Did I Go Overboard on My First Homelab?
Hi everyone — I’m finishing my first serious homelab and would love feedback.
My goal was to build something privacy-first, highly reliable, low-maintenance, and resilient to failure. I probably overbuilt some parts, but I wanted to design it the same way I’d architect production infrastructure.
Current setup:
• UniFi Cloud Gateway Max with Eero Pro 6E nodes in bridge mode and 2.5GbE switching
• Two Dell Wyse 5070s running redundant AdGuard, Tailscale exit nodes, CrowdSec, and observability agents
• Backup node also runs Grafana, Vaultwarden, Uptime Kuma, Nginx Proxy Manager, and iperf3
• Third Dell Wyse 5070 running TVHeadEnd and Channels DVR for OTA TV
• Dell OptiPlex 7070 Micro running Home Assistant in Docker
• Raspberry Pi 5 serving as a centralized update repository and backup appliance using Restic, with encrypted backups replicated to OneDrive
• Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W performing nightly restore tests to validate backup integrity
• Dell Precision 3630 (Xeon E-2224, 32GB RAM, RTX 2070 Super) running Unraid and planned as a local AI platform
I collect logs and metrics using Grafana, Prometheus, Loki, Alloy, and Uptime Kuma. My long-term goal is to build a fully local AI assistant that analyzes Home Assistant automations, infrastructure telemetry, and network behavior to identify issues and suggest improvements.
Would love any feedback, suggestions, or “things you wish you knew” when building a homelab like this.