A Homelab journey
A few years ago, I started exploring this topic, sparked by my deep interest in João Gilberto's music. I discovered that due to legal disputes over the rights to his songs, his music was removed from several streaming platforms, including Spotify, which I used.
This situation made me reflect on the shift from physical media to digital, a transition that has been unfolding over the years. My perspective comes from the media I grew up with.
It all began with CDs that I carefully maintained, valuing not just the music but the physical object itself. Then came my first personal computer, a 486 DX2 66Mhz, which included a Media Vision Creative Lab Multimedia Kit. This kit had a SCSI sound card, a 2x SCSI CD-ROM drive, and a case full of shareware CDs. I loved the plasticky smell of that case and cherished it for the surprises and new worlds it could bring.
Later, I had Super Nintendo, Sega Saturn, Nintendo 64, and PlayStation 2 cartridges and disks. We also bought software in physical boxes. I remember the floppy disks that held Windows 95, and later, Windows ME, Windows 2000, and XP came on CD-ROMs.
Fast forward a few decades, and now most of the media we consume, digitally or not, isn't owned by us—it's just temporarily licensed. Our Kindle books, Spotify tracks, Netflix movies and series, apps on our phones, and digital games all fall into this category.
This shift in the business model has become so dominant that it's often impossible to actually own a movie, TV show, or software. How do you buy a movie these days if not on Blu-ray, and even then, where do you play it? The medium is nearly obsolete.
You might wonder why we even care about keeping these things. I believe it's because we take their availability for granted until they're suddenly gone. I've joked about it before, but it became a reality—at some point, Harry Potter disappeared from Netflix, and over time, its cultural impact could just fade away because there's no easy way to access it. Maybe it'll end up in museums, or artists might decide to pull their work due to some political misstep by a company.
This got me thinking about alternatives for archiving in the "modern era." I didn't want to start a vinyl collection—it's a hassle to move—or build a Blu-ray collection. I was looking for a modern equivalent.
That's how my journey into the "Homelab" universe began. After 4 or 5 years, I've successfully built a system that lets me store and access my digital media collection independently of streaming services. I've also gained a lot of independence from platforms and paid services, allowing me to shape my experience the way I want. It's like "building your own house" or "fixing your own shack." Instead of relying on pre-fabricated solutions like Netflix, Spotify, Dropbox, Google Photos, or Gmail, I found solutions that better suited my preferences.
I live in an apartment in Berlin, and if you look at my pantry, you might mistake it for a small IT cabinet. There's a metal cabinet with a 24-port network switch, a NAS with about 40TB of storage, and some mini PCs. This setup houses my entire digital catalog, including music, photos, videos, documents, and even this website.
This setup has given me peace of mind, knowing that my digital media is secure and accessible on my terms. It has also been a rewarding project, allowing me to learn and grow my technical skills while preserving the media that matters to me.
What is in there?
I'll break down what I can do with my Homelab, discuss specific components, and share some of my learnings, hoping that some might find the solution interesting and learn from what I've tried.
I think of my Homelab structure as divided into Networking, Storage, Servers, and Clients. I have a network stack with network switches, gateways, access points, and a modem; a storage stack with a Synology NAS (Network Attached Storage) and an extension unit; a server stack with a Dell mini-PC; and finally, a stack of clients that includes end-devices (iPhones, Apple TVs, or browsers) and single-board computers (Raspberry Pis and N100).
There are several services running on the Homelab, which I can group as follows:
Photo and Personal Video Storage
I have basic network shares where my entire personal library is stored. This includes all my digital photos and digitized negatives since 2003, organized by year and date. I mostly interact with them using Adobe Lightroom Classic.
On top of that, I'm running a software called Immich, which is like a Google Photos replacement. It has a web interface with face and object recognition, allowing me to browse the library in a similar way.
Music
For my music collection, I use Roon as the core. It organizes and streams my music library to various client devices. Roon monitors both my local files and integrates with two streaming platforms (Tidal and Qobuz) for content I don't have.
Roon offers great playback capability and DSP, and a mobile client that lets me stream and store music locally on my phone.
One of the cool things about Roon is its active community, which has developed a vast ecosystem of extensions, plugins, and tools to enhance the experience. For example, I have a little monitor connected to one of my sound systems that automatically displays the cover of the currently playing track.
Books
Calibre is a great platform for storing and managing the metadata of eBooks. Even though its UI seems stuck in 2002, it's highly effective and perhaps the only tool capable of doing so.
Calibre works well with different eReaders (like Kobo and Kindle). With some plugins, I can deDRM the eBooks I purchase on Amazon and store the files locally.
Movies and TV Shows
For my movies and TV shows, I use Plex as the central hub. Plex organizes my video library and streams it to various devices in my home. It provides a user-friendly interface with metadata, cover art, and trailers. Additionally, Plex allows remote access, so I can watch my collection from anywhere.
The images above are from the "Mommy, Why is There a Server in the House?" child-book, which was in reality marketing for Windows Home Server.