1. You’re using the Linode box as the server, on which you forward ports for your services. Am I to assume that you somehow access your homelab via your VPN using the Linode box too? Usually people would access their lab at home directly.

Yes, I also access the lab via the Linode box. I do however have direct VPN access too. The reason for using the Linode box is that for some reason, the speed and latency via the Linode box is far better that directly in. I can only assume its some kind of peering thing. I always connect in via my phone on T-Mobile, so perhaps the connection between T-Mobile and Linode, and the connection between AT&T and Linode, is better than T-Mobile to AT&T Residential? Unsure, all I know is that it works 100x better. And it also means I don't need 2 different connections for the primary and secondary WAN, I can just connected to Linode and it will connect over whatever connection is active

2. Wouldn’t a whitebox build for your NAS save power?

This really is a whitebox build, it uses very little power. The disks use the most amount of power, which there is no getting around

3. What are you using both switches for? Are you running out of ports?

The 1Gb switches? yes, I ran out of ports on the Dell, or am very, very close

4. Since you’re running VMWare, are you running VMs for every service? Why not containers?

Everything that can run in containers already is, on Debian VM's within ESXi

5. Even if most of the content on your blog is static, how are you hosting it for it to load so quickly? Are you using some sort of CDN in front of your Linode box to cache the static assets like pictures?

I am using CloudFlare in front of it, so that's probably why. But even directly its pretty quick. I guess NVMe storage and decent internet means its fast?

Thanks!

Not OP, but also curious about number 5, I noticed that blog article loaded lickety-split!