Overengineering my homelab so I don't pay cloud providers

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Hardware choices for cheap homelabs

  • Strong interest in low‑power, used hardware:
    • Dell Wyse 5070 thin clients (~5W idle) praised for homelab basics (DNS, media, backups, Home Assistant, Jellyfin); several report 16–32GB RAM working despite official 16GB spec.
    • Optiplex Micro / Lenovo Tiny / HP Mini with 8th–10th gen i5s suggested as more powerful alternatives (~10W idle), but often lack serial ports and some models are noisy.
    • Other budget options: Fujitsu Futro thin clients, used Intel NUCs, second‑hand gaming PCs (criticized for power draw), AliExpress N100/N150/N3xx mini‑boards, and Minisforum/mini‑PC boards (mixed reviews: great perf/price vs. poor firmware, non‑ECC, limited expandability).
    • Raspberry Pi 5 is viewed as poor value vs x86 mini‑PCs, especially due to SD-card reliability and EU pricing.

Power usage and cost

  • Idle draw numbers shared (5–15W for many setups); a mid gaming PC cited around 60W.
  • Electricity prices compared widely (≈€0.07–0.4+/kWh), heavily affecting whether homelab beats cloud on cost.
  • Some argue home servers are “free heat” in cold climates with electric heating.

UPS, power outages, and safety

  • Wide spectrum of approaches:
    • Minimal: small UPS just long enough for clean shutdown.
    • Elaborate: extended‑runtime lead‑acid setups, LiFePO₄ “power station” UPS, or EcoFlow‑style solar‑assisted systems.
  • Strong pushback against DIY car‑battery‑on‑UPS hacks due to fire/explosion risk and mismatched charging circuits.
  • Suggestions for more robust designs: solar‑style LFP battery + inverter/charger or rack LFP batteries.
  • Some accept downtime and only care about remote recovery (e.g., WoL over VPN, BIOS “power on after outage”).

Cloud exposure and networking

  • Cloudflare Tunnels, WireGuard, and VPN‑only access discussed; some confusion over Cloudflare “one port” limitation (others say multiple subdomains/ports/sockets work).
  • Systemd techniques (network-online, _netdev, ExecCondition, BindsTo) recommended to fix race conditions with remote mounts on boot.

ECC RAM, reliability, and platform trade‑offs

  • For storage servers, several insist on ECC (often via used enterprise gear or Mac Pro “trashcan”).
  • Others note ECC small-form-factor options are rare; some newer mini‑PCs add DDR5 ECC support.
  • Debate over power: one side claims ECC systems are power-hungry; others counter with low‑idle Xeon D / modern AMD examples.

Homelab vs cloud economics and lifestyle

  • One camp: homelabs rarely “save money” vs cloud storage (Google Drive, Hetzner, etc.), especially with European power prices; time/maintenance and security patching are major hidden costs.
  • Counterarguments:
    • Cloud storage tiers become very expensive at 10TB+; local NAS easily wins at larger capacities.
    • Many people exceed 2TB with photos/videos; cloud vendor lock‑in and accidental data loss/lockouts are concerns.
    • Homelabs provide low‑latency local access, arbitrary services (media servers, Home Assistant, dev infra), and autonomy from big providers.
  • Several describe homelabs explicitly as hobbies akin to classic cars or gardens; “cost‑effective” is secondary to learning and enjoyment.

Operational complexity and scope

  • Some highlight burnout and “SLA at home” problems when family depends on self‑hosted services; a few dismantled large homelabs after stressful outages.
  • Others keep scope tight: VPN‑only access, few services, quarterly updates (~4 hours/year), simple stacks (baremetal + Go binaries) instead of K8s/Proxmox overengineering.
  • Mixed reports on Proxmox: popular choice, but its installer fails on some hardware, prompting “Debian first, then Proxmox” installs.