The When
It’s been 6 years since I started my homelab journey, and while it has had its frustrating moments, it’s also provided quality of life improvements and hard-to-gain knowledge.
The Why
Building a homelab is something I recommend to anyone interested in diving into tech and engineering. Whether it’s the network, infrastructure, or application layer you’re interested in, a homelab gives you the opportunity(forces you?) to work on each of these areas and dive as deep as you want. Want to try out new technology and build that machine learning pipeline? No problem. New architecture that needs a proof-of-concept or trying to understand the depths of kubernetes? Done. Self-hosted email server? Absolutely not, that is where I draw the line.
The How
The hardware should start small, and only grow when necessary. I’ve seen myself and others buy overpowered, energy-consuming hardware that is hardly utilized. Hardware ages quickly, and the need to upgrade will happen at some point.
The Now
So what kind of beast has my homelab grown into? That’s what we’re about to find out. Take a look at the diagram below:
This hardware has allowed me to run anything I’ve ever been able to build(so far).
There’s plenty more to do, but life is short. It’s time to take a walk outside and enjoy the finer things in life.