What is a HomeLab and How Do I Get Started?

What servers do you have in your home lab?

Best video ever seen long time ago in IT.

Homelab community is one of the best out there ime

Yes

Do you recommend learning Linux??

What an awesome community. Everyone here has so much talent…
I barely started my homelab with a dell latitude that I dual boot Ubuntu/ubuntu on (for reliability purposes I have two latest versions) I have so much to learn it’s overwhelming.

I don't have any desire to build a homelab but wanted to know a little more about it, just so I had context to a mention of it (and "docker containers"), in an Intel processor slickdeal's thread I was reading. 😄I just have to say, you might be one of the best presentative speakers I've heard in a very long time. I was engaged for the whole video with only minimal initial interest - that has to be some sort of feat worth mentioning all on its own. You have my admiration, sir ... and after checking out your channel even more, my sub. lol!

What task you user the little Pi Zero for?

i started my server building journey on my fathers 16 year old pc, i still use that pc for my jellyfin media server😂😂😂😂😂😂

You made this so easy and simple to understand, thank you!

Well, you made me take the jump eventually.
started out with just a simple WSL solution at first, got a little carried away with game server hosting, soo i already had an older pc converted to one that could run them.

i just hated the fact that i had to run my personal webserver on my desktop wich i used for all round things.
So i'm currently waiting eagerly for my first RPI to arrive :)

Oh i could use this to store my spank bank

Initially started looking for ways to create an automated home backup system for work and somehow I got here...

Going down the path of upgrade and use your old, are there any arguments against the "old" being a laptop device?
e.g., of a device i would upgrade from what be my 1-2year old Legion pro i5

Ok so I am binging old episodes. Completely new to this, but find it horribly interesting. I have an old ASUS laptop that I want to convert to a homelab. Do you plan it out or just jump in and try to see what u like. I have pretty much decided on Proxmox and then branching out to other VMs for mefia. Home automation etc. Does this make any sense?

The comments on "You dont need it running 24/7" are so true. I have about 5 heavy containers and 1 VM running 4 dockerstacks running 24/7. Labelled "core". I then have about a dozen containers and half a dozen VMs that spent 90% of the time off. I have a Windows10Pro dedicated to Java and Python development, another dedicated to STM32Microcontroller IDEs etc. I have K8S Vms, Kali linux VMs and an entire virtual only test network, another mostly unaddressable network for self hosted CTs.

I wish schools actually taught this, the second you graduate with something technical. It's the first thing IT Directors ask for usually in your second round of interviewing somewhere

Using an old PC with i5-4460S as a game server and for some other stuff in future, that requires 24/7.
Thanks for the video!

If don't know what a homelab is, don't build it 😂

Great video...thanks..

I already downloaded Proxmox 8.0

Now, I have to finished building my custom servers...

This is the future of home computing and it's really fun too...

Once you commit to using a Linux operating system, the sky is the limit...

Average age for PC is 5 years ? LOL my home server is nearly 10 years old and based on Haswell. It's build form parts that I had around my house left over form PC's I have built across the years. It contains many parts form my main PC I have used until 2019. I have deployed it last year and keep on expanding it. I also have a pihole and want to get pfsense router. Since my computer room is mostly for gaming and movie watching with OLED TV and Dolby Atmos home theater I don't have a space for rack so my "homelab" is decentralized network of different computers and network devices all around my hose connected by network I have build myself.

Hey I wanna know if you can help me build my home lab server

What does everyone use ubiquity

Hi, there. I am looking for a way to actually interact with the computer as well as read about it. I would love to Windows 10 to practice things to do on this io. I would also like to use Linux to learn some other things. Could you do a video showing how a beginner could work with as well read about these things? I think it would be great. Try it! Thanks for listening.

"Without the fear, of destroying someone else's enviroment."

Tim's boo: "Is the internet down again?"

lol <3

how can i protect my server

Serious question. How much is your power bill?

In a nutshell, HomeLab is a digital lab that you can run to tinker with software in your home ?

I thought this was going to be about cisco routers and switches to make network labs

Thought provoking video!

