My home lab consists of two Dell Precision workstations running Linux and TrueNAS. It is designed to support virtualisation, network storage, backups, web hosting, media services, and home automation, with a strong focus on reliability, security, and resilience.
Dell Precision 5820 (Ubuntu Server LTS)
Xeon W-2155 (10 cores / 20 threads), 32GB DDR4 ECC RAM, MegaRAID SAS 9440-8i controller, NVIDIA Quadro P4000 (8GB), 4× 10TB Seagate Exos SAS HDDs in hardware RAID 5, and 2× 256GB NVMe SSDs in software RAID 1 for the boot drive.
Dell Precision 3620 (TrueNAS SCALE)
Xeon E3-1240 v5 (4 cores / 8 threads), 40GB DDR4 RAM, Dell HBA330+ HBA, NVIDIA Quadro P600 (2GB), Intel I350-T4 quad-port NIC, 3× 10TB HGST SAS HDDs in RAIDZ1, and a 1TB WD Red SSD used as the boot drive.
The majority of the hardware in this home lab has been sourced second-hand or repurposed. The Precision 5820 was purchased used with the storage drives included, while the Precision 3620 was acquired at no cost and upgraded with additional components such as the NIC and HBA. The only newly purchased component in the lab is a 1TB WD Red SSD used as a boot drive.
This approach reflects a focus on cost efficiency, sustainability, and extracting maximum value from enterprise-grade hardware—mirroring the constraints and decision-making commonly found in production IT environments.
Both systems are protected by a CyberPower VP1600 UPS. Power monitoring and coordinated shutdown are handled using Network UPS Tools (NUT), with a Raspberry Pi 5 acting as the NUT server and powered via PoE. Both servers run NUT clients with custom shutdown scripts that automatically execute when the UPS switches to battery power.
The Ubuntu server hosts several production services, including Plex Media Server shared with family both internally and externally, Samba (SMB) file shares, SSH and RDP for remote administration, FTPES via FileZilla Server, and NGINX with Certbot for secure website hosting using a reverse proxy. Encrypted backups are handled using Duplicati 2.0 and stored on the TrueNAS system. Automatic system updates are enabled to ensure all security patches are applied.
The TrueNAS server provides centralised backup storage and hosts two virtual machines: an Ubuntu Server LTS VM for game servers (such as Multicraft) with HTTPS web consoles and scheduled backups, and a Home Assistant VM for home automation and custom integrations such as UniFi Doorbell notifications on Google Home speakers. Additional Docker applications include Homebridge for Apple HomeKit integration and rclone for synchronising backups to cloud storage for off-site redundancy.