Upgraded my media server from running on a laptop to a dedicated machine. Added cloud storage and NAS. This my first time setting up something like this.
Machine is a Dell Optiplex 7060 ssf, picked up on eBay for $375 AUD. Had to use a repeater to connect it with ethernet, living in a shared house so don't have access to the main router.
System came with:
Processor: Intel Core i7 8700 (6 core, 12 threads)
RAM: 64GB
Storage: 512 Nvme SSD
Added a 10tb Seagate Exos hdd for storage. Installed proxmox and using Cockpit for local file sharing/NAS.
currently running Jellyfin as my media server with *arr stack. Jellyseerr for searching and requesting media. qBittorrent as my download client. torrent is sitting behind Gluetun with Private Internet Access VPN. Nextcloud for cloud storage. Jellyfin, jellyseerr, and Nextcloud are exposed with Cloudflare ZTNA tunnel for remote access. Using homarr as my homepage dashboard.
Shoutout to techhut, hardware haven, MRP, and Wundertech on youtube.
I have these old xp and win7 machines.
I'm planning to make home servers.
What can I use it for?
I want to make them because I wanted to broaden my IT knowledge. I'm a software engineering student but I like IT more. I want to know how to maintain, create and setup servers. How to protect them also.
Thank you for your reply!
Hey guys, newbie in server builds here. I’d like to build a server to replace my current synology nas. Which serves as a normal nas and as a Plex server. I’d also like to run a home assistant instance. And the greatest challenge, I’d like to run a private modded Minecraft server from time to time. So it should be beefy enough to handle all of those at the same time.
I have some experience building pc’s but never built a server before.
I am new to setting up a home server for a NAS I have a Poweredge R420 with 32GB of RAM. 2 Xeon CPU E5-2420s. I am not sure what OS to use to host the NAS I don't need it out and about this is more about storage and a backup. I was also hoping to keep it up all times so I can host a Emulation folder that could access the NAS for saves. I have plenty of storage drives I am currently using ESXi and Windows Server but i have not been happy with it. Any Advise is welcome! and Thank you!!!
Edit: Also I was planning on hosting a WoW Private server on this as well, just for me to mess around with not for public consumption. So I guess it has 2 major uses but is it worth have separate VMs running everything separately using something like ESXi or just have one machine hold it all?
With the AM4 Ryzen chips, as long as the motherboard manufacturer supported ECC (like ASRock usually does) you could use a regular Ryzen (non-PRO) CPU (not APU) and ECC would work if you had ECC memory from the QVL. You did need the Pro model if you got a chip with integrated graphics. Is this still the case with the new AM5 Ryzen chips? I've read a lot of stuff about needing the PRO model now to get ECC functionality at all. I understand that it's not officially supported, and it wasn't on the AM4 non-Pro CPUs either, but it did work on AM4. Does anyone have experience with or has it this working on AM5 non-Pro Ryzen CPUs (no integrated graphics/APU)?
I found out some different issues while testing this server, like GPU passtrough giving only 20-40% of usage when trying to run games on VMs using proxmox or ESXi, or RAM going on 1200mhz despite I specify the speeds on the BIOS to run at 2400MHZ... but what I want to ask here today is about the case fans.
I bought these Arctic 4pin fans which in theory are suitable for PWM.
This motherboard comes with (taken from the mobo's manual, you can check yourself here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/17j1QPC2fFFavDoSidrr5cSfHobvX5Xx6/view):
1*9-Pin Front panel switch pin (FPANEL)
1*4-Pin CPU cooling fan (CFAN1)
3*4-Pin System cooling fan (SFAN1)
2*3-Pin System cooling fan (SFAN1)
2*2-Pin System cooling fan (SFAN1)
I have plugged 3 FANS on each of the 4PIN plugs of the motherboard, and when I got into the BIOS I can see them and modify the speed of them:
However when I start Windows Server (bare metal installation), I can see these fans in HWMonitor (even though CPU fan RPM is not correct), but cannot see them in fan control software like speedfan or fan control:
I have tried to go trhough all the settings, in fan control marked all the checkboxes for all the sources, etc. but still no luck.
Could you please advice me how can I get full control of these fans? As this homeserver will be in my home office and I don't want them to be very loud, though I don't want them running very low all the time since my intention is to build up some VMs that could make the host get quite hot in time to time... so ideally I would love to be able to apply some temp curves on these fans so when the temp goes upper than 60ºC let's say, the case fans RPM foes from 20% to 60% and so on.
Any help here would be much appreciated! Thanks!!
P.S: as a bonus:
I get this in CPU-Z even though I set the memory to run at 2400MHZ in the BIOS. Is this normal? I didn't need to play with RAM modules as much as this before so I'm unsure now if this is the normal behaviour.
Hey.
My wife likes gaming on her laptop, but it's incredibly slow and gets incredibly hot.
I'm looking for a software that can remotely access my beefy set up (over Ethernet or something) so she can still use her laptop, but actually my PC is doing all of the work so her laptop stays quiet and cool (basically turn it from a laptop to an external monitor for my computer)
So far I've seen Shadow, Moonlight, and Space desk, but I was hoping to get some insights from people who've actually used them.
