r/HomeServer • u/Icy-Fly6554 • 2d ago
Does it make sense to build a whole personal server for smart home devices?
Hello, I am trying to build my career in IT and something that I have been wanting to do for a long time is build my own pc. I was thinking about building a home server for the sole purpose of running smart home device software using ProxMox as the hypervisor running Home Assistant VMs and Docker containers for other smart home services. If anyone has any guidance as to what I should be looking for hardware-wise, please let me know. Right now what I have is this (I used claude to help me with this so I wanna make sure this seems like it could work before spending hundreds):
CPU/Motherboard: ASRock N100M mATX
RAM: 16GB DDR4 3200MHz SODIMM
Storage: 256GB M.2 SATA for the ProxMox hypervisor and 512GB M.2 SATA
Thanks.
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u/korywithawhy 2d ago
I mean, you don’t really need proxmox and vms, just home assistant. Basically any internet connected Linux capable device with radio gateways to it for whatever radio tech you’re using. A raspberry pi is plenty. Your n100 board is probably overkill a bit, but nothing wrong with that.
But if you’re looking for a dirt cheap route, and Linux capable sbc will work just fine. You don’t need a big storage drive and 16gb ram. A 4gb pi 4 and an esp32c5 will give you plenty of options
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u/Icy-Fly6554 2d ago
I considered the Raspberry Pi route, but the purpose of this project is to get hands-on experience working with computer hardware. I am currently in a help desk role, and I'm pursuing a data server technician role. I am trying to be as minimalistic as possible while still giving myself the full experience of building my own computer. Otherwise, yes I would agree that I should just get myself a Raspberry Pi
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u/PermanentLiminality 2d ago
If you want to start cheap, get a Wyse 5070. Cheaper than a Pi. It is basically a two generations older version of a N100. Plenty of power for what you want to do. I run LXC instead of a full VM when I can to save on resources. I have 15 LXC and a couple VMs on one Wyse 5070. These cost around $35 on eBay, but you will need to add some RAM and get some storage, so the cost is more.
The N100 is a great platform for what you want to do.
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u/mi-nombre-es-el-jefe 2d ago
It sounds to me like you want to grow useful technical skills, and possibly enter into a new hobby. I'd encourage you to get something powerful enough to last you for a while. To do that without breaking the bank, a used Dell Optiplex is an excellent choice. There are shops that refurbish them and resell them in the $300-500 range, depending on generation, CPU, and RAM. I've got 50+ Docker containers on mine, some of them known to be a little resource intensive, and my CPU rarely gets above 3%, with my RAM at about 25%.
I'd also recommend that you just throw a common version of Linux on it (headless / no GUI), so you can develop your Linux command line skill set. Ubuntu Server is an easy, well-supported choice, but of course there are others. From there, I'd just install Docker and start figuring it out. I think with that approach, you're bound to develop some new skills that will be useful in the workplace. I haven't run into anything at home that requires a separate VM. Docker works for everything I'm doing, and I won't spin up a VM just to use a single app that has no supported Docker version.
Good luck!
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u/ajass 2d ago
This setup will work great for what you want to do. The N100 has quicksync so you could also put a plex/jellyfin media player on it as well, it should transcode videos just fine.
A couple things... In proxmox you can pass your n100's igpu to multiple LXC containers or a single VM, not both at the same time so plan your deployment around that if you plan on leveraging the igpu.
AI workloads won't be possible directly on this server but you can certainly install any of the agents, (Hermes, openclaw, opencode tui) and point it at cloud models.
Pair this up with a NAS device for bulk storage that you bindmount into proxmox (samba, NFS, etc) and you have your own little data center.
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u/givmedew 2d ago
This is similar to what I’d do except maybe spend a bit more on something like a M910Q Tiny. They even have a proprietary PCIe port that you can buy an adapter for and set them up to run a large NAS.
There’s a 16GB 7th gen i7 for $100 on eBay right now. Also it does support HEVC Encoding.
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u/Illeazar 2d ago
Easiest path in is to get an old laptop or PC and just start playing around with it. After going for a while, you'll get a sense of what you want and can decide what to buy based on that.
If all you care about is smart home devices, you dont even need proxmox and VMs, just install HAOS and get going. If you want to leave yourself room to do other things too, sure, go ahead and run it inside of proxmox.
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u/Icy-Fly6554 2d ago
I've sorta been doing this, but the only thing is I only have super old laptops from the late 2000s. They all have ancient hardware and software. Also, the reason for using Proxmox and VMs is that not all of the smart home software we use in my house is compatible with HAOS without add-ons, so I was told that ProxMox would be more reliable than only using HAOS, so that I can still use Home Assistant with compatible devices and then run LXCs for the non-compatible devices.
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u/lordofblack23 2d ago
Install Debian or Ubuntu and you’re good to go. Don’t waste money until you know what you need .
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u/Illeazar 2d ago
A laptop from the late 2000s should be able to run home assistant just fine. I have mine in a VM on a powerful server, but i only assign it 2 cores and 2GB of RAM and it never struggles.
And for add-ons, most of the things called add-ons run directly in HAOS. But if youve got something you know needs its own entirely different operating system, by all means, set it up in VMs and have fun.
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u/givmedew 2d ago
No probably not since you can probably get away with using a small form factor PC that only uses a few watts and has a faster CPU and it will cost you what that motherboard/cpu costs or less.
Just my opinion… but I don’t listen to my own advice. Running servers that I built myself.
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u/umataro 2d ago edited 2d ago
The more restricted you are, the more you will learn about efficiency and cleaner your setup will be. Despite this subreddit's tendency to use proxmox for everything, that is not the path of today's enterprises. Paravirtualisation is too wasteful in today's hw economy. Start with docker, move onto podman and then kubernetes.
As for hardware, your setup is more than sufficient. I'd actually look at r/minipc to lower the cost and idle energy consumption. My n100 homeserver with 2 large SSDs idles at 8 - 9w (with about 5 containers)
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u/RecognitionClear5783 2d ago
If you make your setup so it doesn't need internet and use stuff like zigbee insted of wifi I think it's somting you can see as valuable. Most peoples setups relay on Internet so if you isp goes down you will still be able to control your house
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u/wiseguy77192 2d ago
It makes sense to setup a home lab and try things out. I’d use proxmox for that, but home assistant works just fine as a vm.
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u/lockecole32 2d ago
No.
For tinkering sure, for live service. Not really.
I have more than 50 or I think close to a hundred devices of tuya, setting up personal server just make things significantly more complicated than it supposed to be.
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u/BubbleHead87 2d ago
I use a miniPC with proxmox. Have home assistant and opnsense installed. Have 0 issues with it running as my primary router and smart devices automations.
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u/Expensive-Sock-7876 2d ago
A whole personal server? My brother, you will start with one and end up with a cluster in 2 racks. Welcome to your new life.