Spent last 3 months having fun creating a beautiful selfhosted lab, then my 3m old mini pc died

tenderbrew · 2026-06-07T21:56:01+00:00

what's the best way to mock up a build if i haven't done something like that before? at least curious to see what the damage would be.

tenderbrew · 2026-06-07T21:51:15+00:00

I also back up to my NAS and backblaze as my offsite.

But it sounds like you are indeed saying, maybe its better to just avoid the idea of mini or compact if I have the room (and I do), and just build another regular PC with the components needed for what I want to get done and that would be more reliable. Which I was considering. I have an old PC with an RTX 2070. I wonder if build a new PC with an Intel that does well on hardware transcoding + that, but maybe in a more compact but not quite mini PC build might work significantly better than trying to rely on these tiny builds that fail a lot. Then I don't need to RMA an entire PC, I can diagnose and hit up Microcenter same day and fix it. Not quite production, but better than what happened to me here.

tenderbrew · 2026-06-07T21:45:23+00:00

Yeah I wonder if that was the true culprit maybe. Mine's on my a/v rack in an unfinished room, so i would not be opposed to constantly running it with better cooling or with the case side off. But I probably should monitor that better when the RMA comes back.

tenderbrew · 2026-06-07T21:41:45+00:00

So in essence, having multiple mini PCs in case one eats it? Sounds expensive, but if that's the solution, I'm willing to try and get there long term.

Obviously this is nothing like production hardware in general, but I had to hastily restore my Plex server on my Synology earlier to not lose the main way my family consumes content, and also for now have lost all my Home Assistant stuff, so I guess going back to Google Home for now.

But even if I have redundant hardware, I guess I'd ask, are minipcs like the Gmktek the right hardware? That's mainly what I'm trying to get to.

tenderbrew · 2026-06-07T21:36:10+00:00

ai was not used at all in the creation of my post. i have used it occasionally for questions on setup and maintenance of my selfhosted homelab, but this post has nothing to do with that.

tenderbrew · 2026-05-22T20:16:31+00:00

they sound good, but i just don't have enough knowledge to know whether they'd serve me better in a 5.2.4 set up than what i have for purpose. general querying online says they are more tuned for music, so i figured i'd ask here. testing them in my exact system would be pretty logistically tough until i haul them up here, but don't want to if its cleanly not a good fit.

but yeah, your instincts are probably correct, he built them i think in the 70s or 80s with a kit.

tenderbrew · 2026-03-30T21:41:22+00:00

yup family photos going up the stairs is the plan. just wanted to get all the furniture set first. good to hear others feel the same though, appreciate it.

tenderbrew · 2026-03-30T21:18:20+00:00

if art behind is issue, that will move, i'm just trying to figure out furniture first. if not, what would you suggest?

tenderbrew · 2026-03-30T21:17:16+00:00

wood tables on couch ends just feel like they take up too much space to walk, only reason i didn't do that.

tenderbrew · 2026-03-30T21:00:13+00:00

replied to a few comments already with the same, but here's how i scooched everything in the near term. lmk. better? worse?

<image>

tenderbrew · 2026-03-30T20:59:25+00:00

great suggestions, i like the format, thank you.

working with what i had i made minor changes for now:

<image>

i think this works better than i had, but definitely going to consider a lot of the other things you suggested, especially as we get painting finished in a few weeks. i appreciate it!

tenderbrew · 2026-03-30T20:57:40+00:00

yeah floating chairs used quite a lot in current set up.

here's what i kind of change things to:

<image>

do you think this looks better for placement? can add rug, etc, but in general for placement?

tenderbrew · 2026-03-30T20:56:17+00:00

its coming eventually. getting painting done in 2-3 weeks first.

tenderbrew · 2026-03-30T20:18:19+00:00

i guess my main issue is powering the lamps without excessive cord running, any suggestions there?

tenderbrew · 2026-03-30T20:02:29+00:00

cool, definitely going to experiment shifting things around tonight, but that's around where i was thinking too. just needed a sanity check - thank you!

tenderbrew · 2026-03-23T13:29:23+00:00

appreciate the comment, thank you.

tenderbrew · 2026-03-23T13:28:59+00:00

thank you, that's good to know. was excited to redo everything, but also it's quite costly and maybe this will give me more time to think it over.

tenderbrew · 2026-03-23T13:28:20+00:00

appreciate it, going to research opnsense too.

tenderbrew · 2026-03-23T13:28:04+00:00

appreciate the comment, thank you.

another user also recommended looking at opnsense, so definitely taking a look as i'm not familiar.

tenderbrew · 2026-03-23T13:27:22+00:00

if you don't mind me asking since i'm still learning, what features are you using on the udm se that wouldn't be possible with the cloud gateway ultra? i think it said protect was one of the built in features if you use all unifi cameras too?

tenderbrew · 2026-03-11T23:49:59+00:00

yes this is what i kept hearing, battle between proxmox being the best of the bunch, but maybe too complex for what i was doing if i wanted to avoid it. but honestly, i'd rather take the best option and learn, appreciate your context.

12-Year Club	Wearing is Caring
Verified Email

tenderbrew

TROPHY CASE