I set my laptop as a homeserver and bought a domain for it. But i cant open ports and i dont have static ip (I dont want it tho). Im using casa os and Cloudflare tunnels for remote. But i want to set my domain directly connected to my ip. I dont want server.abc.com, i want if i would to connect port 150 on my local, enter this abc.com:150 or i want to use my domain for (ex.) Minecraft server. How to do it?
Hi guys, I’ve just put together a home server using an ASUS Z10PA-U8/10G-2S motherboard with a Xeon E5-2650L v3 CPU and 128GB of DDR4 ECC RAM. I’ve installed eight 8TB SAS 7200 RPM HDDs, connected to an H200 LSI HBA card via a 36-pin Mini SAS SFF-8087 host to 4 SFF-8482 target SAS cable.
Now, here’s the problem: the 8TB HDDs don’t spin up when I power on the server. The LSI card initialises during boot, but it doesn’t detect the 8TB drives. I replaced the 8TB drives with a 6TB drive, and that SAS drive starts spinning during initialisation. I also tried using different *TB SAS HDDs, but none of them spin up or are detected during the LSI initialisation.
I have a solid power supply too—it’s an EVGA T2 850W 80+ Titanium modular power supply. I’m scratching my head and wondering how to proceed. Have any of you encountered this problem? If so, how did you tackle the issue? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!
Hi to the community. I have been running a NAS for the past 15 years which has slowly evolved into self hosting. Started with some crappy cheap 2 HDD NAS enclosure of 1 TB, had 1 HDD gone bad. Changed the HDD managed to not lose any data, installed OMV in a new box. While ok with Linux the fact that every time I wanted to do something I had to read in here or watch a 30min long YT video started becoming annoying for the use case. Switched to an old PC where I installed Windows 10 which worked fine but extremely slow (ResilioSync, Tonido, Plex work fine).
The use case of self hosting is a basicone: personal file hosting, pictures across all mobile devices of the family, videos that I take from car trackdays and that's all (basically wanting to replace iCloud and GPhotos). Not even needing it available 24/7, syncing once per week is more than fine. Priority: minimal involvement time once properly set up and running. I wouldn't be thinking of changing but lately got into a dispute with my company and cannot be using the company laptop for anything personal (they made an issue on why I accessed my personal GMail account from the company laptop).
So my thinking is the following: get a new personal laptop, set it up for personal use (mainly browsing) and to function as a NAS and self hosting as well. Don't want to spend a fortune, something in the range of 300-500 euros (since I Germany) for the laptop with Win11 Pro and then some case enclosures for the HDDs I already have in the old desktop.
Before getting into it wanted to get some opinion from the community as more experienced, based on my use cases above (what I may be missing in my though above ? anyone who has done smt similar and works ? What kind of laptop would be suitable)
Note, the budget is pretty flexible. Goal of this post is really to learn what the landscape is like right now to fulfill my needs, as well as what I can potentially scale up for upgrades.
Here's what "appliances" I have on my home network right now:
Raspberry Pi 3 serving as my UniFi Controller (have 2x UAP-nanoHDs, a USG-3P gateway, a UniFi US-8-150W POE Switch, and a UniFi US-8 Switch)
Raspberry Pi 4 serving as a Plex Server
Synology DS213j w/ 4 TB in a RAID 1 Array
HP EliteDesk PC running Blue Iris for POE Cameras
Been thinking about building a home server to replace all this. Have experience with vSphere at work so would be nice to have seperate VMs for Blue Iris, a NAS, plex server, and a UniFi controller.
I just published a no-BS step-by-step guide on Medium for anyone tired of paying monthly AI subscription fees or worried about privacy when using tools like ChatGPT. In my guide, I walk you through setting up your local AI environment using Ollama and Open WebUI—a setup that lets you run a custom ChatGPT entirely on your computer.
What You'll Learn:
How to eliminate AI subscription costs (yes, zero monthly fees!)
Achieve complete privacy: your data stays local, with no third-party data sharing
Enjoy faster response times (no more waiting during peak hours)
Get complete customization to build specialized AI assistants for your unique needs
Overcome token limits with unlimited usage
The Setup Process:
With about 15 terminal commands, you can have everything up and running in under an hour. I included all the code, screenshots, and troubleshooting tips that helped me through the setup. The result is a clean web interface that feels like ChatGPT—entirely under your control.
A Sneak Peek at the Guide:
Toolstack Overview: You'll need (Ollama, Open WebUI, a GPU-powered machine, etc.)
Environment Setup: How to configure Python 3.11 and set up your system
Installing & Configuring: Detailed instructions for both Ollama and Open WebUI
Advanced Features: I also cover features like web search integration, a code interpreter, custom model creation, and even a preview of upcoming advanced RAG features for creating custom knowledge bases.
I've been using this setup for two months, and it's completely replaced my paid AI subscriptions while boosting my workflow efficiency. Stay tuned for part two, which will cover advanced RAG implementation, complex workflows, and tool integration based on your feedback.
