Are you looking for a fun homelab project to try this weekend? I’ve got you covered with three to spin up! From network notifications to server performance and backup, here are the homelab projects you should get up and going before Monday comes.
Get a notification when a new device joins your Wi-Fi with NetAlertX
Is your neighbor stealing your Wi-Fi?
Have you ever wanted to know when new devices joined your Wi-Fi? Well, NetAlertX is the perfect tool for the job. NetAlertX runs full ad-hoc network scans and gives you a full visualization breakdown of your network. It also offers cross-network syncing and visibility if you have multiple VLANs or networks to monitor.
NetAlertX integrates with over 80 notification services, including email and various messaging platforms. This allows you to get notified whenever a device joins your network. Having this type of visibility into your network infrastructure can help in so many ways. For example, if you constantly have devices joining and leaving your network that you don’t recognize, it’s possible that there are people on your network that shouldn’t be there.
Whether you worry about intruders being on your network or not, monitoring network activity is crucial to a secure homelab. So, if you don’t already have something like NetAlertX in place on your network, take the time this weekend to set it up.
See real-time performance data for every server in your homelab with NetData
Are any of your servers running full tilt?
If you’ve ever wanted a simple solution for monitoring multiple servers at one time, NetData is a great choice. While it’s geared toward enterprise users, NetData introduced a homelab plan a few years ago that’s geared toward non-commercial at-home users.
With NetData, you’ll be able to see real-time performance of every server in your homelab. From the total disk read and write performance across your nodes to average CPU usage per node, average RAM usage per node, and more, NetData helps you monitor every aspect of your homelab.
Even if you don’t think you need something like NetData deployed in your homelab, you probably do. Having a monitoring service like this deployed is a great way to keep an eye on your servers.
If one server is sitting close to 80% CPU and 90% RAM utilization all day, while another sits at 10% CPU and 20% RAM, it might be time to distribute some services in your homelab differently. Or, if all of your servers are constantly sitting at a high RAM or CPU usage, it might be time to upgrade your hardware (or add a new server into the mix).
Really, the information that you gain from running NetData in your homelab is invaluable when it comes time to upgrade. I’ve learned the hard way that upgrading a homelab before it’s necessary just introduces a bunch of pain and unnecessary spending. But, waiting too long is just as painful—so having a tool like NetData deployed can really help dial in exactly when an upgrade is (or isn’t) necessary.
Ensure your sensitive data is backed up with Kopia and BackBlaze B2
Are you prepared for hardware failure?
If you have data stored in your homelab that you would be devastated to lose, then you really need a solid backup plan. That’s where Kopia and BackBlaze B2 come in.
Kopia is a new kid on the block when it comes to backup solutions, so if you’d rather an older program, you can use Duplicati. Both work in very similar ways, and can connect to a wide range of online storage providers.
The way that Kopia works is by encrypting, compressing, and de-duplicating your backup before it sends it to whatever your selected cloud provider is. I’d recommend using Backblaze B2, which is just $6/TB/mo for pricing.
Since Kopia is encrypting your data before sending it to the cloud, even sensitive information is safe to be stored off-site—just double-check the encryption function if you’re really worried about data security.
You can set Kopia to back up just specific folders, or your entire NAS, depending on how much storage you need. If you haven’t set your NAS to back up offsite yet, then you really should take the time to do that this weekend. It’s like insurance—something you hope you’ll never need, but want to have anyway just in case.
If you’re just getting started with homelabbing and trying to figure out what hardware to run, then I would focus on mini PCs instead of full-blown servers. I recently migrated all of my Docker containers (over 50!) from my big i9-13900K server with 96GB of RAM to my NAS and two mini PCs that each only have 16GB of RAM.
Having tons of resources at your disposal seems nice, but it can become a bit much of a power bill if you don’t actually need all of that power at your fingertips. So, just skip the big enterprise servers and pick up a mini PC instead.
- Brand
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KAMURI
- CPU
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i5-14450HX
The KAMRUI Hyper H2 Mini PC features an Intel Core i5-14450HX 10-core 16-thread processor and 16GB of DDR4 RAM. The included 512GB NVMe SSD comes with Windows 11 pre-installed so the system is ready to go out of the box.
