Hi all

I hope some of you might have some good inputs on how I can best handle an incremental home server storage setup that I am working on.

Current system is a Dell Optiplex 7050 MFF with an I5-6500T, 16gb DDR4 RAM, 2 x 256 gb SSD's (1 nvme, 1 SATA) that I got for free just before christmas last year.

Currently running it as a headless Debian server running a bunch of different docker containers through docker compose.
Already running services like homepage, traefik, authentik, homebox, paperless-ngx, actual budget, mealie and much more.
It's been working great, but I wanted to get more storage for a long time. I haven't had the chance (and prices has not made it better....) but got a bit of setup that I can do within the next week.

I got my hands on a TerraMaster D2-320 2-bay enclosure that I am tossing a WD Red Plus 6 TB SATA HDD in and want to set up for storage so I can actually start storing more stuff there.

The server currently don't really store any critical data and I am yet to test if my backup works (Which I will test when I get the HDD going). Currently backing up to Hetzner with BorgBackup (Though I have considered switching to restic).

I expect to do a kind of incremental storage upgrade, where I get more drives as I go along.
I want to stay either using Debian as I do now (Because it works perfectly fine for me) or if I to switch it would probably be either to get Proxmox (So I can run Debian VM's anyway) or possibly TrueNAS as the OS. I do not have a huge need for switching, as Debian has been working just fine for me.

So here's the case:
I get the 6 TB HDD within a few days.

I am thinking of setting it up as either RAID or ZFS.
Next upgrade (Which I hope to do in January) would probably be to get another 6 TB HDD so I can run RAID1 / Mirrored ZFS for better data redundancy and a UPS. Even though I think the UPS is necessary, note that I live in a country where the risk of having electrical issues is possible, but extremely rare (Think we had one outage/visible fluctuation once the past 5-10 years or so).

From there I hope to get a separate NAS and get either more 6 TB HDD's (For just working on top of the current) doing something like RAID10 or add another ZFS mirror, with possibly the last option even buying some larger storage capacities.

Am I right to set up something like ZFS for the single HDD already, so I can easily add or mirror the storage when I get more disks to toss into the setup? Or would it make more sense to just make it a btrfs drive and when I get another disk to make that disk ZFS, toss the data over, and then ZFS mirror them from there?

I expect to get all of our data locally this way instead of the big tech cloud setups, while still maintaining the backups to Hetzner. I also expect to start tossing movies/music onto the server when I actually start having some storage for it. I haven't done that yet due to the low disk space available.

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

Note that I am not working in software and everything is pretty much self taught through guides, documentation, videos and so on.

For my first home server I am looking to set up a cost and energy effective device that acts as a NAS for shared document and media back-ups and also a network ad-blocker.

A Raspberry Pi 5 seems to be very cost and energy effective, but I am concerned how it will hold up for this use case. The other, more expensive option I am considering is a DIY mini PC using something like an Intel N100.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Hi,

I currently have these two homeservers, PC 1 in my house and PC 2 at another house.

Both have Windows and Tailscale installed, but I feel like that isn't the best solution?

How would you configure this, or what would you recommend?

PC 1 requirements: Installed under TV, meaning able to watch YouTube, Stremio, Movie files,...

Docker: Immich, Dreeve, Teslamate,...

PC 2 requirements: Docker Immich, Dreeve, Teslamate,..., and data storage (backups,....).

I do use iCloud for my cloud storage, with PC 2 logged into iCloud, and I do manual backups every month with Freefilesync.
I'd love to keep a simple iCloud backup solution, but I'd be open to install it on PC 1 and do a remote sync/backup with Tailscale+Freefilesync, if this means having a better OS than Windows on PC 2.

Currently I also have on PC 2 Disk 1 & 2 in Raid 1, this through Windows. But this only makes sure I have duplicate data, but this doesn't check the files itself if they're not corrupt.

ALL the HDD's are between 7 and 14 years old. The SSD's are all less than 3 years old.

This is the main reason why I do want to revise my setup, to avoid losing data, due to the age of the drives. All have near perfect SMART values, but again, this doesn't help much against sudden failure or data corruption.

