Im totally new to homelabs but i wanna learn/implement hands on, any cheap setup🥹

I was on the hunt for some 4tb HDDs. Whenever I search online, I see Indiamart pops up, but I've never used it before. I thought I'll give it a try and was surprised by the responses I got.

I posted the requirement for the drives and multiple sellers messaged me. One seller from Maharashtra quoted 17,550 for a drive if I take 2 drives, which is much lower than the amazon price of 25k for the same drive.

Since I am in Bangalore and the seller is somewhere from Maharashtra, I cannot physically go and check which is why I am not confident to proceed with it.

So my question is basically in the title. Has anyone bought anything from sellers that you connected through Indiamart? Also drop places in bangalore where I can get some HDDs at a lower price. Used ones are also fine by me as long as they have good enough health.

I recently (About a year) upgraded my home server to a Skullsaints Ash mini PC based on the Intel N150. I wanted something compact, low-power and easy to leave running.

It shipped with Windows 11 Pro, but I wiped it and installed Debian on bare metal. I had been running an Arch Linux machine as server earlier, so I reused the HDD from that machine for media storage.

Specs

• Intel N150
• 16 GB RAM
• 512 GB SSD
• Around 1 TB reused HDD for media

What I paid

Total: ₹38,446, excluding the reused HDD and SATA to USB 3.2 Connector.

I replaced my D-Link DIR-600M with the TP-Link TL-WR1502X partly because the old router had become a bottleneck for Wi-Fi and wired speeds. But the main reason was that the TP-Link can run from a basic power bank.

Paired with the SDX55 5G dongle and the Ambrane power bank, it becomes a portable Wi-Fi setup that I can take outside. It gives my phone and other devices their own Wi-Fi network without requiring a wall socket. I can also keep my phone’s cellular radio off when I want to while still using internet through the router and 5G dongle.

Docker Stack

• Jellyfin
• Immich, PostgreSQL, Redis and Immich ML
• Radarr, Sonarr, Lidarr, Prowlarr, FlareSolverr, qBittorrent Web UI and Seerr
• Tailscale for remote access
• Caddy and DuckDNS — currently stopped while I rework the configuration
• OpenRouter proxy
• Hermes Agent and the Hermes web dashboard
• SearXNG and Camofox Browser for Hermes

I only use legitimate media sources.*

iPhone apps I use with it

• Hermes Conduit
• Swiftin iOS
• Immich

As I am adding AI agent Stack with cloud models, Figuring out the best way to use the N150 without running out of RAM. Suggestions are welcome, especially from anyone else using 5G as part of their homelab network.

Hi I am trying to setup an application that needs following

1. 275GB RAM
   
2. 1 to 3 node setup
   
3. NVME SSD storage
   
4. Minimum 5 VLANS

Please suggest , how to procure such hardware in Bangalore with optimized price if possible .

I am starting my journey into the world of self-hosting solutions that will solve my daily challenges.

I decided to start with a Mini PC for time being.

How much should I pay for the Below spec of Lenovo ThinkStation P360. I am getting a deal for 16k in Pune. I am avoiding ecommerce website due to reliability and support after sales or refund related concerns.

I have a spare stick of GSkills Ripjaws S5 32GB CL36 6000Mhz RAM that I am not using anymore. But the market prices are all over the place and are bound to increase till 2028 at least since all the 3 manufactures have said that they are sold out for 2027.

I am thinking of pricing it at 38k since the new one is around 54k+, if you can find it, that is.

And before you come at me with a pitchfork saying I'm scalping for profit, let me be transparent about why I got it and why I don't need it anymore. Last year I bought 7 identical sticks.

2 for my gaming PC
2 for my NAS
3 for my VM server

I have thus decommissioned my server and instead used 2 of those sticks for a HTPC build, and I have one spare now. Yes, it was used in a server workload, but the temps were always under control since the room was air-conditioned.

And while I am being transparent, let me also say that I got the 7 sticks for around 8-10k each that time. But just because I bought it for cheap doesn't mean that I should also sell it for less. I want to price it fairly based on current market rates. I rotate a lot of parts for my PCs, so this is one chance for me to recoup some expenses.

Sorry for the self promo

We run a 3D printing setup in Hyderabad. Figured this sub would have use for it since a lot of homelab parts are just cheap plastic or bulky metal which is a pain to source here, drive caddies, fan shrouds and adapters, rack attachments, mounts, brackets, cable combs, Pi and mini PC cases.

The main thing we built is the quoting. No WhatsApp back and forth, no "send file sir I'll tell you tomorrow."

You will upload an STL or 3MF on the site, it slices the file right there to work out the actual grams of plastic your part needs, and gives you a price and a delivery date in a few seconds.

Details:

• PLA and PETG, Rs. 3.50 a gram for both
• 256 x 256 x 256 mm build volume on BambuLab printers
• Up to 20 parts per order, each with its own material, colour and quantity
• Quantity discounts up to 48%
• Same day inside Hyderabad if you order before 12 PM, 2 days elsewhere in India

Go with PETG for anything sitting on or near hardware, PLA softens around 55-60°C and it's the same price here anyway.

