Hi everyone,

I recently converted my old dual-boot PC into a small home lab. It’s been about 15 days so far, and everything I’ve set up is based on what I already knew, plus a lot of Googling and YouTube. Now I want to take it a step further and make the setup more robust and “correct” for long-term use.

Below are my system details, followed by some questions. Any help or pointers would be appreciated.

System Details

• AMD 2400G system
• Dual boot: Windows + Debian (headless) on SSD
• RAM: 1×8 GB + 1×16 GB
• Separate HDD (ext4) for data: media, libraries, projects, etc.
• Most services run in Docker (via docker-compose):
  • Plex
  • Grafana
  • Prometheus

  Hi everyone,

  I recently converted my old dual-boot PC into a small home lab. It’s been about 15 days so far, and everything I’ve set up is based on what I already knew, plus a lot of Googling and YouTube. Now I want to take it a step further and make the setup more robust and “correct” for long-term use.

  Below are my system details, followed by some questions. Any help or pointers would be appreciated.

  System Details

  • AMD 2400G system
  • Dual boot: Windows + Debian (headless) on SSD
  • RAM: 1×8 GB + 1×16 GB
  • Separate HDD (ext4) for data: media, libraries, projects, etc.
  • Most services run in Docker (via docker-compose):
    • Plex
    • Grafana
    • Prometheus
    • Homepage
    • BookLore
    • Filebrowser
    • etc.
  • Some services run on the host:
    • node-exporter
    • smartmontools
  • This is a local-network homelab, used by at most 2–3 people at a time (mostly Plex, occasional file uploads).
  • Not planning to make it public for now, but open to advice on that aspect.

  Questions

  1. Plex authentication & security

  How does Plex authentication actually work?

  My Plex Media Server is running locally on my home server, yet Google login works through Plex. With Jellyfin, everything was fully local: admin login + adding users from the dashboard.

  Is Plex authentication cloud-based? Does the local server constantly communicate with Plex’s servers? Is this safe, or does it introduce security risks compared to Jellyfin?

  (The main reason I switched from Jellyfin is that it kept messing up metadata and episode order.)

  2. Automating movie & series downloads (free options)

  Is there a free way to automate movie/series downloads?

  Most guides say:

  • qBittorrent for downloading
  • Sonarr / Radarr for metadata and automation

  But I’m confused about where the torrent sources come from. How do people actually configure this end-to-end?

  3. Security basics for a beginner homelab

  As someone new to this, what’s the best way to think about security?

  For example:

  • If I expose Plex publicly, how do I know if someone unauthorized connects to or compromises my system?
  • Since this is a homelab, only a few trusted people would ever access it remotely.

  What should I realistically be monitoring or locking down at this stage?

  4. Monitoring: what actually matters?

  I’m currently using Prometheus + Grafana + node-exporter, but it’s overwhelming.

  There are so many metrics that I’m not even sure I’m monitoring the right things. For example, I realized after two weeks that I was graphing total RAM instead of active/used RAM.

  I also tried Netdata, but it felt too noisy and resource-heavy.

  Monitoring is especially important to me now because I previously lost some data when my data drive (exFAT at the time) silently went read-only. I’ve since moved to ext4 and want early warnings if something like that happens again.

  5. Architecture: Docker vs other approaches

  Right now, almost everything is Docker-based using docker-compose. I chose this mainly for portability and ease of migration.

  Is this a reasonable long-term approach, or should I be looking into other ways of structuring services?

  6. Power & resource optimization

  Current behavior:

  • CPU sits around ~2% most of the time
  • Spikes to 10–20% when adding media or doing heavier work
  • RAM usage is ~20% normally, with spikes at night (likely Plex scheduled jobs)

  Is there a way to:

  • Make services “sleep” when idle?
  • Reduce power usage during weekdays (I mostly stream on weekends)?

  I run this server 24×7 because I want to build good habits, reduce reliance on paid cloud services, and learn by running a real system continuously.

  Final notes

  For these questions, I’d really appreciate:

  • Pointers in the comments
  • Useful resources or guides
  • DMs if you’re open to helping more directly

  Please also let me know if I’m missing any important details.

  Thanks in advance 🙏

  TL;DR

  Looking for help to improve my homelab setup:

  • How Plex works internally and whether it’s safe
  • Free ways to automate media downloads
  • Beginner-friendly security practices
  • What to actually monitor and alert on
  • Best service architecture (Docker or otherwise)
  • Reducing power and resource usage when idle

  submitted by /u/Hot_Entertainer_949 [link] [comments]