Server

Self-Hosting and maintaining a server is a fully selfish endeavour I started by accident because my MacBook Air kept running out of storage. After about 2 years I am buying optimized hardware and installing virtualization software and nagging all my friends about privacy and freedom of being in control of your digital life.

I will not be writing the full backstory of my server here. But let me Introduce you to the current Setup I have. A fuller more detailed breakdown can be found on my WIKI. I go into detail on how I have set up my computers

Computers

FriendlyELEC CM3588 with 16GB RAM

I choose this computer because it runs on a ARM processor therefore has a very low electricity use when running 24/7. With a 2.5 Gbp Ethernet port I get all my work done no problem running about 15 docker applications with no hiccups. I have nothing but good things to say. The hardware acceleration for video processing AND AI workloads is very hard to say no to with the current computer prices. I remember running a 1080p stream on my old dell and the CPU was running at 100% and the fan was loud enough I could hear the sound from the living room while I was sleeping in my bedroom. As a server it is really good and given it is just sitting under my TV while powering my entire online life.

I am running OpenMediaVault which is a GUI for Network Attached Storage computers running Debian. Since this was my first Linux computer I needed the help from a GUI to navigate and setup my services. Now with more time I have realized I should have run Proxmox but at the time I did not know better. But for simple setup that is reliable on the long run I have no complaints.

Dell Optiplex 2013 with Intel Core i5-4570 (Backup)

This computer is a hand me down from my mother who's office computer was being thrown out and I managed to save it from the landfill. It is a one of the cheapest computers with a small Mini-ATX Motherboard. As a normal computer it is only good for browsing the web but with Proxmox I am running 4 VMs with different services all on 8 Gb of ram. This works as a my primary on location backup as well copying data from the FriendlyELEC server. I go in depth about the specs in my WIKI which is more up-to-date than this page :(

I should note that I also have about 3 docker apps that is not supported on ARM processors, therefore this computer has a OMV install in a VM that runs those apps. It is quiet as a kitten and been a very reliable workhorse.

Since it is running Proxmox I am able to make new LXC containers for apps that work better out of docker such as DNS and Nextcloud. Putting them in an LXC container allows me to have greater control over each application and have more segmentation for better security and redundancy,