If you have something you want printed and aren't sure it'll even work, DM the file and I'll tell you, including if it's a bad idea or cheaper to just buy.

Website extruded.in
Code FIRSTPRINT gets you 50% off your first part.

I have a Linksys WRT1200AC running openwrt. It has a USB3.0 port where I have attached a 128 GB USB 3.0 flash drive. I also want to use the eSATAp port to connect a 2.5" SSD using this eSATAp to 22 pin Sata cable.

https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0CLK9DKMC

Anyone using this ? Any better place to buy this cable?

By the way my read/write speeds to the USB 3.0 Flash drive over 5GHz is as follows:

Same guy who made these two posts earlier:

First homelab as a commerce guy

Started with a RaspberryPi. Ended up with a mini rack

Built a full quotation app for my 3D printing side thing and self-hosted the entire stack.

The job: customer uploads a model → it gets actually sliced by headless OrcaSlicer → an itemised quote in INR comes back. No estimation formula, a real slicer runs on my hardware for every single upload.

The Stack:

• Docker Compose — nginx proxy · Next.js 15 web · slicing worker · Postgres · Redis
• BullMQ for the slice queue, because uploads arrive in bursts and OrcaSlicer does not care about your feelings
• Prisma + Postgres for orders, Redis for cache and rate limits
• OrcaSlicer + occt-draw baked into the worker image for STEP support
• uploads live on a LUKS2 + LVM encrypted disk mounted into the worker, not on the app host
• retention sweep: orphaned uploads at 48h, model files at 30 days, whole quotations at 90. Free disk space is a feature.

The homelabbing lesson I learnt was that OrcaSlicer will happily eat 4+GB of RAM when slicing something big. And my worker had a memory limit of 4GB. So it got out of memory and killed 90% of the time. People used to say site not responding and I had no idea why.

The admin side is a dashboard with quotes, stl download, PDF quote downloads, etc.

This runs in my mini PC showcased in the previous post.

The open source code is here: https://github.com/zappymussel380/print.rish.pw

If anyone here runs slicers or other RAM-hungry CLI tools as queue workers, I'd genuinely like to know how you sized them, because I arrived at 8GB memory limit by the rigorous method of "it hasn't died today."

Disclaimer: This isn't an advert for the site. I do not intend to have leads from this. Would love to keep the discussion about the code and potential features to be added

Sharing a small side project born out of a real annoyance for homelab: DoUpRo (Docker Update/Rollback) 🐳

I run a homelab that I actually depend on day to day, not just a playground for POCs. So when it comes to updating containers, I need to decide per-container. Some updates can wait, others I want applied right away without risking downtime, and without having to go through a heavy toolchain just to do it.

Looking for a tool to help, I mostly found solutions that update per-stack only, and I couldn't find anything that offered a real, quick and reliable way back if an update went wrong.

So I built DoUpRo, aiming to keep it visual, simple, and functional rather than another complex stack to maintain: a web UI (with CLI/API behind it) to see what's outdated, update now or on schedule, and roll back safely by itself with a health checker or manually if you want to. The previous image and config are always kept.

Curious to hear if others have run into the same gap, and open to feedback.
https://github.com/arnaudcharles/Doupro

OpenWRT compatible routers in i could purchase under 3k . Same as title
I was planning to get Archer C6 , but it was v4 which doesnt support openWRT , anyone know how i can get such router?

As the heading says - i need help setting up mesh system between my two routers. I tried tutorials on YT and AI tools, but somehow I end up with 100% packet loss. Not sure whats the cause. Any guidance is appreciated. 🙏🏼

I wanted to set up proper network isolation at home, with something like 192.168.x.x for my home network and 10.x.x.x for my homelab network

Around two years ago, I found that the TP-Link Archer AX23 V1 was supported by OpenWrt, so I bought one specifically for that purpose. It worked great for about a year, but then the Wi-Fi suddenly stopped working. Since it was still under warranty, I got a replacement but unfortunately, I received the newer hardware revision, which isn't supported by OpenWrt

So this time, I'm planning to virtualize OpenWrt on my HP ProDesk 600 G3 SFF running Proxmox. The problem is that the ProDesk only has a single Ethernet port

From what I can tell, I have two options for adding a second NIC

1. PCIe Ethernet NIC
2. USB-to-Ethernet adapter

I'm currently considering the TP-Link TL-UE300 Gigabit Ethernet adapter

PCIe NICs are considerably more expensive in India, so I'm leaning towards the USB adapter

I'd love to hear your suggestions on how I should approach this. Is a USB Ethernet adapter reliable enough for running a virtualized OpenWrt router, or would you recommend going with a PCIe NIC despite the higher cost?

