. You have to learn the Proxmox interface first, and then you learn how to set up your services inside it. It might take an extra afternoon to get comfortable.

So, Which Path Should You Choose?

For a beginner who is curious and wants a setup that can grow with them, I almost always recommend starting with Proxmox.

While the direct Docker approach seems simpler at first, the benefits of Proxmox are impossible to ignore for a homelab. The “snapshot” feature alone is worth the price of admission (which is free, by the way). It gives you the confidence to experiment, break things, and learn without fear. We’ve all accidentally deleted a critical file or botched a configuration—Proxmox lets you undo that mistake instantly.

The fear that it’s “too complex” is mostly unfounded. The installation is straightforward, and the web interface makes managing VMs and containers surprisingly intuitive.

Starting with Proxmox from day one means you’re building on a foundation that won’t limit you in six months. When you suddenly decide you want to try out a new firewall or run a Windows-only server, you won’t have to start over. You’ll just click “Create VM,” and you’re on your way.

So, dust off that laptop. Your perfect learning playground is waiting for you.

A personal look at my two-year journey building a home server with Unraid, Plex, and Homebridge. Here’s what I used, why, and what I’ve learned along the way.

It’s funny how some projects start. You think it’ll be a weekend thing. A quick fix. Then you blink, and it’s two years later, and that “quick fix” has become the quiet, humming heart of your home. That’s the story of my home server.

It didn’t begin with a grand plan. It started with a frustration I think a lot of us know: digital mess. I had movies and TV shows scattered across a handful of external hard drives. My smart home was a patchwork of different apps that refused to talk to each other. Nothing was centralized. Nothing was simple.

So, I decided to build a central place for everything to live. A digital command center. Two years later, it’s one of the most useful things I own.

The Brains of the Operation: Unraid

The whole setup is built on something called Unraid. If you’re not familiar with it, the simplest way to think about it is as a flexible operating system for a server. Its best feature is how it handles hard drives.

You can mix and match drives of different sizes, which is great when you’re building a system over time. You buy a new drive, you slot it in, and you add it to the pool of storage. It’s perfect for a project that grows as your needs (and your media library) do.

Unraid is the foundation. It runs 24/7, quietly managing the hardware so the fun stuff can work.

What’s It Actually Doing?

So what does this server do all day? It mostly handles two main jobs: being my personal media library and running my smart home.

• Plex: My Own Personal Netflix
  This is probably the most-used part of the whole system. Plex is software that takes all those movie and TV show files, organizes them into a beautiful, easy-to-use library, and lets me stream them to any device, anywhere. It automatically downloads movie posters, cast information, and descriptions. It feels just like Netflix or Disney+, but it’s all my own media. No more hunting for the right external hard drive. I just open the Plex app on my TV, phone, or laptop, and everything is right there.

• Homebridge: Getting My Smart Home to Cooperate
  Have you ever bought a smart plug or light bulb, only to realize it doesn’t work with Apple HomeKit? That’s where Homebridge comes in. It’s a clever little piece of software that acts as a bridge. It takes devices that aren’t natively supported by HomeKit and makes them show up in the Apple Home app. Suddenly, that oddball smart plug or old garage door opener can be controlled with Siri or included in my automated routines. It’s the glue that holds my smart home together.

Backups, Because Peace of Mind is a Feature

The most important job of any server is keeping your data safe. A server without a backup plan is just a disaster waiting to happen.

My approach is pretty straightforward. The main Unraid server holds all the primary data—the media, the software, everything. But I also have separate Network Attached Storage (NAS) drives that serve one purpose: backups.

Periodically, the main server copies everything over to these backup drives. It’s the old 3-2-1 rule in action: three copies of your data, on two different types of media, with one copy off-site (or at least on a separate device). If the main server ever fails, I won’t lose two years of work and collecting.

A Two-Year Journey

This setup didn’t happen overnight. It was a slow burn. It started with one hard drive and a Plex server. Then I added Homebridge to solve a smart home annoyance. As my media library grew, I added more drives. I learned about networking, data integrity, and the quiet satisfaction of building something yourself.

It’s a hobby. There’s always something to tweak, a new app to try, or a better way to organize things. It’s never really “done,” and that’s part of the fun.

If you’re thinking about starting something similar, my only advice is to start small. Solve one problem first. Maybe it’s organizing your photos. Maybe it’s setting up a simple media server. You can build from there. It might just become your favorite project.

Discover a clever way to use a portable power station with a UPS for a flexible, long-lasting backup power solution for your home network.

It All Started with a Simple Rule

I have a cardinal rule for my basement: keep things off the floor.

It’s a simple rule, born from the universal fear of water heaters letting go or a freak storm overwhelming a sump pump. So, when I was rearranging my home server rack recently, my main goal was just that—get my gear up and organized.

In the middle of the shuffle, I tried something on a whim. I grabbed my portable power station, a Bluetti AC70, and slid it onto an empty rack-mount shelf. It fit perfectly. Like, perfectly. It was one of those small, satisfying moments of accidental organization.

But what started as a simple tidying-up exercise quickly turned into a much smarter power backup strategy for my whole house.

