@budgethomelab.bsky.social
Four people streaming, CPU pinned at 100%, and the iGPU you already paid for sitting idle. QuickSync passthrough into a container, the /dev/dri part nobody explains, and how to confirm it is really offloading: budgethomelab.com/guides/jellyfin-hardware-transcoding-quicksync/ #homelab
October 8, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Four people streaming, CPU pinned at 100%, and the iGPU you already paid for sitting idle. QuickSync passthrough into a container, the /dev/dri part nobody explains, and how to confirm it is really offloading: budgethomelab.com/guides/jellyfin-hardware-transcoding-quicksync/ #homelab
Hot take: the box holding your family photos should be boring. If you are learning something new on it every week, that is a lab, not storage. Keep one host you break on purpose and one you do not touch. The second one is the whole point. #selfhosted #homelab #selfhosting
October 7, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Hot take: the box holding your family photos should be boring. If you are learning something new on it every week, that is a lab, not storage. Keep one host you break on purpose and one you do not touch. The second one is the whole point. #selfhosted #homelab #selfhosting
Tip: a fresh Proxmox install points at the enterprise repo you have no subscription for. apt update errors out, and the host quietly stops getting security updates. Disable that repo, add the no-subscription one, run apt update. Day one job. #homelab #selfhosted
October 6, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Tip: a fresh Proxmox install points at the enterprise repo you have no subscription for. apt update errors out, and the host quietly stops getting security updates. Disable that repo, add the no-subscription one, run apt update. Day one job. #homelab #selfhosted
Two $25 managed switches on the same shelf, and only one of them does what you came for. TL-SG108E vs GS308E: VLAN tagging in practice, the web UI you actually have to live with, and which one I would buy again. budgethomelab.com/articles/tl-sg108e-vs-netgear-gs308e/ #homelab
October 5, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Two $25 managed switches on the same shelf, and only one of them does what you came for. TL-SG108E vs GS308E: VLAN tagging in practice, the web UI you actually have to live with, and which one I would buy again. budgethomelab.com/articles/tl-sg108e-vs-netgear-gs308e/ #homelab
Tip: check /boot on any Debian or Proxmox host you have run for a year. Old kernels stack up in a small separate partition, it fills, and then apt fails partway through an upgrade. apt autoremove --purge clears them. Do it before it breaks, not after. #homelab #selfhosted
October 4, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Tip: check /boot on any Debian or Proxmox host you have run for a year. Old kernels stack up in a small separate partition, it fills, and then apt fails partway through an upgrade. apt autoremove --purge clears them. Do it before it breaks, not after. #homelab #selfhosted
Home Assistant Cloud is $6.50 a month, largely so you can reach your own house from outside it. A reverse proxy or Tailscale does that for free and the traffic stays yours. That is $78 a year for remote access to hardware already sitting in your closet. #selfhosted #homelab
October 3, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Home Assistant Cloud is $6.50 a month, largely so you can reach your own house from outside it. A reverse proxy or Tailscale does that for free and the traffic stays yours. That is $78 a year for remote access to hardware already sitting in your closet. #selfhosted #homelab
Real question: which piece of used hardware turned out to be a mistake? Not the deal that worked out. The one you bought on price and quietly replaced. Power draw, noise, a dead-end socket, a drive with nothing left in it. What was it? #selfhosted #homelab #selfhosting
October 2, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Real question: which piece of used hardware turned out to be a mistake? Not the deal that worked out. The one you bought on price and quietly replaced. Power draw, noise, a dead-end socket, a drive with nothing left in it. What was it? #selfhosted #homelab #selfhosting
Encrypted offsite backup for a couple dollars a month, and you can pull back one file instead of a whole disk image. restic end to end: repo setup, snapshots, dedupe, retention with forget and prune, and the B2 side: budgethomelab.com/guides/restic-homelab-backups/ #homelab
October 1, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Encrypted offsite backup for a couple dollars a month, and you can pull back one file instead of a whole disk image. restic end to end: repo setup, snapshots, dedupe, retention with forget and prune, and the B2 side: budgethomelab.com/guides/restic-homelab-backups/ #homelab
Hot take: uptime is the wrong thing to brag about at home. Nobody is paying you for nines. What matters is how fast you can put it back, and most people have never actually timed that. Chase recovery time, not a streak. #selfhosted #homelab #selfhosting
