Today I’ll mainly be documenting the selection of hardware and systems for HomeLab.
hardware
For hardware, I prioritize the Raspberry Pi.
Because the Raspberry Pi has low power consumption, it can be powered by a power bank or solar energy.
During power outages or natural disasters, it can be powered via a laptop’s USB port or a phone’s OTG connection to ensure normal operation, such as for e-readers, electronic tickets, radios, wireless devices, or other programs that need to run.
Most importantly, low power consumption means lower electricity costs. A typical office computer (excluding gaming computers) consumes around 50W at idle and 100W-300W or even more under full load.
The Raspberry Pi, on the other hand, consumes 3W at idle and 10W-15W under full load. This means that a typical computer consumes 6-15 times more power than a Raspberry Pi on average, or about 10 times more at most.
This… This means that, even without any power consumption, a regular computer will use 10 times the electricity of a Raspberry Pi, not to mention gaming PCs or AI PCs.
Then there’s the issue of heat dissipation. Regular large PCs easily overheat, usually requiring built-in fans or even water cooling. However, the Raspberry Pi is small, consumes little power, and has a small cooling fan; a heatsink is usually sufficient. Alternatively, a dedicated cooling fan or cooling pad can be added, but cooling fans also have size and power requirements.
Finally, if you need to move or travel, you can carry dozens of Raspberry Pis in a backpack, while large PCs are too bulky to carry, or at most one or two small PCs.
Its disadvantages include its ARM architecture, which is not supported by many AMD applications, and its performance is relatively weak, making it unsuitable for large-scale AI and other similar scenarios.
system
This refers to the operating system, not the software.
A while ago, I needed to install the Chrome browser on my Raspberry Pi server, which was running Ubuntu Server.
However, this garbage system forcibly installed Snap before Chrome, which I found unacceptable. Snap has a ton of problems, and Ubuntu didn’t ask for my permission.
So, by process of elimination, my first choice was to avoid Ubuntu altogether. If it can force Snap, it can do other disgusting things, like modifying URL sources; it has too many shady practices.
Therefore, I chose Debian because it’s simple enough, open-source, free, stable, and has a good ecosystem. The Raspberry Pi’s system is also based on Debian.
More importantly, only Debian can install PVE systems, while Ubuntu cannot. This comparison makes me even less likely to use Ubuntu.
PVE can install various virtualization systems, such as Windows. Mac, Linux, OpenWRT, Home Assistant, and other XLC sub-containers, etc.
I installed PVE8 on my Raspberry Pi, and it’s working well so far. The Home Assistant system I installed provides a full OS and allows me to build other containers like EMQX, all on the same Raspberry Pi, forming a closed loop.
Therefore, if you are a beginner just starting out with HomeLab, please choose a Debian system (Raspberry Pi system or Armbian) from the beginning, not Ubuntu.
The more you experiment and use it later, the more you’ll find that changing the system or migrating application data will be extremely troublesome. So, choose the correct system from the start.
By the way, PVE is also open source and free.
studio
My home lab is where I focus my hardware and software tinkering, and it’s also the direction I use as my independent studio.
On one hand, it allows me to experiment with personal NAS and other open-source applications; on the other hand, it provides a stable source of income through internet-based businesses, such as cryptocurrency, WordPress blogs, smart home assistants, and automated live streaming.
It’s so simple that it only needs electricity and internet to start operating, and it’s fully automated.
As an aside, recently, due to the price increases in memory, hard drives, and graphics cards, Raspberry Pi has also gone up in price.
I chose Raspberry Pi for my home lab because of its low power consumption, small size, low cost, and good ecosystem; and also because Raspberry Pi is easy to buy and sell.
For example, Orange Pi doesn’t sell well, but it doesn’t raise prices. However, if a Raspberry Pi wants to sell, there’s immediate demand, and even with price increases, there’s still demand because university students need it for their graduate projects, and factories and DIY enthusiasts need it even more. Some individuals or studios also need them. In short, because of its good ecosystem and many uses, it has room for price appreciation and trading value.
If I buy Raspberry Pis secondhand from the beginning, say at 70% of the original price, use them for one, three, or five years, and then sell them when the price increases by about 130% above the normal price, my profit could be 50% or even more of the original price. For example, if a Raspberry Pi costs $100, and I sell it secondhand at a higher price, I can make $50 per Pi. With 100 Pis, that’s $5000. And these are after I’ve used them for one, three, or five years—it’s like using them for free for three years and still making $5000.
If the studio itself is also profitable with the 100 Raspberry Pis, it’s even better. For example, they could deploy their own WordPress blog, a tool site, or an API, or even use FFmpeg for YouTube live streaming, or other methods.
Tips
It’s recommended to initially configure 10 Raspberry Pis and one mini AMD server.
Deploy memory-intensive and AMD-based applications to the mini server; other applications that can be deployed on Raspberry Pis can be deployed directly.
The core is still primarily the Raspberry Pis.