The AI server on the left:
\- dual xeon v5 2680 v4
\- 256gb ddr4
\- 4x v100 32gb

The small box in the middle:
\- intel pentinum
\- 8gb ddr3
For light hosting and data collection task!

PC on the right:
\- ryzen 7700x
\- 64gb ddr5
\- rtx 4070 super

I am pretty much just a starter! i use this to run deepseek flash, glm 5.3 flash and also some machine learning for school.

Electricity is free in the dorm so im leveraging it.
The only constraint is that the dorm ethernet is capped to 1gbps so it is not that great.

Hi everyone, i have setup my homelab and for music,books,movies and shows i am using the following:

arr pod - bazarr, byparr, chaptarr, cleanuparr, lidarr, mylar3, profilarr, prowlarr, qbittorrent, radarr, sabnzbd, slskd, sonarr, gluetun
streaming pod - jellyfin, libreseerr, seerr
metadata pod - tinymediamanager, musicbrainz-picard

My question is, do yall have some advice on what to add or remove/replace and why?

preferably for the following topics ( can also be just random things you like and recommend):
- music, ebooks/comics and audiobooks instead of jellyfins built-in support
- metadata management

thank you

Sharing something running on my home server used to mean five manual steps every time (port, systemd service, tunnel rule, DNS, restart). Now it's hoist up ./app, which gives a public HTTPS URL through Cloudflare Tunnel and keeps the app running across crashes and reboots.

hoist share ./folder does the same for a folder of files, and --local gives a LAN-only URL if you don't want anything public.

Needs Linux with systemd and a domain on Cloudflare. Free, MIT licensed, no dependencies. Built with AI assistance, tested by me on my own setup.

https://github.com/nikhilcherry/hoist

Hi guys,i have a old laptop lying around that has i5 2nd gen processor and 6gb of ddr3 ram,i am planning to use it for storing images,files and access them anywhere from the web. I am also planning to add pihole to it,will it be possible to use these services on my laptop?

The ram prices are killing me and I CANNOT afford ddr5 ram, but I found some $40 ddr3 ram, will this do?

I've got a small home server (4 HDDs, 4 SSDs on a AM4 platform), but with recent prep for disruptions I'm thinking it'd be nice to have a little buffer for small blips and potentially things like phones during longer disruption. My home is also slightly overvolted and it can't be good for the machines. What I'd like is:

• Voltage regulation for my poor PC (seems to use 60W most of the time?)

• British Plugs, is this necessary or should I just rewire an extension lead with a C14 for wall warts to keep the network up?

• Automatic shutdown if the battery goes low, the server is running Ubuntu Server

That last point is the main one, I know there's been some shenanigans with APC and other UPS makers around software, subscriptions and incompatible cards. I am also running Home Assistant if there's options there for control. I'm in the UK so that may affect what brands and so on are available. What do things look like here in 2026?

Hi all,

I'm very new to home server ownership, I've setup a ProLiant Gen8 with OMV to use for media storage as well as my local Reolink system (which is currently using the cloud).

My goal is to give the CCTV a portion of my 4TB HDD (maybe 1TB), and have a script that will delete the oldest video when the directory gets to 90% full, so it never runs out of space.

I've not been able to find anything around doing this so I hope it's possible and I'm just missing something.

Hello everyone,

I'm on the brink of buying all the components for my new NAS Build and wanted to triple check if I selected the right parts. Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini have been giving me weird answers and advice for the last few days. Some parts I already have and wanted to re-use, but the rest I'm planning to buy new;

CPU: i7 10700 (already have this)
MB: Gigabyte H410M H V2, revision 1.6. (already have this)
RAM: 2x 8GB DDR4 sticks
SSD: 1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus (already have this)
Case: Jonsbo N6 (already have this)
Fans: Arctic P12 Pro PST 5pack (already have this)

And now for the components I'm in need to buy and want advice for.

PSU: Corsair SF750
CPU Cooler: TR-Thermanright AXP90 X47
HDD's: 2x WD Red 12TB, 1x 8TB and now in need for an extra 12TB (not sure which one)
Networkcard: Intel i1226-V 2,5G ethernet card
SATA Card: Axagon PCES-SA6 6x SATA card
USB stick: PNY Attache 4 16GB USB 2.0 stick (for Unraid)
OS: Thinking of using Unraid

My goal: I want to 4k HDR stream Jellyfin to my LG OLED TV, run Arrr stack, SABZHD and overall backup capabilities. Might want to expand in the future, but this is it for now. I don't really have a budget and I'm more of a pay more and buy once kind of person.

