Then came Dropbox. You installed an app and it synced everything in a designated folder to their servers. But Dropbox, like many services, became slower, bloated, etc.  So, I moved on to self hosting. First with Owncloud, and then with its fork, Nextcloud.  These platforms no longer bill themselves as file synchronization platforms, they bill themselves as ‘collaboration’ tools.

This is the problem that has taken me to look for a new solution that just does files. No more, no less. And while my instance of Nextcloud is still running, I am giving Syncthing a try. Syncthing requires no central server. It ticks all the security boxes: open protocol and encryption.

I installed a copy on my server, which allows me to synchronize the files there and back them up, in addition to syncing the various computers that need the files. It also, being peer to peer, allows me to have different folders synced to different systems, which allows for a bit more independent flexibility than the centralized systems, but also a bit more setup time.

Syncthing works perfectly on a local network, but has some challenges on the public internet. There are two services Syncthing provides for thi: A discovery server and a relay server.

Syncthing runs several public discovery servers, which assist in helping instances find themselves, but you can run your own. Discovery servers are safe enough to use publicly, although using them can identify that a device exists. The other server is a relay server. It allows relaying between devices that may be on different networks. The information is encrypted, so it is unlikely a malicious one could do much more than disrupt communication.

But regardless, I set up my own private discovery and relay server, and neither can be used without a token that I have to manually add to each device when setting them up. So, it is as secure as I can make it.

It remains to be seen if it will fully suit my needs, but so far, it is lightweight, flexible, and dumps all of the unnecessary cruft I do not want.

The Problem

This brings me to my latest debate. Do I get one or more efficient computers with power efficient processors that can reliably handle low level tasks, or a single beefier computer? Technology has caught up to this while I was just letting my server run, because it just worked. Most home servers are idle most of the time, as you aren’t getting the demand a server with many users would receive, even with a full household. My NAS is running on an N100 CPU with 32GB of RAM.

The N100 has 4 cores, which is akin to having 4 different CPUs.  My server is running a processor that is a few generations older, with 6 cores. The benchmark of the N100 is about 1/3 of the score given to the older processor, but also uses a 10th of the power consumption. The NAS has an average usage of 3% CPU, as a NAS needs RAM to cache data, but serving it takes very little in terms of capacity.  By comparison, the server with the more powerful processor, running Jellyfin(a media server), Immich(photo server), Frigate(NVR), and more, is averaging 20% of more.

Plenty of CPU Maybe, but what about GPU?

Some of this involves hardware transcoding, using the GPU, to transcode video streams for Jellyfin. Frigate can use the GPU to run object detection. So, purchasing a Mini PC means another GPU, and the CPU can handle some low demand services. The alternative is to go for a an external GPU. However, the used computer my beefier CPU is in, is one I bought refurbished, only to discover that the PCI-E slot I would need to do that was not soldered onto the motherboard for some reason, which brought me to the idea of dividing the server, rather than replacing it entirely.

Multiple Computers…but in Software? Virtualization

Some people who have homelabs opt to go in a completely different direction. Virtualization. They have multiple virtual computers running on one server. There are advantages to this in that you can tear down a virtual computer and replace it, you can back up each piece separately. That leaves one with a lot of choices. I’ve read dozens of opinions and talked to several people about this.

Is more hardware better than virtualization? And if the idea of a low power CPU is to reduce energy costs, how does more than one of them help?

Final Thoughts and a question

As a final thought, having multiple pieces of hardware increases complexity, and thus maintenance time, but independent hardware means a failure in one system doesn’t mean a failure in another, the same isolation virtualization offers.

I have gone back and forth on a conclusion. I have seen people who run their entire infrastructure on a mini PC. That may be good for many people, but some might find themselves straining under the load.

But, what do you think? Am I better off upgrading or bifurcating?

Future Proofing with the Right Cabling

As part of my recent renovations, I’ve been looking at ways to future-proof my infrastructure. The wiring I had installed is Cat 6, which has been the recommended standard for years and while there are newer options, Cat 6 supports higher data rates and distances, including 10G Ethernet up to 55 meters (180 feet)—more than enough for a residence.

But do you really need 10G? The cost-benefit question for home setups is still up for debate, though prices are slowly coming down.

The Internet vs. Local Speed

The first question is: what’s the speed of your internet connection? Even if it’s slower, there are still reasons to benefit from faster networking inside your home. For years, gigabit outpaced typical internet connections. But now, 1G and 2G internet plans are becoming more common—whether or not they actually deliver those speeds is another debate.

Why Faster Networking Still Matters

So why upgrade beyond gigabit? One reason is Network Attached Storage (NAS). I’ve written before about building a NAS. At the end of the day, a NAS is just a giant storage box—and when you’re pulling data from it, you want those files to arrive as fast as possible.

Serious homelab enthusiasts argue that now is the time to skip straight to *10G networking*. And there’s a solid case for that.

The Cost of 10G Hardware

A quick Amazon search shows this $33 PCI-E network card that uses a single SFP+ port. Dual SFP+ ports are only a few dollars more. I have an empty slot in my NAS, I could have this in there tomorrow. Switches with 10G ports used to be out of reach, but today I’m seeing options with 2.5G ports plus one or two SFP+ ports rated for 10G.

For those unfamiliar: SGP+ is a modular port that supports fiber optic or copper Ethernet modules, making it flexible for future upgrades.

A Hybrid Approach: 2.5G + 10G

My plan is to run a router with both SFP+ and 2.5G ports, with one of the 10G uplinks feeding a downstream 2.5G switch. That gives me:

• A noticeable speed increase now
• Flexibility to add faster devices later
• The option to interconnect switches at 10G speeds

It’s not the full leap to 10G everywhere, but it’s a balanced, future-ready upgrade path for my homelab.