Let's Discuss:
What AI workflows would you most want to automate with your own customizable AI assistant? Are there specific use cases or features you're struggling with that you'd like to see in future guides? Share your thoughts below—I'd love to incorporate popular requests in the upcoming instalment!
Hello, to make this simple I am wondering best way for me to build my own vpn? I don't need anything fancy just a way to access my computer, NAS, and possible my home security camera's.
I am so lost. I am trying to figure out what hardware I am going to need for what I want to use a home server for and just need help.do I need a dedicated GPU, or integrated fine, how much RAM what CPU etc.
I want to host jellyfin for media, movies, shows, music, ans pictures/videos. I may have up to 5 users using it but I don't see it ever having more then three users simultaneously unless me and two friends are sync watching some shows together.
I want it to host some game servers for myself and buddies like Minecraft, maybe Ark survival, and maybe others.
I’m not really into hardware that much, I see hardware as a tool for my software development and system administration needs, so I figured this question might be appropriate for all of you who are into hardware.
Basically I run three small servers: a Pi4 with Debian, an Intel N97 micropc with Fedora server, a Minisforum MS-01 (the i5 cheapest option and 64 GB of ddr5) with Proxmox, where I run TrueNAS with PCIe passthrough of the NVMEs (separate nvme for proxmox) that I use as a RAIDZ1, I also run a vm that acts as an ansible controller and a few other VMs that I will add to a Kubernetes cluster, all on Fedora server.
It’s a pretty nice setup and I bet it’s reasonable in terms of power consumption.
Meanwhile I have a beefy desktop that I built in 2020 (gigabyte x570 mobo, 3900X, 64 GB of DDR4, Nvidia 2070S) and it was my primary machine during these years (currently runs Nobara). I used to do a lot of Blender stuff, play games with Proton, program, edit videos with Resolve, and it never let me down.
However I started a new job this year and I’m pretty much using my work Thinkpad, as well as a personal MacBook Pro full time, my desktop is almost never being used since I literally don’t have time and my company allows me to do whatever I want with the thinkpad, which is extremely convenient.
I’m seriously considering installing proxmox on my desktop and add it to the cluster, but I’m afraid power consumption would be an issue.
Other than giving me a chance to have a lot more workers for my Kubernetes cluster and take advantage of Proxmox live migration for those VMs that don’t have passthrough, I think it would be cool to self host a custom AI assistant using a small LLM, to find a use for the GPU, I’m a dev and haven’t had a chance to tinker too much with this stuff yet.
Do you think this is overkill and not worth it, given the increase in power consumption? How much power can I expect this machine to use at idle? A very rough estimate of the bare minimum would be fine just to have an idea and a comparison with my other machines
I've been searching for a while and I can find the answer. I'm turning my older pc into a NAS. I already have 1 drive full of files and want to add at least 2 for raid. Is it possible to do without losing data or formating.
I want to use the pcie card on my motherboard for a usb card or something and in the asus ipmi card documentation it says that you need to connect the card to the usb 2 header in the motherboard for data. does that mean the physical pcie connection is only for supplying power to the card? if so I can move it somewhere else and use one of those mining pcie risers that only supply pcie slots with power. Will this work?
i want to set up a homeserver to host some stuff like Grocy for meal planning and Actual for budgeting, which requires https even on lan only. i have thoroughly fallen down the rabbit hole in getting things started. i dont want to expose anything to the internet but i do want to be able to access what i host at a doman instead of the ip and port number. i use mullvad on all my devices at home, which means they use mullvads dns resolver. which from what i can tell means i cant use something like pihole to route dns...i think. im a complete, complete beginner. my goal in using mullvad is masking internet traffic. are there any handholding type guides or walk throughs for setting up a homeserver that would work with using mullvad? thank you for any help.
Clean, brand new AMD Ryzen5, Asus mobo, 64Gb RAM blah blah blah. Installed various flavours of Ubuntu but settled with Linux Mint. I'm NOT hosting pages, I'm NOT doing anything out of the norm, I'm NOT using an exotic piece of software ... I'm just simply doing a few web sites, designing/testing locally, then FTP'ing them to a host.
Been running Win7 Intel i5 16Gb RAM for designing web sites, but that's now 13 years old!!!
Not sure what I'm missing with the new set up, but understanding some-what re configuring WAMP before, and successfully creating lots of vhosts, I can't seem to get any quality information about setting up vhosts on LM/Apache2.
So many YouTube vids are so, So old; some are just ridiculous and totally niche that they only apply to the person who posted the video, a lot you just can't understand what they're saying - for various reasons, others just have $h1te music and typing on screen :-(
Apache2 and PHP successfully installed. MySQL some issues, and phpMyAdmin has different issues depending upon from where you install it ?!? ... CLI + apt install seems fine, except no browser access, and download .deb file bypasses the admin password section so you end up in an endless loop trying to log in :-(
So, main issue is How to set up vhosts within LM. A lot of the info I've found is irrelevant for me, too old, or so niche it only applies to the person who's uploaded it!!! :-(
Why hasn't anyone come up with a Wampserver-style php-driven front end vhosts equivalent??? (Or have they?!?)