Hello! This is my first time trying this, and we'll see how it takes for me to get bored of this. I tend to do stuff like this for a week or so and then never do it again. Take my YouTube channel. I tend to upload about three videos within two weeks or so and then not touch the channel again for 3-6 months. I'm hoping something like this should be easier to keep up with; rather than having to record, edit and upload a video for YouTube. This brings us perfectly to the next thing I want to talk about: what is the point of this blog?
Well, I wanted somewhere where I could document my experiences with my "Home Lab" (if you could even call it that. It currently consists of a single Raspberry Pi 5 and a computer that's on sometimes. More on that later) and I was debating between making YouTube Shorts on the topic, or starting a blog. As you can tell, my choice was to start blogging. This is going to be an experiment until I get the hang of it; so please be patient with me! I intend to document everything that I do with my "home lab" in hopes that it will achieve two things in the process:
1. Help me to keep track of my progress and remind me of anything I've done before in the future.
2. Help you, the reader, if you're doing something similar, whether that be having the same problem or just looking to start a "home lab".
Let's move onto what my home lab consists of currently. On the hardware side, there's two devices: a Raspberry Pi 5 and a computer that I turn on every now and then. The Raspberry Pi 5 is the 8GB RAM model, and I opted for the Pi 5 due to its incredible performance stats on paper. So far, it's having no problems with anything I've thrown at it. With regard to the computer, it consists of an Intel Core i3-I've-forgotten-the-exact-model-number CPU with 16GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR4 RAM. I enjoy building computers, so my original intention for this machine was to build it and sell it online. Unsurprisingly in hindsight, it never sold. So I now use it to run more resource-heavy stuff when need be.
On the Pi 5, I have Docker and OpenMediaVault installed. I've only just put OpenMediaVault on (literally this morning as I'm writing this) and have got it setup with a USB hard 2TB hard drive to act as my NAS. The old NAS I used to use (and may still go back to using, but this is unlikely) is a WD My Cloud Home 4TB. After they decided to make a ton of changes to it, it became plagued with issues for me and since I've started a server of my own, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to finally ditch the WD! In the few hours I've been using it, I've had only a couple wobbles but thanks to this excellent video my NetworkChuck (who has been inspiring me with some of my choices), they were sorted out in no time. I'll create a full post on the OMV NAS, its setup and troubleshooting in the near future, so stay tuned for that. With regard to Docker, I have a multitude of containers running there from Portainer to manage my containers to Home Assistant to help manage my IoT devices and setup some pretty cool automations. It's now I realise why so many people love Docker! Again, I'll be sure to do a full blog post(s) looking at Docker and the containers I have running. On the computer, I tend to run a Minecraft server once or twice a year whenever me and my friends feel the Minecraft urge. With the amount of times I've setup said Minecraft server, you'd expect me to be an expert! But I always forget something... hence why I've made this blog so I can document everything from now on!
I hope this has been a nice introduction to me and my "Home Lab". Any feedback on the blogging or (especially) the Home Lab itself would be greatly appreciated as I continue to venture out into this fascinating world.
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