You don’t need an amazing rig to do this. Don’t get fooled by the content creators with their sponsored content. Learn and buy only after researching what you need. Build for your own needs not to some crazy spec someone on the YouTube tells you need. A simple old pc with right software and working backup solution is all you really need. Just learn how to make it work safely.
this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2026
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Of course. I posted this for inspiration, because he walks it through step by step. As for crazy spec...well...you tell me
• 12U KWS Rack V2
• Lenovo ThinkCentre M720q Cluster (3x nodes running Proxmox)
• Lenovo ThinkCentre M920q running pfSense (router/firewall)
• Terramaster D5-310 HDD Enclosure (12TB + 18TB + NVMe SSDs)
• 10-Port 2.5G/10G Ethernet Switch
• Google Coral USB Accelerator (AI inference)
Probably only the 4th one down is the exxy one...and someone one should tell him the Coral USB accelerator is for Vision not inference (IIRC).
100%.The strongest PC in my homelab right now is my old gaming PC featuring an i7-4790k, 16gb RAM, and sometimes it has a GTX 680 and others a 730 (neither right now though, for Reasons). 2nd place goes to a dual-core, 4-thread laptop from 2012 with hinges so broken I have to lean the screen back against the wall behind it. And before I retired that old gaming PC last year, that laptop ran my personal Jellyfin server for well over a year with no major issues!
I love the fact that your example of a "small-ish" homelab is way more overpowered than mine. Because my entire 40+ containers homelab runs off of a 13 yo NUC with a 10+ yo HDD and a (new!) SSD plugged into it. I regularly want to replace it by a more recent NUC but… there is not good reason, yet.
Yep just use what you've got! I'm running my server off a little workstation I got for free from work. I'm working on setting up another server for my sister on one of her old laptops then we'll use each other's as off-site backups and for redundancy. Work with your friends and family to get them off big tech too! Pretty much everyone has some old system sitting around that could be brought back to life and act as a server.
A bit ironic to post this on YouTube 😅
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Also, I agree with phant. It's punk as fuck.
But also kinda punk. Promoting de-googling on googles own platform.