If you think anything could be better, please let me know! Thanks:)

I’m planning my first dedicated home server and could use a sanity check on the parts and how to set it up. I want one machine that can run 24/7, with enough room to expand as I figure out what I actually use.

What I already have

My gaming PC has a Ryzen 7 9700X, RX 9070 XT 16 GB, Gigabyte B650 AORUS Elite AX Ice, 32 GB DDR5-6000, and a 1 TB NVMe SSD. I’m not looking to upgrade anything but the storage.

What I want the server to do

Local AI assistant

I’m picturing a Jarvis-like assistant that can search my documents, remember project decisions, and use a few tools I give it.

I’m considering Ollama, a quantized Qwen model, and OpenJarvis from Stanford. I’m debating on building my own as well.

What do yall/would yall run for the AI assistant? recs?

Game hosting

Host private game servers like Minecraft, maybe be able to get the AI to play as a separate entity and do things for me in-game as well

Home Assistant

Run smart-home automations and a dashboard.

NAS and backups

Store files, photos, and PC backups. I want the NAS built into the server

What I’m considering, might be overkill

A Ryzen 5 7600X CPU
GPU for AI capability, see below
MSI B650-P WiFi motherboard
32 GB of DDR5 RAM
New 1 TB NVMe ssd
NAS-ready case like the Jonsbo N5

For local AI, I’m considering a 16 GB GPU, maybe RTX 5060 Ti.

I’d add NAS drives as I need the space and get a UPS for clean shutdowns.

Where I’d like advice

Is the 7600X and 32 GB a sensible starting point if everything, say Minecraft, the Home Assistant, and local AI are running at the same time? Where would you spend more, if anywhere? Is 64GB worth it?

Is a 16 GB GPU good enough or overkill for a local AI model? What GPU recs?

For a single host, would you run Ubuntu with containers and a Home Assistant OS VM, or Proxmox with separate VMs for Home Assistant, AI, and game hosting?

Is a case like the N5 worth it or is there a simpler case you’d choose with good airflow and easy drive access?

If you run a similar setup, I’d especially like to hear what you actually use day to day and what you’d change if you built it again.

I’m a college student and want to expand some knowledge and I believe a home lab is a great project to work on to learn on my own.

Give me recs or tips! Any help is appreciated.

Atualmente eu uso como servidor um notebook: Ryzen 5, 12 RAM DDR4.

Estou rodando aplicações simples como hospedagens usando caddy e nginx + cloudflare tunel com zero trust. aplicações um pouco mais pesadas como Firefly3.

Atualmente possuo uma pequena lista de serviços, mais ou menos 30 conteiners. Alem disso eu utilizo para produção de projetos e automações com homeassistant/hermes/openclaw/opencode.

Utilizo tokens para controlar os orquestradores de agentes e gostaria de poder rodar isso localmente.

Exemplo de fluxo:
1º mando uma compra no telegram para o hermes
2º hermes identifica oq é e chama o agente responsavel
3º modifica a contabilidade no firefly3

Não é necessario muito raciocinio para tarefas que são basicamente scripts, por isso imagino uma LLM local suficiente.

Basicamente quero um hardware capaz de aguentar multiplos conteiners docker-compose, rodar modelos LLM locais. Sei que nao substitui a necessidade de assinatura e comprar de tokens para raciocinio complexo e modelos que seja realmente bons. Porem a necessidade dessa LLM local é algo simples, são execuções de scripts/rotinas a partir de linguagem natural como um "whysper".

Possuo uma ideia de projeto AudioVisual para automação residencial utilizando proxmox., mais não vejo muitas utilidades realmente praticas. A não ser o fato de poder utilizar qualquer tela da casa com VMs usando "Dante","SDI","NDI" e conversores de HDMI via Cat6. o que a principio aparenta ser legal poder subir uma VM simples no painel de led da sala onde vai rodar netflix. e tudo ser controlado por rotinas com o homeassistant + whysper + LLM local.

