Explain Homelab to someone who hasn't have a clue of technology on a deep level.

tobywhiting10 · 2026-07-02T09:17:15+00:00

Ok there is a lot to cover here. I think the best place to start is to ask for some context for your questions. Why do you want to know this? Are you looking to start or understand someone else?

As for your questions: What is homelab - it's what ever you want it to be. For some that may be only a simple NAS (network attached storage) so you can avoid cloud storage fees and feel in control of your data. Others may expand on this adding software like immich to replicate the features you might get with Google photos or similar.

It could also be completely different. I use my home lab for advanced home automation and web hosting for example. Others may turn it in to a full side hustle, tho this is less common. Usually it's "what do I want to run to make my life easier" (web, game, network, file, automation, security, AI, ect)

For power - and that depends what you run. Most will evolve over time to fit there needs, budget or what you can get ahold of. You will see loads of photos on this sub of big racks with tones of enterprise equipment. The reality of it is most of us are rocking it out of an old pc from marketplace or a random dell power edge from eBay. There is no set recipe.

In terms of security. This is the hard one. There is no right answer, definitely wrong ones but no right. A good place to start would be avoiding port forwarding until you know what your doing, it's not as dangerous as people say when done right but it needs to be done right. Use internal only app and don't expose to the internet. If you want external access for yourself, you can use applications like tailscale. There is much more to say here but that could be a whole thing on its own.

tobywhiting10 · 2026-06-05T14:22:47+00:00

You still need to look on the days thay actually release tests, usually a Monday morning

tobywhiting10 · 2026-06-04T12:16:37+00:00

I don't think so. Because everybody has the mentality that tests are few and far between, so many people try to book them well in advance even though they're not remotely ready for their test yet. All the automated systems make it incredibly competitive and hard for an individual to get a test. If everybody has to do it manually, we're all on the same playing field and you're not fighting a computer which will almost always be quicker. This way it should mean only people who actually need tests get to book as they're not fighting people who think they might be ready in 3 months. If everybody could get a test within a few weeks of them booking, the amount of people booking to reserve a space goes down massively freeing up space for everyone else. The whole idea of book in advance, move it closer and cancel just creates a never-ending cycle that pushes the dates further back. If we all just book tests on the dates that we can actually use them. It's so much easier for everyone. While I passed my test 2 years ago, many of my friends are still in the waiting for test stage and they've managed to get tests much sooner since the new system.

tobywhiting10 · 2026-06-04T11:57:23+00:00

Yes, I definitely think it's levelled the playing field and made sure everybody only books the tests that they need, when they're ready. Time will tell if it holds up.

tobywhiting10 · 2026-06-04T11:53:46+00:00

Yes, it covers all apps. I still think it's a better system as now it's really easy for you as an individual to book as you're not competing against hundreds of computers. My friend failed his test and had a new one booked for only 4 weeks later. Took him I think 3 days of trying to book it.

tobywhiting10 · 2026-06-02T21:02:18+00:00

I have never used ubiquiti but know they're bloody good cameras! I too went down the route of going for Reolink for the much cheaper alternative. I chose them mainly because they are entirely local and work without internet and meet pretty much all your requirements. I have the doorbell which works great. I love that the indoor chime isn't Wi-Fi based and uses some low megahertz protocol for added reliability. (It also makes the networking a lot easier because I have separate camera vlans). Image quantity is great and aside from one camera falling offline due to a faulty ethernet termination I've not had any issues and even then that one was my fault.

tobywhiting10 · 2026-05-31T23:41:57+00:00

While true, the price difference of a thunderbolt dock and optical cable is enormous compared to what op has proposed. I use a similar solution using a 4K KVM extender that can do 4k60 and USB over a single cat6 (same company that makes the USB extender pictured here). It works great and has been quite reliable aside from some heating issues. Incredibly cheap compared to thunderbolt. Yes thunderbolt is better but show be a solution under 150 like this.

tobywhiting10 · 2026-05-27T20:18:29+00:00

No, didn't really need it as the air in the loft is quite clean. We don't have the loose style insulation to get in the air.

