Are you in the US? If so, what state? This might be one of the few things I would never consider self hosting. There are so many legal issues you could run into, and if your self hosted solution fails, you’ll be fucked (to put it lightly). I’m an HR/payroll professional by trade, in case that helps.

Buster is actually calculating the surface area of your server, and has already determined that he will fit perfectly on it.

I’m also a person that has always struggled to learn by solely reading. Typically a combination of video tutorials and documentation, while actually doing the work on my end, is how I usually grasp concepts.

This is something I have on my to-do list. I just need to figure out which router to go with.

Hack The Box looks like it could be quite interesting and fun. I think I’ll start there. I appreciate your feedback!

Thanks for the great info! What mini PC did you end up going with? I’ve heard Beelink and a few others thrown around here and there, and most seem to be impressed with what they can do. Do you mind elaborating some on how you handle your drives with this type of setup? Do you just have some sort of NAS connected directly to the pc?

I went with the yearly unlimited subscription through Frugal. I believe I paid $39.00 for the year, plus it comes with a 500gb block account through Blocknews.

A good indexer is critical to your setup. Since I just started my Usenet journey a month ago, I can only recommend two: NZBgeek and Drunkenslug. There are many others that I’m sure are worth it, I just haven’t had time to test anything else. NZBgeek might not have open registrations right now.

I use SABnzbd as my downloader.

Other than that, one of the best resources I used when getting set up was TRaSH Guides. Endless guides on configuring your downloader, indexers, and much more. Do some research on Sonarr, Radarr, and the other arr programs. Takes a little bit of effort getting it all set up, but makes everything so easy once you’re done.

I have been for about a year with one 8gb Pi 4 with a 500gb ssd. I bought it as a way to dip my toes into self hosting. Started with Home Assistant OS, but now I have a bunch of containers set up, such as Home Assistant, Plex, Sonarr, Radarr, Prowlarr, qbittorrent, and a few others. I will eventually get something a little beefier to host my media, but will absolutely keep the Pi running.

I have set this up in the past, and didn’t notice any significant delays. The only issue I ever ran into with this setup was my devices suddenly showing up as “no response” in the Home app. I never really had time to investigate the issue, so I’m not really sure what caused the problem. It wasn’t a huge deal for me since I could still use HA or the Hue app for my lights. I just moved and plan on trying it again once I get my server up and running.

I figured email would be a common theme. I’m just starting to dip my toes into all of this, so an email server is not on my to-do list (and may never be).

Email was one I figured I would get an answer for. I know plenty of people do it, but I’m not sure if I’d trust myself to do it right.

The paid offsite backups just seem like a good idea. Some might have the ability to also self-host that, whether it be in a friend/family members home, but if that isn’t an option, paying for a service could save your ass some day.

I know some others have already mentioned it, but this would be a great time to move your passwords to something more secure. I recommend Bitwarden as well. You can import you current passwords fairly easily.