More Than Just a Big Battery

For years, I’ve relied on uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs) to keep my home network and servers safe from blackouts. A UPS is basically a big, heavy battery that kicks in the instant the power goes out. It gives your sensitive electronics a few minutes of juice so they can shut down gracefully instead of crashing.

My main servers are connected to a beefy, traditional UPS. When the power fails, it keeps them running for about a minute and then tells them to shut down. That’s all I need. I don’t need my file server running for hours during a blackout.

But my internet connection? That’s a different story.

Losing power is one thing, but losing internet feels like being stranded on a digital island. I want to be able to check outage maps, get updates, and let family know we’re okay. So, keeping my modem and router online is the real priority.

This is where the portable power station changed everything.

A Smarter, Tiered Power Plan

Here’s the setup I stumbled into, and it works beautifully:

• Layer 1: The Servers. The big, old-school UPS handles the power-hungry servers. Its only job is to provide a safe, orderly shutdown.
• Layer 2: The Internet. The portable power station, sitting neatly on its new shelf, now powers the critical stuff: the modem and router. Because these devices use very little power, the Bluetti can keep them running for about three hours.

This two-layer system is great, but there was one problem to solve. My Bluetti is a fantastic portable power pack, but it isn’t a “smart” UPS. It can’t talk to my other systems or tell them to shut down.

So, I kept a small, basic APC UPS in the loop. This little guy is now the designated “canary in the coal mine.” It’s plugged in with the Bluetti, and its only job is to signal my network when the main power has actually failed. The Bluetti handles the long-haul power, and the small UPS handles the communication.

It’s the best of both worlds.

The Real Win: Flexibility

Here’s the best part of this whole setup.

A traditional UPS is a one-trick pony. It’s heavy, it’s bolted into the rack (or sits awkwardly on the floor), and it does one job. You’re not going to haul your server UPS out to the garage to run a power tool.

But a portable power station? Its main job is to be, well, portable.

If I need power for a weekend camping trip, I can just unplug it from the rack and toss it in the car. If I’m working on a project in the backyard, it comes with me. It’s my go-to power source for everything, but its day job is keeping my internet alive during a blackout.

It’s a simple idea, but it solved multiple problems at once. My gear is off the floor, my internet stays on for hours during an outage, and I have a powerful battery I can take anywhere. All because I decided to see if it would fit on a shelf. Sometimes the best solutions are the ones you just stumble upon.

Discover how a simple experiment with virtual machines on a gaming PC can spiral into a full-blown homelab hobby. A personal story of accidental tech passion.

It’s funny how hobbies happen.

You don’t usually wake up one day and decide, “I’m going to dedicate a significant portion of my free time and closet space to this new, complex activity.” It rarely works like that.

For me, it started with a simple thought while sitting at my gaming PC: “I wonder if I can run a different operating system without actually installing it.”

The First Step is Always a Virtual One

That’s where it began. Not with a grand plan, but with a piece of software called a Virtual Machine, or VM. It’s basically a computer inside your computer. I spun up a simple Linux VM on my gaming rig just to poke around and learn something new. It felt safe. If I broke it, I could just delete the VM and my main PC would be fine.

Then I got an idea. I could use a VM to run a private server for a game my friends and I were playing. It worked! For a while. Then I wanted to set up a media server, something like Plex, so I could watch my movies from any device. So, I spun up another VM.

Soon, my powerful gaming PC was spending most of its time running background tasks. And I started to notice. My games would stutter. The fans were always running. The machine that was supposed to be for fun felt more like it was doing chores.

The Tipping Point

The moment of truth came during a gaming session with friends. My PC froze, the game crashed, and it was because the media server was working too hard in the background. That was it. I needed my gaming PC back.

But I didn’t want to give up my new server projects. They were actually useful. And more than that, they were fun to manage.

So, I started looking for a solution. I figured I’d get a small, cheap, used computer to run my services separately. I went online, and that’s when I fell down the rabbit hole. I discovered a whole community of people who do this. They call it “homelabbing.”

These people weren’t just running a couple of VMs on an old Dell. They were building dedicated home servers, sometimes even full server racks, to run all sorts of interesting and powerful software.

My Accidental Hobby

Fast forward a year. That single, used computer has… multiplied.

What started as a way to get my gaming PC back has turned into my favorite hobby. I now have a dedicated machine (okay, a few machines) that handle everything:

• Our media server: The whole family uses it now.
• A network-wide ad blocker: No more ads on any device connected to our Wi-Fi. It’s amazing.
• A personal cloud: I host my own files, so I don’t have to pay for Dropbox or Google Drive.
• Automation tools: Little programs I’m learning to write that do things like organize files for me.

It sounds complicated, and sometimes it is. But it’s the most satisfying puzzle I’ve ever worked on. Every little success, every new service I get running, feels like a huge win. It’s a practical way to learn about networking, cybersecurity, and how the internet actually works.

So be careful. Your next great hobby might be hiding inside a simple, innocent thought. It might start with just one virtual machine, but it rarely ends there. And honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.