September 30, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Hot take: uptime is the wrong thing to brag about at home. Nobody is paying you for nines. What matters is how fast you can put it back, and most people have never actually timed that. Chase recovery time, not a streak. #selfhosted #homelab #selfhosting
Tip: on any used SFF or mini PC, go into BIOS and set AC power recovery to On. The factory default leaves the box off after a power cut, so the lab stays down until someone walks over and presses a button. A lot of remote-hands trips are just this setting. #homelab #selfhosted
September 29, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Tip: on any used SFF or mini PC, go into BIOS and set AC power recovery to On. The factory default leaves the box off after a power cut, so the lab stays down until someone walks over and presses a button. A lot of remote-hands trips are just this setting. #homelab #selfhosted
Used SFF listings all look the same until you notice one takes a 2.5in drive and the other does not. M720q, M920q, OptiPlex Micro: what each fits, which CPU is worth paying for, and where the cheap one bites you. budgethomelab.com/articles/used-sff-thinkcentre-vs-optiplex-homelab/ #homelab
September 28, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Used SFF listings all look the same until you notice one takes a 2.5in drive and the other does not. M720q, M920q, OptiPlex Micro: what each fits, which CPU is worth paying for, and where the cheap one bites you. budgethomelab.com/articles/used-sff-thinkcentre-vs-optiplex-homelab/ #homelab
Tip: Proxmox snapshots only work on storage backends that support them: ZFS, LVM-thin, Ceph. Point a VM's disk at plain directory storage and the snapshot button is just decoration, it will fail when you actually need it. Check your storage type before you trust it. #homelab #selfhosted
September 27, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Tip: Proxmox snapshots only work on storage backends that support them: ZFS, LVM-thin, Ceph. Point a VM's disk at plain directory storage and the snapshot button is just decoration, it will fail when you actually need it. Check your storage type before you trust it. #homelab #selfhosted
Cloud backup storage runs about $6 a TB, per month, forever. A refurbished 4TB drive is a one-time $60 to $80. Rent capacity forever or buy it once and just replace the disk when it dies. The math favors owning it almost every time. #selfhosted #homelab
September 26, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Cloud backup storage runs about $6 a TB, per month, forever. A refurbished 4TB drive is a one-time $60 to $80. Rent capacity forever or buy it once and just replace the disk when it dies. The math favors owning it almost every time. #selfhosted #homelab
Real question: single Proxmox host or a cluster? Not what you'd tell someone starting out. What you actually run today, and the real reason you haven't changed it. Mine's still one box, mostly because quorum for a homelab of one felt like overhead I didn't need. #selfhosted #homelab #selfhosting
September 25, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Real question: single Proxmox host or a cluster? Not what you'd tell someone starting out. What you actually run today, and the real reason you haven't changed it. Mine's still one box, mostly because quorum for a homelab of one felt like overhead I didn't need. #selfhosted #homelab #selfhosting
A snapshot on the same disk as the VM it protects is not a backup plan. Wrote up putting Proxmox Backup Server on separate hardware, prune vs garbage collection, and why an untested restore is just an assumption: budgethomelab.com/guides/proxmox-backup-server-setup/ #homelab
September 24, 2026 at 2:00 PM
A snapshot on the same disk as the VM it protects is not a backup plan. Wrote up putting Proxmox Backup Server on separate hardware, prune vs garbage collection, and why an untested restore is just an assumption: budgethomelab.com/guides/proxmox-backup-server-setup/ #homelab
Hot take: Pi-hole isn't really about blocking ads. It's the only place in the house that shows you what every device is quietly phoning home to, and how often. The query log is the feature. Blocking is just the side effect people notice first. #selfhosted #homelab #selfhosting
September 23, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Hot take: Pi-hole isn't really about blocking ads. It's the only place in the house that shows you what every device is quietly phoning home to, and how often. The query log is the feature. Blocking is just the side effect people notice first. #selfhosted #homelab #selfhosting
Tip: .local hostnames rely on mDNS, which is link-local and does not cross VLANs. Segment your network and every Bonjour/Avahi device announcing itself as something.local goes silent on the other side unless you run a reflector. #homelab #selfhosted
