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+-- Forum: General Discussions (https://dotheneedful.online/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=6)
+--- Forum: Homelab (https://dotheneedful.online/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=8)
+--- Thread: Anyone else that *doesn't* homelab? (/showthread.php?tid=18)
Anyone else that *doesn't* homelab? - mistiry - 03-11-2025
Earlier in my career, I definitely had a homelab. At one point, I had an APC half-rack enclosure and 6 rackmount servers. But as I've gotten older, and value my time more preciously than when I was younger, I've gotten away from running much at all at home anymore.
I do maintain a small footprint of VPS systems in the cloud, used to run things such as this website, the IRC bot, my wife's business stuff, and a few other personal things. But at home, there isn't much at all anymore. My wife and oldest have a laptop, I have my PC and my work laptop. A couple of tablets and such floating around. After my move last year, I'm even running on the ISP-provided WiFi6 router. No servers, no raspberry pi's. I did have a few cameras, but have not yet remounted any here after the move.
What I find is that I'm completely free from dealing with tech issues when I'm not at work. Aside from small things that everyone has to deal with - these are computers after all - I am not spending my nights or weekends dealing with some self-inflicted issue with my homelab setup. I spent countless hours doing such in the past, but I just don't see it being worth it for me anymore. Instead of spending non-working hours fixing the same kind of things I get paid (or used to get paid) to fix, I can spend it on hobbies. Gaming. Family.
I do still lose some time on personal projects, like the IRC bot and website and these forums, but it's pretty minimal and I enjoy it. And if you enjoy homelabbing, I say go for it!
RE: Anyone else that *doesn't* homelab? - RussEfarmer - 03-11-2025
I don't have a homelab but I usually have time to mess with what I want to while im at work. Computing to me has turned into a means to an end instead of a fun thing to learn and discover. While im at home it's my screw around time for everything else that isn't a computer. Drawing, cooking, wrench turning, gardening, etc...
I think the big difference is that your garden or the old clunker truck in the back yard isn't going to dramatically break and jump in the way of you enjoying your nights at home. You can call it for the night and sit in the living room and watch TV with those, but if you integrate your homelab into your internet connectivity and entertainment you have to deal with some dumb mistake you made 3 weeks ago making a service go down, and now you're just screwed until you fix it. I think some people enjoy that kind of responsibility in a way though.
RE: Anyone else that *doesn't* homelab? - JollyRgrs - 03-11-2025
Personally, I would be just fine if I could find a way to get rid of my homeprod. the equipment is loud, hot, takes energy ($) and then the HW maintenance when HDDs or NICs go bad or whatnot. However, I run a NAS and Plex and that alone, I don't want to pay for terrabytes of cloud storage, not to mention my 1g symmetric fiber wouldn't be enough for me.
That being said, I have opnsense as my router and then ad-guard running DNS (well, it also runs on opnsense, but some clients filter through ad-guard). I have had my nights trying to get opnsense and adguard "just right", but overall, that just runs. I don't have to worry about it. I also run Home Assistant (home automation) but the tinkering in that isn't on the homelab side, it's within the application. Either way, I just treat things that affect the whole family more as prod. I have automatic backups and only tinker with it when I have enough time to roll back if there's an issue. I 100% get it though, people not wanting to deal with it after working all day.