In a previous post, I wrote about building a B-Mode—the idea that your smart devices should still be functional, even in a degraded way, if your main controller goes down. But B-Mode only covers part of the problem. What happens if your entire homelab fails? What if your ISP drops, or your main server crashes while you’re away?

That’s where external monitoring comes in.

Why a VPS Is My Homelab’s Safety Net

I’ve always liked hosting as much as possible at home. It gives me control, keeps my data local, and aligns with the self-hosted philosophy I value. But there are limits:

• If your ISP is down, your monitoring services hosted at home are offline too.
• If your server crashes, you won’t know until you notice devices not working.
• If you travel often, you may not realize something failed until much later.

The answer is to host a small part of your infrastructure outside your home. It is still self-hosting, even if you rent space. A cheap VPS (Virtual Private Server) can serve as a watchdog, constantly checking whether your homelab and internet connection are reachable. And it doesn’t take much to get started.

How I Use Uptime Kuma for External Monitoring

On my VPS, which costs just a few dollars a month, I run Uptime Kuma, a self-hosted monitoring tool that’s simple but powerful.

Uptime Kuma pings my home network and the servers of a few family members, keeping an eye on:

• Internet availability
• Critical self-hosted services
• Response times

If a server or ISP connection goes down, Kuma alerts me right away. Because it’s running on a VPS outside my home, I’ll still get notified even if my entire local network is offline.

For anyone running a homelab, Uptime Kuma is one of the easiest and most effective ways to add external monitoring.

Getting Alerts Anywhere with Ntfy

Monitoring isn’t enough unless you also get alerts you’ll actually notice. That’s where Ntfy (pronounced notify) comes in.

Ntfy is a self-hosted notification service. It can be installed on your VPS, or you can use the hosted version for free with optional paid upgrades to support development. Ntfy supports a web app, desktop, and mobile apps—and it integrates smoothly with Uptime Kuma and other services.

Here’s how I use it:

• Uptime Kuma sends alerts to Ntfy when a monitored service fails
• Ntfy pushes those alerts to my phone and desktop instantly
• Other tools (like Frigate for camera detection) also send notifications into Ntfy

Ntfy organizes messages into topics that you subscribe to. With access control, you can decide which users can read, write, or subscribe to specific topics. It’s lightweight, flexible, and can be wired into nearly any self-hosted project.

Designing for Outages You Can’t Control

With this setup, I’m covered for most common homelab issues:

• Server outages
• ISP failures
• Device-specific crashes

The only remaining weak point is the VPS provider itself. But outages at large hosting companies are rare, and if you’re truly paranoid, you could run monitoring on two different VPS providers for redundancy.

Even then, my monitoring chain is still stronger than it would be if everything lived only inside my home.

Why Homelab Reliability Matters More Than Perfection

Experimentation is fun, but reliability matters. By running Uptime Kuma and Ntfy on a low-cost VPS, I’ve given myself peace of mind that if my homelab or ISP ever fails, I’ll know right away.

Just like my B-Mode philosophy for smart devices, this approach ensures I’m not left in the dark when things go wrong.

Because in the end, the smartest homelab isn’t the one with the most toys—it’s the one that keeps working even when something breaks.

One of my solutions is free…in a way. I back up to Amazon Photos, as it is included with Amazon Prime. However, so was Prime Video until they added ads, so it is not a guarantee this will continue and I never use it to retrieve photos, just as an extra location. The most popular photo sharing and storage site is probably Google Photos right now, though there are plenty of alternatives. I have stuff there as well.

I needed a place under my control to organize and share my photos, not just a disorganized archive. It was time to migrate to a less expensive self hosted solution, backed by my NAS for storage. Then I could incorporate my existing multi location backup system to keep the files safe.

Immich

I had heard a lot about different self hosted solutions, but the most popular one I keep hearing about of late is Immich. Immich is in beta, but it is meant to reach stable this year. It already seems to be extremely stable, but it warns that you should have a backup strategy outside of it, as it is not meant to be a backup strategy by itself. I already have one, once I include this in the pipeline.

Immich is a full fledged system for photo sharing and organization. It supports showing photos on a map, face and object recognition, and more. I can easily share photos with expiring links or ones that will last forever. There is an API I can use to integrate with other systems.

While there are alternatives, such as Photoprism, Immich has a familiar design language, modern features, and offers a mobile app which can automatically backup your photos into Immich.

Please remember, if you simply upload to Immich, or any service, and purge all other copies, that isn’t a backup.

The communities of hobbyists and tech enthusiasts have changed a lot over those years. I still remember when buying a single megabyte of RAM was a big deal, or having a whole 40MB of hard drive space. There is so much out there to experiment with and I’ve been running a homelab without even realizing that’s what I could call it.

A homelab can be as simple as an old retired computer you run a server on. Or it could be a custom built system for purpose. I’ve had both. And I’ve repurposed numerous times before the end of computer hardware’s life cycle.

I’ve written a lot about topics that fall under that previously…self-hosting, storage, media, etc. So, thinking about this under the banner of homelab gives me the chance to talk about this idea of running your own applications on either your home server, or server space you rent outside your house, and the infrastructure I’ve created to do just that. And there is always a new application or new need to experiment with.

A quick warning though. If you experiment in your own home, you do have to be aware that…should you share that home with someone else, that your experiments may affect their quality of life. For example, if you are playing with home automation, they might not appreciate if you cover up the light switches so you can use smart bulbs they can’t control.

That said, let’s get started.