Hello, I recently upgraded my homelab to a rack build. I started homelabbing about a year ago with an HP EliteDesk PC and some external bay drives. Now, I have a rack-mounted NAS server running TrueNAS. My setup has 32 TB of storage and 32 GB of RAM, which I plan to upgrade soon. The server chassis is an iStarUSA D-350HB that I got cheaply at an auction. If you’re just starting out, I recommend using something like an HP EliteDesk so you can learn the basics and try out different operating systems like Proxmox, TrueNAS, or Unraid.
I started with an HP EliteDesk, and later I even had a cluster of them. I was lucky to get mine for free, but you can usually find them on eBay. HP isn’t the only company with these small form factor PCs. Dell OptiPlex Micro and Lenovo ThinkCentre Tiny are other popular options. I haven’t used too many of the Lenovo or Dell models, but I would check out a ThinkCentre too, since some of them come with PCIe slots. Now is a great time to get into this hobby because there are so many of these micro PCs available, especially with Windows 10 ending support soon. There’s also a ton of info online to help you get started.
For storage, here are some tips if you’re on a budget: used hard drives are usually the most cost-effective, but I suggest picking recertified drives for some extra peace of mind. If you use a micro PC, storage will either come as a 2.5-inch drive or an M.2 drive, or sometimes both, depending on the model. My HP EliteDesk had a 2.5-inch drive inside that I used for the boot drive, so for bigger storage, you’ll likely need some kind of external solution. Be careful with external 3.5-inch drive bays—they aren’t always reliable, can overheat, and sometimes don’t work well with RAID unless you’re using hardware RAID. External storage usually isn’t the best value and can be a single point of failure. If you have to use it, just pick the best option you can find.
The first thing I set up was my media server. My current server has five 3.5-inch drive bays, and I was able to get 30 TB of storage which might be a bit much. I use Jellyfin for streaming and the ARR services for media sorting. I also run game servers for friends. These are pretty simple to set up, but you might hit some trouble getting them all to work together, like running Jellyfin and Jellyseerr. For game servers, I use Docker and set up port forwarding. This helped me learn a lot about Linux basics and how to manage a NAS.
Next, I set up some utility services like Pi-hole and Nextcloud. Pi-hole blocks ads across my whole network. Nextcloud is like having my own private cloud, which saves me from paying for extra storage and features. Through these, I learned more about DNS and Docker, which are helpful skills if you plan to install services like these.
Tip: Don’t be like me and update regularly.
Not everything has been easy. I’ve run into plenty of issues, like migrating my media library between storage pools on TrueNAS, dealing with permissions, Docker errors, and VLAN problems. Even though TrueNAS is pretty beginner-friendly compared to running everything on Proxmox or Debian, I still made some rookie mistakes. I’m glad I started learning all this with an easier OS.
For the future, I have a few exciting plans. I want to use Tailscale for VPN, since right now I’m using WireGuard, to make remote access more secure and easier without messing with port forwarding. I also want to write better automation scripts for my game servers—things like automatic deployments, updates, and backups, to save me some manual work. For monitoring, I’m interested in using Grafana and Prometheus to track server health, disk space, and network stats in real time. I’d also like to experiment with a Proxmox or Kubernetes cluster to push my skills further.
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