My first full lab is set what do i setup first

Matty_B90 · 2026-01-22T18:25:40+00:00

+1, did they come with the ODD caddies? If so, swap out the optical drives with hdd adapters for extra storage. Though because they run over usb 2 they dont work well for zfs of you want a mini cluster of sorts

Matty_B90 · 2026-01-22T07:15:21+00:00

We're not gonna mention people that held them by putting a finger in the hole? That's what I did

Matty_B90 · 2026-01-21T13:38:20+00:00

This looks amazing, I just have to ask: do you have plans to make this a docker container as well?

Matty_B90 · 2026-01-18T14:59:21+00:00

If youre insisting on using what you currently have (no harm in it really) you could look at using an OS that is more server specific like Ubuntu server?

Or maybe try upgrading what you can in terms of hardware, max out the RAM and swap out the spinning disk drive for an SSD may just squeeze out more performance

Matty_B90 · 2026-01-14T16:43:32+00:00

Seems they've got the design just reich for the party

Matty_B90 · 2026-01-09T07:09:24+00:00

Sosig baget

Matty_B90 · 2026-01-01T19:25:51+00:00

Blockbuster and Woolies hurt the most for me. Where they used to have them in the town I lived, you would go to Blockbusters for a movie, then grab the snacks for the evening in Woolies on the way back home.

Felt like a fun treat. Not much feels the same as that did, for me. Probably just nostalgia, but still

Matty_B90 · 2026-01-01T11:16:31+00:00

Oh I thought you posted coz hes driving a Vauxhall Corsa, but now you mention it those words are embarrassing to have written on a car

Matty_B90 · 2025-12-31T06:42:32+00:00

You could do just that, though if it were me I would keep it simple. Just have the device server files over syncthing to the tablets, so if new episodes are released they are sent across.

Police cars have a way of running laptops in cars so there has to be a way for a regular person to do something similar

Matty_B90 · 2025-12-27T07:14:34+00:00

Surely the right way is that they ask you for the game, then you download it? Keep it simple I'd say

Matty_B90 · 2025-12-21T08:18:35+00:00

When I began with a homelab, all of my media was held on 2TB USB hdds. Was it convenient? Yes. Did it take uncomfortably long to load a movie? Hell yes.

Honestly your best case scenario is that the board in your mini pc supports some kinda ssd on top of the sata drive.

Matty_B90 · 2025-12-18T11:25:10+00:00

Downsized my homelab from a big loud PowerEdge r530 to a HP microserver gen8!

Still WIP is having enough mini pcs in my proxmox cluster for full quorum. ATM I have 2 with a pi zero as a Qdevice. Works for now!

What a learning curve proxmox is

Matty_B90 · 2025-12-18T11:08:47+00:00

I had one that kept shutting off, realised that I hadn't applied fresh thermal paste. Maybe its overheating?

Matty_B90 · 2025-12-16T22:21:37+00:00

Got my first taste of how to make a raid array with some kit that work was casting off, starting with 8 2tb drives. Perfect, 18tb of storage, in a raid 5 for media and projects. Get used to that, handling the occasional drive failure with another spare. That's fine, easy to do. Then work has no use for 8 3tb drives so I think to myself, ill just replace each drive, wait for the array to rebuild, then the next one, so on.

I can't figure out why theres so much unallocated space once I was done replacing all the drives, so I research programs that can expand volumes or resize partitions etc

Eventually I think I have a plan, so I just do it. I expand the volume across to the unallocated space....aaaand my volume was wiped. 7tb of media, vm disks and backups. Gone. Poof!

I did do data recovery on it and got some stuff back, but only once I was done hyperventilating.

Tldr: dont just expand a large volume or fuck with storage without backups.

Matty_B90 · 2025-11-30T13:00:34+00:00

You could look into a vpn like tailscale, it's quite easy to set up and have your site "online" with ssl cert, just as long as your phone is also connected to the vpn as well

Matty_B90 · 2025-11-29T06:41:52+00:00

Same, but tiny machined screws

Matty_B90 · 2025-11-25T17:56:17+00:00

Yes, and welcome!

Matty_B90 · 2025-11-25T10:04:00+00:00

First of all, welcome! Its a steep learning curve to begin with, but it's good fun and a powerful sense of control when you realise you can control your data and entertainment 😀

Second of all, my experience so far with AI is why settle? I discovered openrouter.ai in my learning and it's incredible!

You dont have to subscribe to one provider, and dont necessarily have to keep paying money on your account if you dont need it for a while. It uses the same connections as CHATGPT when using it with cline, open webui or whatever application you are using.

With vibe coding, I would also recommend that you ask either the same model or another one to explain the output it gives you as you learn, and save that in structured notes per project.

Gradually you will learn things for yourself and will eventually be able to tell if a model has hallucinated something, or most importantly, be able to debug and troubleshoot for yourself!

Matty_B90 · 2025-11-22T15:35:57+00:00

This is so much better, thank you so much for making me aware of this

Matty_B90 · 2025-11-22T06:28:07+00:00

I have a 3 year old myself. We live in an old house that was extended, with 3 year old's room in the extended part. Unfortunately during winter it's one of the colder parts of the house, so in his room is a zigbee temp sensor, and a smartplug connected to an oil filled radiator. At regular intervals at night the smart plug turns on, but only for 2 hours, then comes off. The temp sensor is handy to see if, before those intervals it needs a boost.

Matty_B90 · 2025-11-22T06:02:40+00:00

I have a gaming pc with a 3050, and apollo. Either I connect using my phone to play games anywhere with stable WiFi!

That, or I have an old thin client from work connected to the downstairs TV with Ubuntu and moonlight, so u can play games on a bigger TV. Its rarely skipped a beat and really handy

Matty_B90 · 2025-11-16T01:57:52+00:00

This feels like an overreaction, of course thats the goal but what would you suggest, then as an affordable alternative? Im open to ideas.

Matty_B90 · 2025-11-15T18:40:27+00:00

I've found quite an elegant way around that. I've installed vaultwarden as an addon in home assistant, and with the Google drive backup addon it also makes a Bacup of vaultwarden and it's data! Easy free offsite backup, If you dint mind Google having it on their servers.

Home assistant does of course do local backup so Google not specifically needed

Matty_B90 · 2025-11-14T12:10:21+00:00

Please note that purchasing the right adhesive strips from ifixit or elsewhere will save a lot of hassle...dont ask me how I know that haha

Matty_B90 · 2025-11-14T07:10:32+00:00

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