September 22, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Tip: .local hostnames rely on mDNS, which is link-local and does not cross VLANs. Segment your network and every Bonjour/Avahi device announcing itself as something.local goes silent on the other side unless you run a reflector. #homelab #selfhosted
Everyone asks if self-hosting is worth it and wants a dollar number. I've run that math plenty: it's close enough to a wash it shouldn't decide anything. What actually predicts a happy homelab in three years is temperament: budgethomelab.com/articles/is-self-hosting-worth-it/ #selfhosted #homelab
September 21, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Everyone asks if self-hosting is worth it and wants a dollar number. I've run that math plenty: it's close enough to a wash it shouldn't decide anything. What actually predicts a happy homelab in three years is temperament: budgethomelab.com/articles/is-self-hosting-worth-it/ #selfhosted #homelab
Tip: on Proxmox with ZFS, cap the ARC. The default hands half your RAM to cache before a single VM boots, so a 16GB mini PC loses 8GB to it. Set zfs_arc_max in /etc/modprobe.d/zfs.conf, then run update-initramfs -u. #homelab #selfhosted
September 20, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Tip: on Proxmox with ZFS, cap the ARC. The default hands half your RAM to cache before a single VM boots, so a 16GB mini PC loses 8GB to it. Set zfs_arc_max in /etc/modprobe.d/zfs.conf, then run update-initramfs -u. #homelab #selfhosted
Plex wants a subscription before it will transcode on hardware you bought, in a closet you pay to power. Jellyfin does that same job for nothing and asks no one for permission. A recurring bill for a feature your own GPU already has. #selfhosted #homelab
September 19, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Plex wants a subscription before it will transcode on hardware you bought, in a closet you pay to power. Jellyfin does that same job for nothing and asks no one for permission. A recurring bill for a feature your own GPU already has. #selfhosted #homelab
Real question: what did you self-host for someone else in the house, and do they actually use it? Not what you use. The thing that stuck with a person who does not care how it works. Immich landed here. Jellyfin never did. #selfhosted #homelab #selfhosting
September 18, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Real question: what did you self-host for someone else in the house, and do they actually use it? Not what you use. The thing that stuck with a person who does not care how it works. Immich landed here. Jellyfin never did. #selfhosted #homelab #selfhosting
You find out the backup has been failing for three weeks by accident, while looking for something else. One inbox that tells you first instead. Uptime Kuma, Proxmox, and Docker alerting free through a Gmail app password: budgethomelab.com/guides/homelab-email-notifications/ #homelab
September 17, 2026 at 2:00 PM
You find out the backup has been failing for three weeks by accident, while looking for something else. One inbox that tells you first instead. Uptime Kuma, Proxmox, and Docker alerting free through a Gmail app password: budgethomelab.com/guides/homelab-email-notifications/ #homelab
Hot take: pointing Watchtower at every container is not maintenance. It is an outage scheduled at a time you did not pick. Update what you actually watch, read the release notes, and leave the rest pinned until you have twenty free minutes. #selfhosted #homelab #selfhosting
September 16, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Hot take: pointing Watchtower at every container is not maintenance. It is an outage scheduled at a time you did not pick. Update what you actually watch, read the release notes, and leave the rest pinned until you have twenty free minutes. #selfhosted #homelab #selfhosting
Tip: Docker publishes ports straight into iptables, underneath UFW. Your firewall says deny and the container is still reachable across the LAN. Bind the port to 127.0.0.1 in the compose file, or the reverse proxy in front of it is decoration. #homelab #selfhosted
September 15, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Tip: Docker publishes ports straight into iptables, underneath UFW. Your firewall says deny and the container is still reachable across the LAN. Bind the port to 127.0.0.1 in the compose file, or the reverse proxy in front of it is decoration. #homelab #selfhosted
The power flickers for two seconds and the box goes down mid-write. That is how a database gets corrupted, not a dramatic all-night outage. Size a UPS by watts instead of VA, and wire the shutdown so it happens without you: budgethomelab.com/articles/best-ups-for-homelab/ #selfhosted #homelab
September 14, 2026 at 2:00 PM
The power flickers for two seconds and the box goes down mid-write. That is how a database gets corrupted, not a dramatic all-night outage. Size a UPS by watts instead of VA, and wire the shutdown so it happens without you: budgethomelab.com/articles/best-ups-for-homelab/ #selfhosted #homelab