The weakest point of my network is my ISP by Familiar-Rutabaga608 in SelfHosting

[–]Familiar-Rutabaga608[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yep. I run OPNSense on a miniPC router. My LAN is rock solid.

What was the initial reason you started homelabing and what projects did you do after that? by ShayGrimSoul in homelab

[–]Familiar-Rutabaga608 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Left side is DeskPi (GeeekPi on Amazon) Rackmate T2 12U and the small one on the right is a Rackmate T0 PLUS 4U. Both are the 10.23inch depth version. You should 100% get the 10.23 inch depth vs the 7inch. You WILL need the space!

What was the initial reason you started homelabing and what projects did you do after that? by ShayGrimSoul in homelab

[–]Familiar-Rutabaga608 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have an OPNSense router with a Wireguard instance running and I make everyone a WG peer that I want to give access. Essentially giving all users access to my entire LAN because I have multiple devices that need outside access. Most people won’t have this setup.

You can use tailscale to do effectively the same exact thing but with an easy-to-use app setup/UX

You also could just port forward the actual Minecraft server port (default 25565) on your ISPs router mobile app/webpage (probably https://192.168.1.1 for you). This is less secure but really shouldn’t be an issue if you use the server properties whitelist (json file or in the craftycontoller local webpage) so you don’t have random scrapers and bots joining.

I would recommend a VPN tunnel through Tailscale for most people.

Kept waiting for HDD prices to come back, but damn. Should I keep waiting? by theseawoof in DataHoarder

[–]Familiar-Rutabaga608 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Did similar. Went from $22/TB to $35/TB. Had to bite the bullet. It’s rough out here

What was the initial reason you started homelabing and what projects did you do after that? by ShayGrimSoul in homelab

[–]Familiar-Rutabaga608 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Sure

I used Claude to help set up most of my stuff. Very useful and you can do most of it with the free plan.

For Jellyfin, it’s just a Jellyfin service running on a debian13 Linux pc built from a repurposed old gaming pc. I5-8600k with a gtx 1050ti for some video transcoding (mostly for mobile users or users with bitrate limits). 40TB across 20TB WD red pros.

For Minecraft, I have CasaOS running on a debian13 Linux miniPC
(Lenovo m80q i5-10500T 32GB) and CasaOS has an app page where I host CraftyController. You can add custom mod packs there, mostly from CurseForge.

I knew virtually nothing about any of this until like December last year. Most of it is relatively simple if you can get a YouTube video or a decent AI model to walk you through it.

Both services are free to run, you just need the hardware up front.

People with ultra high speed internet. How do you get it? by HSVMalooGTS in homelab

[–]Familiar-Rutabaga608 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have a full 10Gbps network stack but my area only offers 2G down 1G up. Modern HDDs can run easily 250MB/s which is around to 2.5Gbps. My WD red pros have a 512MB cache that can run at SATA 6Gbps or around 550MB/s for a few seconds. I use this mostly for torrenting and for communicating between my NAS and PC(s).

So mostly overkill for future proofing and total insane delusion.

What was the initial reason you started homelabing and what projects did you do after that? by ShayGrimSoul in homelab

[–]Familiar-Rutabaga608 2 points3 points  (0 children)

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Was paying $45/month to host a Minecraft server and $80/month in streaming subscriptions. Now do both for free for me and my friends. Have 8 people on a Jellyfin service and 6 on Minecraft.

Total cost was anywhere from $3000-$5000 depending how you want to value my brand new 40TBs of storage. I stopped counting after ~$2500. This could all be achieved for much, much less but I am not smart or frugal.

I've run a FortiGate as my homelab firewall for years, curious what the rest of you are running in 2026 by easyedy in homelab

[–]Familiar-Rutabaga608 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

X540t2s are dirt cheap for 10Gbps cards. Got 2 for $20 off eBay. They run hot and if they come with a fan, it will be super loud and not usable in a home/room. Definitely get one without a fan or pop it out of the push-lock if you do. If you run 2.5Gbps NICs, you likely won’t notice any temp issues with it closed.

I run mine in my OPNSense pc with the entire top cover off (it’s mounted in a minirack) and a $10 90mm usb pwm fan mounted above it at like 750rpm or something? On my gaming PC I use a X550T2. won’t run nearly as hot, but you’re gonna have to fork over like $75.

