Hey! Just wanted to share my homelab, mainly used for cloud backups and running local services for study and convenience.
I built it with a mix of spare parts and AliExpress items. Being budget-friendly was key here; I didn’t want to spend more than necessary.
The Specs:
CPU: Intel i3-10105F
RAM: 32GB (mostly for ZFS ARC)
GPU: Intel Arc A310 4GB (Amazing for transcoding, and actually helps with small LLMs!)
Storage: 2x 4TB WD Purple (Not for speed, just the cheapest new storage I could find)
256GB Kingston NVME
The Build:
The ITX form factor is very convenient because I wanted to hide this in the utility cabinet. The Flex PSU can be noisy, but once it’s in the cabinet, I can pretend it’s just magic/cloud computing. Since the HDDs didn’t fit inside t…
Hey! Just wanted to share my homelab, mainly used for cloud backups and running local services for study and convenience.
I built it with a mix of spare parts and AliExpress items. Being budget-friendly was key here; I didn’t want to spend more than necessary.
The Specs:
CPU: Intel i3-10105F
RAM: 32GB (mostly for ZFS ARC)
GPU: Intel Arc A310 4GB (Amazing for transcoding, and actually helps with small LLMs!)
Storage: 2x 4TB WD Purple (Not for speed, just the cheapest new storage I could find)
256GB Kingston NVME
The Build:
The ITX form factor is very convenient because I wanted to hide this in the utility cabinet. The Flex PSU can be noisy, but once it’s in the cabinet, I can pretend it’s just magic/cloud computing. Since the HDDs didn’t fit inside the tiny case, I used a full ATX HDD cradle to mount them externally, attached to the case grills. It works like a charm!
Software Stack:
Home Assistant, Plex, Transmission, Prowlarr, document management (Paperless-ngx with AI), Rclone for backups, local DNS (AdGuard/Pi-hole), and dashboards for solar/energy monitoring.
The Photos:
Included an extra shot of my "organization" of the utility cabinet itself. For the eagle-eyed safety inspectors: yes, I know the breakers are old. They were here before I bought the house. If you hate them, come over and help me change them! :P
Results
Overall, average power consumption around 55w, idling at 50, which I consider pretty decent!
With this amount of memory all my services run well, Plex Transcoding works like a charm (paid, of course) for LXC devices on proxmox are a breeze.
Maybe someday this gets roasted by u/LinusTechTips? Personally, I find it really cute! :D