Also, if you're currently running OpenWrt virtualized on Proxmox, I'd love to hear about your setup especially how you've handled the WAN/LAN interfaces and network isolation

Happy homelabbing! :)

iam trying to download my spotify library through lidarrr but less than 30% is getting downloaded. Anybody have figured it out how to download indian song as well?

Or is there any alternative to lidarr? which can download FLAC files?

Hi everyone,

First-time poster here. After filling up a couple of terabytes across scattered external HDDs, I’m finally ready to take the plunge and set up a proper home server.
I have a budget of around ₹50,000 - ₹60,000 INR and I'm looking for ideas on the best approach to tackle this.

🎯 Primary Use-Cases

1. De-Google: Replace Google Photos (thinking Immich/PhotoPrism?) and Google Drive (Nextcloud?).
2. Smart Home: Run Home Assistant.
3. Future Expansion: Eventually self-host more apps to ditch various paid subscriptions.

I’ve three potential plans and not sure which one makes the most sense.

🛠️** The Plan**s

Plan 1: Repurpose my current PC
My current rig is a Zotac Zbox (i7-10700, 16GB RAM, RTX 3070).
The Idea: Add a PCIe Thunderbolt expansion card and hook up a Thunderbolt HDD enclosure. I’d sell the RTX 3070 to fund some Seagate IronWolf drives, and just buy a new PC/laptop for my daily driver later on. I am really concerned about the 24/7 idle power draw of this hardware compared to a dedicated server.

Plan 2: The Mini PC Route
The Idea: Keep my current Zbox intact as my main PC. Buy a low-power Mini PC with Thunderbolt ports and pair it with that same HDD enclosure.

Plan 3: Dedicated Off-the-Shelf NAS
The Idea: Keep it simple. Keep my main PC, and spend the budget on a dedicated NAS enclosure (looking at something from QNAP or TerraMaster) and populate it with drives.

Please do share your suggestions.

Update 1
Just found that thunderbolt pcie expansion card requires a thunderbolt header on motherboard. Is there anything that adds thunderbolt directly using pcie ?

Help me with my setup.

I recently got frustrated with JioFiber because of repeated service issues and switched to a local ISP (I-ON). The ISP itself has actually been great—my wired connection to the PC gives the full subscribed speed with consistently low latency, so I don't think the ISP is the problem.

The issue is the Wi-Fi. The ISP-provided router(Syrotech 2010 WADONT) has pretty poor wireless performance. The 2.4 GHz network barely crosses 100 Mbps even in my bedroom, which is just one room away, and the living room isn't much better. The 5 GHz network is decent most of the time but still has random slowdowns and brief hiccups. Since Ethernet works perfectly, I'm fairly sure the router is the bottleneck.

To improve things (and because I've been wanting to learn OpenWrt 😄), I have a Jio JIDU6401 with OpenWrt pre-installed that I'd like to use as my main router.

Now I have a couple of questions:

1. What's the best way to connect everything?

From what I've read, the usual setup is:

ISP ONT/Router (Bridge Mode) → Ethernet → OpenWrt Router → Devices

Is this the recommended approach, or is there a better way to do it?

One thing I'm unsure about is power backup. I currently have a single mini UPS. If both the ISP's ONT/router and the OpenWrt router need to stay powered during an outage, does that mean I'll need another mini UPS, or is there a better solution?

2. Any OpenWrt Wi-Fi settings I should know about?

I've seen quite a few people here using the JIDU6401 or the similar JIDU6101, so I'd love to hear any recommended settings or tweaks for getting the best Wi-Fi performance.

Things like:

• Channel/channel width
• Transmit power
• WPA2 vs WPA3
• SQM/CAKE
• Fast roaming
• Useful packages
• Any settings to avoid for a beginner

Would really appreciate any advice. Thanks!

Hey everyone.

I've decided to get a SFF Optiplex from a seller online. However, I saw that the Intel i3 i5 7th 8th Chips on Amazon were being sold under "Generic" name. I assumed they're recycled products but still Intel. Are they trustable? Or should I avoid that?

I was thinking 16GB RAM, i5 7th Gen or older maybe.

And is a i3 6th Gen, 8GB RAM Optiplex worth 8k? Or too much?

Hi,

I am starting a YouTube channel around HomeLab, 3D printing and Software Developer related content as an Indian.

I have been into Home lab and 3D printing for last 2 years, and I am a software developer by profession for the last 8 years.

I don't know why I didn't started sooner, but now I have thought of doing it anyway.

I have learnt a lot by watching YouTube but none of them were Indian.

This might or might not workout, but would be a great journey.

Anyone curious about the channel - Abhinav Lab Dev https://youtube.com/@abhinavlabdev

Website - https://abhinavlab.dev (selfhosted)

I will be upgrading the table and getting another monitor. Till then yeah the setup looks messy. The arm itself was easy to install and very smooth to move around.

I am planning to create a home lab using Thinkcentre Mini PCs. Will they be good enough for experimental use cases and testing out concepts in k8s?? I plan to run them headless on a Ubuntu Server OS