For years, I stared at an old, dusty gaming rig that sat in my closet. It has an i7-6700K, a GTX 1070 and 16 GB of RAM, all of it being perfectly functional, but had long been replaced by my current rig many moons ago. Meanwhile, my Google One, iCloud, password manager and entertainment subscriptions racked up damage monthly. Eventually, I decided it was time to put a stop to it, and put that old machine to good use.

I spent under $200 to outfit my old rig with a new CPU cooler, install a new managed gigabit switch, a handful of Ethernet cables, and a couple of 2 TB drives taken from other systems in my home that were sitting idle. I only planned on building a home lab at first, but the result ended up being even better. It turned into a home server that happily hums away, doing more for me than the cloud services it replaced.

I didn't plan to replace subscriptions at first, but it was a logical step

4 subscriptions that didn't make sense anymore

Initially, I had planned on installing something like Proxmox strictly for experimentation, but it quickly ended up being the home to a bunch of self-hosted services, some of which replaced my subscriptions right away.

The first to go was Google One, the Docs storage component of which I swapped for Nextcloud. File sync across my laptop and phone works the way you'd expect, the mobile apps are functional if not flashy. The web UI isn't as snappy as Google's and the initial setup was a bit difficult, but for the actual task of keeping my files synced and accessible, the swap was really clean.

My subscription to iCloud was the next to go, which housed the majority of my photos. Immich has matured fast over the last couple of years, and the AI-powered search, facial recognition, and timeline view genuinely hold their own against what Apple and Google offer. I can easily search for photos of the beach and get sensible results, for instance. The mobile app handles automatic backups in the background better than I thought it would, and the fact that it's entirely self-hosted is massive.

👁 XDA
Quiz
8 Questions · Test Your Knowledge

Home server dos and don'ts
Trivia challenge

Think you know how to run a home server the right way? Put your knowledge to the test.

SecurityHardwareNetworkingStorageSoftware
01 / 8Security

Which of the following is the most important first step when setting up a home server that will be accessible from the internet?

Correct! Default credentials are one of the most exploited vulnerabilities in home servers. Attackers use automated bots that constantly scan for devices still using factory-set logins, so changing them immediately is a critical first line of defense.
Not quite. The answer is changing all default usernames and passwords. Leaving default credentials in place is one of the leading causes of home server compromises, as bots actively scan the internet for devices using factory-set logins.
02 / 8Networking

What is the recommended practice when exposing a home server service to the internet, rather than opening ports directly on your router?

Correct! Using a VPN tunnel or a reverse proxy like Nginx Proxy Manager or Cloudflare Tunnels adds a protective layer between the internet and your server. This approach hides your real IP, limits the attack surface, and gives you much finer control over who can access what.
Not quite. The best practice is to use a VPN tunnel or reverse proxy. Options like UPnP and DMZ hosting expose your server with little to no filtering, making it far easier for attackers to find and exploit open services.
03 / 8Storage

You're running a NAS at home and want to protect against drive failure. Which RAID level offers both redundancy AND the best use of drive capacity across four drives?

Correct! RAID 5 uses parity data spread across all drives, meaning you only lose one drive's worth of space to redundancy across the entire array. With four drives, you get the equivalent of three drives of usable storage while still tolerating a single drive failure.
Not quite. RAID 5 is the answer here. RAID 0 has no redundancy at all, RAID 1 mirrors data and cuts usable capacity in half, and RAID 10 requires at least four drives but only gives you 50% usable capacity — making RAID 5 the most capacity-efficient redundant option.
04 / 8Security

Why is it considered a bad practice to run all your home server services as the root user?

Correct! The principle of least privilege dictates that services should only have the permissions they need to function. If a service running as root is exploited, the attacker inherits root access to your entire system — meaning they can read, modify, or delete anything.
Not quite. The correct answer is that a compromised root-level service gives an attacker full system control. This is why best practice is to run each service under its own limited user account, containing the damage if something goes wrong.
05 / 8Hardware

When choosing hardware for a 24/7 home server, which factor is most important for long-term cost efficiency?

Correct! A server running around the clock means electricity costs add up fast. A machine drawing 10 watts versus 100 watts at idle can make a significant difference on your annual electricity bill. Platforms like Intel N-series or older Xeon-D chips are popular precisely because of their efficient idle power draw.
Not quite. Low idle power consumption is the most important factor for a 24/7 machine. High core counts, gaming GPUs, and massive RAM are rarely needed for typical home server workloads, and they dramatically increase the electricity cost of running your server year-round.
06 / 8Software

What is the key advantage of running home server applications inside Docker containers rather than installing them directly on the host OS?