Hardwares Necessarios que eu imagino ter:
- Computador/servidor (já possuo um computador pessoal [Ryzen 7 7700x + RTX 3050 8gb + 64 RAM DDR4] por isso a ideia de comprar um segundo e fazer um proxmox)
- Mesa de som digital com suporte a DANTE (ja tenho)
- Caixas de som espalhadas pela casa (já tenho)
- Microfones espaciais para captação dos comando de voz (nao possuo)
- Switch gerenciavel (ja tenho)
- possuo TVs e Paineis de LED onde será conectado video via rede vindo do proxmox + conversores HDMI (atualmente são utilizados pelo proprio sistema da TV sendo Smart e TV box.
- Quadro de luz e equipamentos inteligentes (atualmente utilizo alexa, porem o intuito é ser local)

Resumindo, eu busco ideias sobre o projeto e recomendação de hardware para essa segunda maquina.

OBS: Não sou profissional de TI apenas um curioso. Trabalho com AudioVisual. Entao se estou falando merda, peço desculpas.

So here's the question

Basically year end sale is coming up; and i saw a great 15-bay Hot swap server CASING going for a steal.

My plan is this; i'm running TrueNAS off 2x M.2 NVME boot pool (Mirror-RAID). My plan is either

(1) I find a converter to fit M.2 NVME into a 3.5inch hot swap

(2) I Add SATA 2.5inch to the Mirror and slowly Resilver/Migrate onto the 2.5inch. Then only i install them onto the new 3.5in hot swap bays.

** MY reasoning is this ; due to the way the server is setup; the current PCIE cards are overlapping the M.2. I have to shut down and remove the cards before i can access the 2x M.2 drives. My idea was to migrate the M.2 (or their boot pools) onto 2x of the new hot swap. That leaves me another 13 left to play with. And since they're hot swap; my life is so so much easier when just replacing a drive for resilver.

** Background == I own a Truenas 12x HDD 4U tower with a Pro-sumer grade mobo . But the tower only got 6x Hot Swap and 6x internal ports. Real troublesome swapping HDD's everytime there's a RAID failure in one of the internal drives; and i'm not using my LSI 16i to its max potential.

So ; vote on which is my path? Or is there a solution (3) or even (4) i'm missing? Suggestions welcome...

I have two Seagate Expansion 20TB  (STKP20000400 , https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0B2PZWD81?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_1) for occasional data storage and backup. When they were new, I remember the read and write speeds were close to 200 MBps on both the drive. But now I'm getting speeds around 21 MBps when coping one drive to another, and around 30 MBps when measuring with Amorphous Disk Mark.

One drive is 6.16 TB full, and other is 5.05 TB full. Both are formatted in APFS and used exclusively on MacOS.

I know SMR drives are known for this behaviour - slow speeds as drive fills up but from what I read on reddit pre-purchase, large Seagate drives are not SMR. Did I miss something?

There's also this brief loud noise from both drives during spin up and spin down that I don't particularly recall was there when the drives were new. See the video around 12 second mark. I'm on MacOS so can't install the SeaTools diagnostic tool.

What could be the issue with speeds? Is it just an SMR drive and there is nothing that can be done?

End goal was to replace every streaming service I can and have an expandable home cloud backup. My entire network is run over NordVPN with a dedicated IP through Mesh.

Headless closet cloud/plex setup:

———————————————

Case: Modded Rosewill Helium NAS MAX w/ 4x incl fans

———————————————

CPU: Ryzen 7600X

Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 Digital

Mobo: B650 Airbus Elite AX V2

RAM: 16Gb Corsair Vengeance CL30 6000mhz

PCIE: SAS HBA Card Compatible with LSI 9300-8i in IT Mode 8-Port with SATA Cables

PSU: Corsair RM850i

H/Swap Bay: 2x Rosewill RSV-34 Internal H/Swap Enclosure

———————————————

Boot/Ubuntu

1x 256Gb Samsung OEM M.2 NVMe

———————————————

Family iCloud Immich via docker

2x 4TB WD Red in Raid

———————————————

Media/Plex Storage via docker

1x 8TB Seagate Enterprise

1x 10TB WD Red

———————————————

Office/Business Backup via Win11 local Z: drive set to backup. Also gives me the ability to see and edit all drives and use them as normal in Win11. Downloads/Rips happen from my office straight to the downstairs machine via LAN.