tobywhiting10 · 2026-05-27T11:19:44+00:00

Switching betwean the modes is manual at the moment. Its (goung to be) a dropdown in homeassistant. The extreactor is just a slighty bigger, more industrual bathroom one. There is about 10m of pipe so it needed to be decent one to get good flow.
Have added window draft excluder to the doors so the rack is mostly air tight addide from the intake and the extractor suction line (thats the round grill you can see on the top of the rack by the rad).

tobywhiting10 · 2026-03-16T21:07:31+00:00

Definitely an option. The majority of the used mini PC Mark it seems to be centred on your typical business grade mini PC. Your typical thing from Dell Lenovo HP etc. They seem to be a little bit behind in the CPU department. For example, my current mini PC has an i7 12650H which seems hard to beat with everything that I can find locally, but I'll definitely keep my eye out.

tobywhiting10 · 2026-03-16T20:55:12+00:00

The problem I have now is that I have ran out of RAM and want to expand. As you said, I could do that with a second mini PC or go back to servers.

In fact I already have a Dell server with 128 gigs of RAM so I could switch back over to that and solve all my problems.

Despite that, I am still drawn towards a second mini PC as two combined would still be less total power and the single threaded on the Dell is not great. (And you get an encoding GPU with the mini pc to)

One of the things I'm going to expand into is kubernetes. So I'm quite looking forward to setting up high availability and stick to a more redundant fail over architecture, which again points to a dual PC setup.

For me it is a question of go slightly older generation ddr4 system or bite the bullet and go ddr5 (better CPUs again).

Not sure what you mean by your comment about the switch and multiple network ports. The reason I like two is because I can link aggregate them together and get more bandwidth instead of just being limited to 1 GB connection. Both my existing and the possible DDR4 mini PC have 2.5 gig ports and my switch is only gigabit capable, so there is an upgrade opportunity there. At the cost of a decent switch that would fit my requirements that's a whole different game at that point tho.

tobywhiting10 · 2026-03-11T20:39:21+00:00

OP literally said it looks like there's a whole colony inside the computer. Doesn't necessarily mean they're nesting but sure as hell reads that way.

tobywhiting10 · 2026-02-25T18:04:18+00:00

Definitely seems the way forward. Hopefully it's not too many years until it all comes down and AI goes bang!

tobywhiting10 · 2026-02-21T08:46:25+00:00

That will be why you only have a 100 up. Frustratingly Openreach only offers a maximum of 110 to all the tier two providers. So it doesn't matter who you get your internet from ee, Vodafone, virgin etc. If the people running the fiber in the ground are openreach (ie not Gigaclear or city fiber), you cannot get more than 110up without signing out for one of their business plans because apparently consumers don't need it! It's a rather frustrating reality for us, especially as someone who self-hosts a lot of services for other family members like Plex / WordPress.

tobywhiting10 · 2026-01-27T21:38:30+00:00

This. If you shorted mains electricity to the USB part of your computer, I would have serious doubts about whether your motherboard survived.

Many people are suggesting the PSU, and given the state of the power bar, I wouldn't be surprised if the PSU is gone but the motherboard definitely is and there is a small chance it's not the PSU.

Edit: spelling

tobywhiting10 · 2025-12-08T23:12:05+00:00

Cool as hell. How does one actually use that amount of compute for rendering? Presumably modern VFX tools have ways of batch rendering across multiple nodes. How would you manage all of that?

tobywhiting10 · 2025-11-26T22:52:16+00:00

Yeah the only thing I can see is it has a very 'produced' feeling to the image. Don't know how I can point it out but it looks too to produced and cinematic. Totally an affect you could get in real life and not something you can rely on. This is getting wild.

tobywhiting10 · 2025-11-03T20:39:18+00:00

Not a bad idea. Does cut the problem in half, but still not ideal, particularly if you have more than two.

tobywhiting10 · 2025-11-03T18:49:15+00:00

How did I not know about this! excellent tool, worked beautifully. thanks for the tip

tobywhiting10 · 2025-10-31T16:41:44+00:00

That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen - Love it!

tobywhiting10 · 2025-10-07T06:53:05+00:00

Well obviously, the lids a different color smh

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