The State of my Homelab in 2025
I should say first that I am by no means an expert on really anything tech-related — most of what I know related to computers is self-taught. My background is in biochemistry, and I originally planned to go to medical school. However, I’ve always been fascinated by the science of how things work and drawn to the challenge of exploring new topics. As technology has been increasingly seeping into nearly every corner of our daily lives — I suppose it was only a matter of time before my natural curiosity pulled me into the world of of self-hosting.
Unraid - Where it all Began..
My first server created from some leftover parts I had after upgrading from the very first PC I built back in 2016. My Unraid machine started out as a simple NAS that eventually turned into a full blown media server and is where I still run nearly all of my most used services (with the exception of my AdGuard Home DNS server that I mainly run on a separate machine).
proxmox - The Moment I Crossed the Self-hosting Event Horizon
Although my Unraid server is plenty powerful for my needs, I quickly realized the benefits and potential of having more than one server.. so I set my sights acquiring a low power 1L mini PC since used ones can found for so cheap on Ebay. I eventually landed on a HP Elitedesk 800 G3 Mini with an i5-6500T and used it to jump down the proxmox rabbit hole.. It was at this point that I realized there is no turning back and I had officially flown too close to the self-hosted singularity, and I jumped right in with open arms to fire up my very first virtual machine.
Admittedly, I still have a lot of knowledge gaps when it comes to hypervisors and virtualization, and having no formal education in computer-science even was surprised how easily I was able to set up and configure various VM’s and LXC’s. I mostly wanted to experiment with Proxmox because after learning more about Linux than I ever thought I would through
Documenting my 2025 Homelab Setup
Hardware
- Unraid Host — Fractal Node 804 - i5-6500 built from leftover PC parts
- proxmox Host — HP EliteDesk 800 G3 35W Mini PC Computer - Intel i5-6500T
My Most Used Services
- Paperless-ngx - Selfhosted document storage
- AdGuard Home - Primary DNS server running in a Proxmox VM
- PiHole - Backup DNS server on a separate machine
- Plex & Jellyfin - For viewing my media
- Immich - Selfhosted Google Photos alternative
- Redlib - Privacy focused frontend for reddit
- Karakeep - The Bookmark Everything App
- Arr-stack