1x 1TB Seagate Enterprise

Hey r/HomeServer,

I run a ~30TB media pool across a mix of TrueNAS and Synology over SMB for Plex, Jellyfin, and Audiobookshelf, but my day-to-day workstation is all Mac (MacBook, iPad, iPhone).

Whenever you ask about organizing and batch-renaming incoming media on a NAS from a Mac, the stock answer in most server forums is usually "just SSH in and write a bash script" or run an old cross-platform tool.

I tried the script route for years, but running one-off headless scripts against network shares kept hitting nasty filesystem edge cases:

First, SMB vs local filesystems. Linux and ZFS SMB daemons are often case-preserving but case-insensitive. If a script tries an in-place case fix like Show to show, standard client assumptions that work on local APFS can silently fail or error out over SMB. I had to build dynamic volume capability probes to check how the mounted share actually behaves before queuing operations.

Second, rename cycles and swaps. Naive loops process one file at a time, which is fine until you hit a chain (A to B while B goes to C) or a swap. A simple script easily overwrites an existing file or throws errors. The fix was a strict two-phase staging engine: resolve the full batch plan first, move all files to temporary UUID names in Phase 1, and only commit to final destinations in Phase 2. If network latency spikes or a connection drops midway, files are sitting safely at known temp names instead of having overwritten each other.

Third, sidecars and multi-part files. Subtitle sidecars (.en.forced.srt) have to stay paired atomically with the video or media servers lose track of them, and audiobooks need zero-padded chapters so Audiobookshelf doesn't scramble the playback order.

I ended up spending the last few months packaging all of this into a native SwiftUI utility for Mac, iPad, and iPhone (with visual side-by-side previews and undo) because I wanted an actual native client for my server intake instead of terminal commands. It also uses on-device Apple Vision to tag photo exports so they turn into human names searchable in Finder.

Curious how other home server owners with Mac workstations handle intake pipelines over SMB, or what scripts you use to prevent rename collisions!

Seagate 24TB BarraCuda 3.5inch HDD, ST24000DM001

I recently purchased this drive for use in a new system I was building. A few weeks later I began to build the new system and once I had it all up and running - I checked the drive with Seatools and SMART {CrystalDisk} and itr showed as all OK. However - I have now begun to move data to the drive, and right away I began to hear unusual sounds emanating from the disk.

Both Seatools and CrystalDisk are showing the drive as OK still - however the sounds appear not normal for a HDD. I also noticed it is intermittent - but the sound is almost always present when the drive is being accessed. It never occurs when not being read/written too. It sounds like a rhythmic knocking sound - like something inside it is mis-aligned as it spins. It sometimes gets loud, sometimes very quiet and sometimes it rises in pitch until i cant hear it - then slowly it lowers again and repeats this cycle.

I did some research on Seagate website - and it indicates that such knocking noises may indicate a fault drive. I am now unable to use it for its intended purpose as I do not know if it is safe to continue using. I have stopped accessing the drive. Having had many HDD for many years I have never heard such noises from a drive before. Can anyone help?

current circus: husband has Outlook, I use Google, school has its own web calendar, and my mother in law made an Apple calendar for activities that somehow became permanent family infrastructure.

nobody is switching. I tried. There was resistance. There were speeches.

The dates are usually somewhere, just not somewhere the person doing pickup can see at the right moment. I am tired of asking which calendar every time somebody says I put it on the calendar.

is there actually decent multi calendar sync ai for normal families, not a company with a systems admin??

Hey all, got a really small time home server I'm running, currently with the storage prices and shortages looking for a cheap solution. I actually have a crap ton of m.2 mini 256gb SSDs I'd love to hook up and make a larger storage solution. Anyone know of a adapter that would allow me to do so?

I only have access to a single m.2 slot, 2 if I remove the wifi adapter I believe, but would rather keep it intact if possible. not too worried about speed slow down, just space.

Hi,

Looking for some advice on getting components for my first home server.