Correct! Docker containers package each application with its own dependencies, preventing version conflicts between services and keeping your host OS clean. If a containerized app breaks or becomes compromised, the damage is largely contained to that container rather than spreading to the whole system.
Not quite. The key advantage is isolation — containers bundle their own dependencies and are separated from the host OS and each other. Docker doesn't inherently make apps faster, back up your data, or encrypt storage; those are separate concerns you need to handle yourself.
07 / 8Networking

What does the '3-2-1 backup rule' recommend, and why is it relevant to home server owners?

Correct! The 3-2-1 rule is a foundational data protection strategy. Three copies means one failure doesn't wipe everything out, two media types protect against format-specific failures, and one offsite copy guards against physical disasters like fire or theft at your home.
Not quite. The 3-2-1 rule means three copies of your data, stored on two different media types, with one copy kept offsite. It's one of the most widely recommended backup strategies because it protects against hardware failure, accidental deletion, and physical disasters all at once.
08 / 8Software

Which of the following is a critical mistake many home server owners make that can leave their system permanently inaccessible after an update?

Correct! Automatic updates can occasionally break kernel modules, networking drivers, or critical services — and on a headless server you access remotely, a broken update can lock you out entirely. Best practice is to review updates, test on non-critical systems first, and always have a way to access the server physically if something goes wrong.
Not quite. The dangerous mistake is applying automatic OS updates without testing them first. A bad update on a headless remote server can break SSH access, networking, or boot entirely — leaving you locked out with no easy way back in. Static IPs and SSH key auth are actually good practices, not mistakes.
Challenge Complete

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/ 8

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Vaultwarden took over from my paid password manager, and this one barely deserves a paragraph because it's so straightforward. It's a lightweight server implementation compatible with Bitwarden's clients, runs in a single Docker container on essentially no resources, and syncs across every device I own. Functionally I cannot tell the difference between this and what I was paying for.

Finally, Jellyfin replaced some (not all) of my entertainment subscriptions. Some services I keep subscriptions to just because it's easier than playing my own library, both physical and digital, and those can be easily replaced by Jellyfin. Obviously, it's not a replacement for something like Netflix or Apple TV, both of which have exclusives that are only available to stream.

Jellyfin
iOS compatible
Yes
Android compatible
Yes

Why a gaming PC was the perfect launchpad

It had everything I needed to get up and running without spending a fortune

Gaming PCs are a great starting point for a home server, and even when they're not in working order to begin with, getting one back up to functioning condition doesn't require a fortune, especially if the core components are intact. My 6700K and 16 GB of DDR4 has handled every home server and lab workload I've thrown at it. Most modern self-hosted apps come packaged in Docker, which sip resources. We're talking a few megabytes of RAM and a couple of percent of the CPU, at the most. Nextcloud and Immich are probably the heaviest services I run, and Immich specifically leans on my GPU. Transcoding for Jellyfin isn't done with NVENC, but instead, it's Intel Quick Sync, which is extremely light and efficient.

The savings are real, even after electricity costs

Running something like this costs almost nothing per month

The system pulls roughly 80 watts on average, which works out to about 58 kWh a month. At Ontario's all-in residential rate of around 16 cents per kWh after the Ontario Electricity Rebate, that's about $9 a month in electricity. The four subscriptions I cut were running me a little over $40 a month combined, so the net savings landed around $30 a month, which adds up quickly when you stretch it over the span of a year.

I'm now on the hook for maintenance

Less of a hassle than it used to be, but still significant

The nice thing about actually paying for subscriptions is that they buy you the right to make Google's outages Google's problem. When you self-host, every drive failure, every botched update, every expired certificate, every ISP hiccup is suddenly your problem and yours alone. I've had a Nextcloud update break overnight syncs and eat a Saturday morning sorting it out.

With that said, preventative maintenance is pretty simple these days, and with everything being contained in a Docker Compose file, I can update things with a few edited lines. Storage costs are high, and once my family outgrows the couple of terabytes I have in there, I'll have to bite the bullet for a few hundred dollars worth of additional storage, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

Subscriptions are useful, but a home server can replace a lot of them

The 6700K isn't a fast chip by 2026 standards, the GTX 1070 is a few generations behind, and yet between them, they're running a stack that genuinely competes with services I was paying real money for. The hardware bar for self-hosting is super low, and even for things that might not directly replace a subscription, it's worth dusting off an old system for.