Hey Tim, I just jumped in waaay too deep. Got to start somewhere though right?

Excited for the journey ahead
🛸

It sometimes really grinds my gears when people say "oh a server is defined by it's role and not it's hardware" while that is true, it is only partly true, as there is hardware which is tailor made for server applications. Basically server means 2 things, the first one being a generic computer fulfilling the role of server by providing a certain service to clients and the second one being a hardware platform dedicated for use as a server.

I recently started labbing and I took my ancient laptop which has enough power for me to use it as my homelab
Thanks Tim

Speaking of old computers, you may think it’s slow but plenty of people run home labs on Raspberry Pi’s and even an older desktop or laptop probably has more power and resources (storage, ram) than a Pi. And with how expensive and hard to get Pi’s are these days, even a used small form factor (SFF) office PC from eBay for about $100-150 is a great way to start and about the same price as a marked up Pi, but probably more powerful in basically every way. They even don’t use too much electricity. More than a Pi, but somewhere in the 10-50 watt range which is very reasonable.

I wish I could do it without going bankrupt

I have so many questions and am very intrigued by this, I've always been a tech geek but hearing about this, It's beyond anything that I could imagine being possible at home. I do have a question and I'm hoping the answer can be relatively simple, could machine learning programs be done much simpler on something like this? I feel like with all those CPU's and Ram Sticks loading and upgrading something even remotely simple could be plossible

I was just given a gaming pc that's becoming my server.
It's the best machine I've ever owned, I just wish I were smart enough to make full use out of it as I intend.

This is THE Way.

Starting out mine pretty small with a few Raspberry Pi 4s and a couple of spare PCs gained from close friends and a internet stranger. Hopefully going to upgrade to a full server rack.

Other than learning, what are the most practical applications of a homelab?

still got my PC from 90s :) still works ;) , lifespan can be 20+y too, depending how cold you keep it and dust free

been coding since ~96-97, and homelab'ing since ~2002. over the years i've hosted countless web, file, radio, and game servers. my lab currently consists of 6 servers. all amd apu-based quad cores. always been an amd user. they're all consumer grade pc's bought new and re/multipurposed. 2 switches; one managed 8 port maxed and one 48 port unmanaged to support lab expansion. running everything 24/7 through 3 displays typically consumes ~6.5kWh per day, or roughly £1.75 at 28p per kWh. aiming to get it mostly off grid before the october energy price hike (first of 5 significant hikes!).

I work IT for two school districts, so I get dibs on anything they decide to erecycle. I got two HP dl360 (g6&g7) they were getting rid of because they got water on them (ruined the cpu and ram in one, and the drives in another, but I upgraded all of that anyway to x5670s, 72gb ram, and 500gb drives). After that I got a t7610 from a buddy who got it from somewhere that was throwing it out, threw 2 e5-2667 v2s in that, that's now my main server. Then I just got a dl380 g6, I'm going to be gutting the dl360 g6 and putting the parts in the 380 because it has 8 drive bays vs 4, and larger quieter fans. Do I need all of this stuff? No, not a chance, but frees free so I love playing with hardware

Id love to have a homelab, but i don't have anything to run on them

Can you please provide a link to a tutorial for building a home-lab using virtualization? (I found tutorials for others but not for virtualization.)

i started home labbing a few months back because of this video so thank you for the inspiration.

Due to your channel and some others, I've started a HomeLab based on two older System76 laptops and a Lenovo ThinkCentre minicomputer. At the moment I've installed the Lenovo with ProxMox and am learning about VM's and Docker and the differences and requirements. Also how to handle networking and storage with these machines. In my network is also a Synology NAS and a USB attached External harddisk. Experimenting with building up Truenas in a VM and accessing the various kinds of storage. Loads of fun.

Later on I want to try my hand in clustering the Lenovo with both of the System76 laptops and see how that works.

Amazing video. Clear, concise, informative... Just great! Thanks so much for uploading and sharing!

Not dissing the homelab movement, as all learning is a positive, and im all for it, but all the uses that was mentioned, was provided completely by the old HP Home server. If you ever had one, this is just replicating that, in a more difficult way, but same end result.