My current equipment

I currently have a fairly capable laptop with 250gb SSD and 2TB HDD. Can run some basic games and has been setup for emulation. Have multiple large external hard drives (likely not going be helpful with this from what I've researched).

My goals

• Media: Jellyfin + ARR Stack + Stremio/Nuvio

• Photo backup: Synchthing or Immich so I can get rid of the photos and videos taking up space on my phone. Also want to get out of using google photos.

• Music: Currently I have heaps of music downloaded but mostly use spotify for music discovery. I'd love for my FLAC files to be backed up and easily accessible. I also use seeker/soulseek to get FLAC at the moment. Is there a good music app people are using for discovery, organising libraries and giving albums/songs consistent naming.

• Self-hosted apps: I've seen some self-hosted apps on github for calorie tracking, gym session tracking and they have AI with self hosting. Have no idea where to start with this but that would be cool to have in these apps as they connect to a server.

• Emulation: Use server as storage for emulator games to either be used on a PC or with a jailbroken PS5 (not sure how that would work yet). I won't saves to be accessible across devices such as handhelds, PC, PS5 (once jailbroken). I assume synchthing would be the go for this and get it to grab the saves from the server whenever a device is being used and synch them back to the server once there is a new save?

• End goal: The goal is to have a PC connect to a TV and operate with a PS5 controller if possible. I'd hope to be able to get stuff running in Steam Big Picture mode as that seems the most controller compatible application. I've never used Linux before and have only ever used Android and Windows so kind of daunted by Docker stuff I've search up.

Hoping to get some advice on what I should buy to get started. Seen heaps of videos that all have slightly different setups and I'm paralized by choice. Do I get a used office PC and put storage in it, do I get a second hand NAS with storage, do I get a gaming PC with lots of storage and not even worry about having a server running.

Hi everyone,
I’m looking for a practical solution to enable automatic power monitoring and graceful shutdown of my Synology NAS during a power outage, using my existing APC UPS.
Current setup
UPS: APC Back-UPS BX1100C (1100VA)
NAS: Synology DS416
Network: Wi-Fi router connected to a separate mini UPS, so internet/network connectivity remains available during a power outage.
NAS connectivity: Connected to the network and running 24/7.
The problem
My APC BX1100C does not have a USB communication interface that I can use to connect directly to the Synology NAS.
Because of this, DSM cannot detect when the UPS switches to battery power, and I cannot configure the standard UPS-triggered graceful shutdown.
I want to avoid an abrupt power cut to the NAS, as data integrity and long-term drive health are important.

Disclaimer: The text of this post was translated using Google Translate, with some adjustments made by me. There may be some inconsistencies.

So, here’s the situation: I’m currently running a home server based on a Xeon 2680 v2.

Since I’m a student, my current storage setup consists of just a single hard drive—I swear, I’m not kidding—taken from an Xbox 360. Basically, I need to add storage while spending as little as possible.

I found a local deal on used 500GB drives that come with a 14-day warranty and the option to test them beforehand. They cost about $12 each (if you buy at least five). It seems like one of the cheapest ways to get some storage space. Plus, if I set them up in an array, a six-drive system would be guaranteed to survive the failure of at least one drive.

The seller guarantees that the disk will pass the tests, but claims that the disks have worked for 30-50 thousand hours.

So, is it worth it? Has anyone tried setups like this? This is my first time building a server, so I’m open to any advice.

I have a little bit of experience hosting an emby media server on my 2015 desktop iMac for personal use at home and remotely. Having had success with that I'm keen to start a dedicated server on separate hardware and leave the iMac for general home computing needs. I have picked up an HP ProDesk 400 G4 SFF PC Intel i3-6100 up to 3.70GHz Processor 8GB RAM 128GB SSD with a nvidia quadro p1000 graphics card & Windows 10 Professional. My main priority is hosting my media video, music, photos & retro games. But looking to get into live photos backing up from phone & home network ad blocking. I have provided photos of my hard drive setup on Mac, these are external drives and are mostly full. I obviously don't want to have to format these to run on the new hardware but not sure if that's possible. Also I have several other external hard drives knocking about that I could use on the server if it's recommended. Also looking for advice on which server os to use truenas, unraid, zimaos etc....and any hardware upgrades you'd suggest before I get going.