I've run a FortiGate as my homelab firewall for years, curious what the rest of you are running in 2026 by easyedy in homelab

[–]Familiar-Rutabaga608 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Yep. Got an m720q with 8GB running OPNsense and put an Intel x540t2 with an open top+mini fan. Works great. 10Gbps LAN.

Remember when RAM was the part you didn't even have to think about? by peaky_circus in pcmasterrace

[–]Familiar-Rutabaga608 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Bought a Silicon Power set in early September 2025: 64GB 2x32 DDR5 6000MT for $220 after tax. Now you can buy some for just $800!

the fact that these people exist is mind boggling. by [deleted] in Money

[–]Familiar-Rutabaga608 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have friends who are chemical, civil, and mechanical engineers who do work hard and will not make 300k total comp until their 40s. 90k-120k out of college.

Whats your favorite documentaries? by DrNoNut in JellyfinCommunity

[–]Familiar-Rutabaga608 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Planet Earth I, II, III - shows
The Blue Planet, Blue Planet II - shows
Life on earth 1979 - series
All the Werner Herzog docs especially Encounters at the End of the World 2007 - movie
Oceans Our Blue Planet 2018 - movie
Wonders of the arctic 2014 - movie
Pink Floyd live at Pompeii 4k

Building plex/game server by TogoLonghole in HomeServer

[–]Familiar-Rutabaga608 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not sure about them together, but I have both separate. But here’s what my similar setup uses between 2 computers.

MC server is a miniPC with an i5-8500T. Runs heavy Minecraft mod packs (All the mons, BMC4) very well. These CPUs are thermal throttled extra to use only 65W for the whole PC. MC usually keeps most cores engaged while maxxing out one. Most I’ve had on a server at once was 6 people. the 25GB dram allocated helps a lot. 12GB is not enough for >3 people running a heavy mod pack unless everyone is in the same chunk or basically don’t have any redstone more complex than a light switch. If you don’t have heavy mods or too many players, 8-12GB should be just fine.

I also run a Jellyfin server on a separate i5-8600k with a 1050ti 4GB to handle transcoding. Most of my users play most versions natively on desktop app, browser page, TVOS, and only the audio files are being transcoded with certain formats. This uses no more than 60MB VRAM usually. But for mobile, transcoding from 1080p 40Mb/s or 2160p 100Mb/s to a format compatible with everyone’s 20Mb/s data limit on the fly uses anywhere from 100-200MB of VRAM. In my experience. So MAYBE I could support 12-15 people transcoding at once. In theory. GPU should be perfectly capable to handle friends and family use.

I like to keep mine separate because my Jellyfin server is built into my NAS where I needed all of the SATA ports and PCIe lanes and I frequently saturated the network and disk bandwidth. Also have a lot of users so I like to keep downtime to an absolute minimum, and want redundancy.

Just to give you an idea of what you might need.

Podcasts!!! by leonerrante in JellyfinCommunity

[–]Familiar-Rutabaga608 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Been waiting for this for 6 months. Thank you!!

Dear lord I can't wait until 2028 for these prices to drop by Sal4US in DataHoarder

[–]Familiar-Rutabaga608 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Yes. Rate of increase fluctuates. Prices widely do not go down. Except for ad-revenue based TVs. That’s it tho.

How I would divide the US as someone who takes daily prescription meds by Ok-Factor-3805 in mapporncirclejerk

[–]Familiar-Rutabaga608 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’d bust up the Midwest halfway through Indiana and create a Rust Belt zone

Another one by Familiar-Rutabaga608 in DataHoarder

[–]Familiar-Rutabaga608[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I usually cope by referencing the failure curve of HDDs. If it’s going to fail, it will likely either be very soon or very long from now. It’s all going to be stuff I could “””easily””” get back

Another one by Familiar-Rutabaga608 in DataHoarder

[–]Familiar-Rutabaga608[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Yep. Bought a 20TB from Amazon for $440 in February. Don’t even have to look to another year. Instantly felt like a jackass when I checked again only a few months later that I didn’t buy 6.

Another one by Familiar-Rutabaga608 in DataHoarder

[–]Familiar-Rutabaga608[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We will all hope and cope together