Homelab

What is a Homelab?

Homelab is the name given for a server-based setup that resides locally in your home that can host several applications or virtualized systems. A homelab can be used for many purposes such as learning, developing, testing, media server, backup etc..

Server can go go from simple tower, mini-PC or Single Board Computers (SBC), such as Raspberry Pi or OrangePi, to more powerful devices or repurposed rack servers that you can acquire from companies who discard them due to their age but are still usable.

Usages

Depending on your needs or goals a Homelab can have different usages:

• It provides you a playground for learning and breaking things.
• It lets you work and experiment with projects that you cannot try on the job itself.
• It allow you to perform backup to you personal data or storing secrets and passwords, so you do not rely on SaaS or external providers.
• If you want host media like movies, photos, music and eBooks.
• If you want to allow home automation that puts local control and privacy first.

My Homelab

My Homelab is bases on Single Board Computers (SBC) based on ARM Architecture family so the energy consumption is low and cheap. The SBC chosen are OrangePI 5 that are very powerful boards and similar to Raspberry Pi 5 models, but with less support from the community.

Costs

Building a homelab can be cheap or expensive depending on the number of servers, components, maintenance costs or energy consumption. From the component perspective my homelab setup are broken into the following items:

Cluster

Devices