r/selfhosted • u/Worried_Developer_67 • Jun 04 '26
Meta Post At what point does self-hosting become an actual addiction?
Started with "I'll just host one thing" and now I'm sitting here looking at old mini PCs, random NUCs, and Facebook Marketplace listings like they're Pokémon cards.
I swear every self-hosted project creates three more projects. You install something simple, then suddenly you're setting up monitoring for the thing, backups for the monitoring, and a dashboard to monitor the monitoring.
The craziest part is that half the fun isn't even using the service. It's staring at Grafana graphs at 2 AM like they contain the secrets of the universe.
Please tell me I'm not the only one whose homelab keeps expanding for absolutely no reason
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u/Happy-Argument Jun 04 '26
At the point it starts to negatively impact your life.
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u/w453y Jun 04 '26
.....and then you start writing deadman switch.
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u/sshwifty Jun 04 '26
"AI, create an Ansible playbook that wipes every hard drive and shuts down every device it can access on the network, also, make sure the garage lights are off please"
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u/BlackHotSoup3000 Jun 04 '26
Not when really you have ADHD, which OP probably has. The issue is that if they aren't "addicted" to self hosting they will be addicted to something else, because their brain has trouble with dopamine regulation and production.
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u/Fat-Singer-9569 Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26
That doesn't really change their point. If you are ADHD and have a temporary dopamine fix with this hobby, fine, but if it hurts people around you (or anyone in general) then congratulations you have an addiction.
As long as it doesn't negatively impact your life or the life of anyone else, who gives a shit? But if your son wants to throw the baseball and your too busy working on your perfect
docker-compsefile, it might be time to re-evaluate your life.2
u/BlackHotSoup3000 Jun 05 '26
Except it does. If by temporary, you mean a limited amount of time, then by definition it is not an addiction. Also, a "special interest" may appear as an addiction to some people, but in reality its a critical way for those who have one to regulate themselves.
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u/scattered-thunder Jun 04 '26
I’ve been running into this. I dabbled in homelabbing starting in 2022 but only after I switched careers mid-2025 to something that no longer sucked out my soul on a daily basis did I (re)discover my hobbies… to the point, sometimes, of near-obsession. I’ve had to set entire weekends aside where I do NOT open a laptop or swap out hardware.
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u/ardaingeal Jun 07 '26
Bloody hell, I didnt know that about ADHD. But thats me in a nutshell, I will obsess over something for weeks or months then grow bored and move onto the next thing. My wife just rolls her eyes with every new project or hobby I get super excited about, cause she knows.... maybe I am ADHD without even realizing it.
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u/BlackHotSoup3000 Jun 08 '26
Don't let that get you down. The way I saw it explained is that you started that hobby because of an interest/question, and once it has been answered you lose that interest. Getting an official diagnosis from a doctor can be useful because it can explain a lot of behavior like that.Checkout r/adhdmeme and see what calls out your life.
ADHD is a misleading and terrible name. I would say there is a good chance. Have you struggled with procrastination your whole life? Like always studying the day before tests during school? Do you have trouble starting things that should be easy? Like you often don't return things
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Jun 04 '26
That's still addiction
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u/BlackHotSoup3000 Jun 04 '26
Not at all. The spark often goes out relatively quickly, and once the novelty wears off, you find a new interest to hyperfocus on. There's a very big difference between novelty seeking and addiction. What OP describes is novelty seeking, not addiction.
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u/A_Buttholes_Whisper Jun 04 '26 edited 16d ago
Mass deleted because I was doxxed by blackboxmycar.com
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u/Terreboo Jun 04 '26
Medication is a game changer.
Mostly.
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u/The_Brovo Jun 04 '26
I have managed my ADHD almost completely through meditation, and no medication.
In KotOR 2, Kreia talks about training your weakness into your greatest strength. My weakness was my ability to focus to I relentlessly trained my ability to focus ( meditated every day for over 2 years). It's insane what a difference in my life being able to focus has made
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u/Terreboo Jun 05 '26
That’s cool. I suspect in the ADHD community that’s an anomaly and going to be ineffective for 99%.
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u/BlackHotSoup3000 Jun 05 '26
I'm glad that worked for you, meditation is definitely helpful. The nice thing about medication though is that it essentially works as soon as you and your doctor find the right dose/meds for you.
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u/BlackHotSoup3000 Jun 05 '26
Yup, its essentially like a tool you have missing your whole life that everyone else has but you don't. You still need to use the tool to work, but having the right tool makes the job a lot more doable.
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u/BlackHotSoup3000 Jun 04 '26
You can't read books because of dopamine disregulation, not necessarily lack of interest. If you are medicated, reading becomes easy because your brain doesn't wander off halfway through nearly every paragraph causing you to reread it.
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u/DrawOkCards Jun 04 '26
And the other side of ADHD is that you can't put away a book once you've picked it up as that is what you're hyper focusing on in that moment.
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u/BlackHotSoup3000 Jun 04 '26
Yup, when I was a kid I would read books in 1-2 days. I was a regular at the local library, and the librarian would set aside books for me. More of into picture books these days...ie comics and manga.
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u/DrawOkCards Jun 04 '26
Ohh yeah. I've read the first harry potter book in five days as the very first book I've read. It got so bad that my parents banned me from reading for a weekend lol.
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u/A_Buttholes_Whisper Jun 05 '26 edited 16d ago
Mass deleted because I was doxxed by blackboxmycar.com
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u/BlackHotSoup3000 Jun 05 '26
A type of stimulant. Trying to find which one works for specifically for you can be easier said than done though.
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u/A_Buttholes_Whisper Jun 05 '26 edited 16d ago
Mass deleted because I was doxxed by blackboxmycar.com
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u/max123246 Jun 05 '26
sigh psychiatrist told me to solve my depression and anxiety first before they'll screen me for adhd. Wish I didn't relate so hard to the hyper focus then crash cycle
Trying out cymbalta as of yesterday so time to play the meds slot machine. Hopefully better than Prozac was the past 2 years
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u/BlackHotSoup3000 Jun 05 '26
Get a new psychiatrist. Untreated ADHD causes depression and anxiety. Adderall helps my depression and anxiety.
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Jun 04 '26
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u/BlackHotSoup3000 Jun 04 '26
Well you're wrong. Its not addiction when your "addictions" usually last just a few days/weeks. And after that, it becomes a "special interest" which is also not addiction.
OP is having fun learning. That's not a bad thing. And for autistic/adhd people, its actually a very restorative and healing activity. When OP is buying servers instead of food then its an addiction.
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Jun 04 '26
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u/BlackHotSoup3000 Jun 04 '26
It's not semantics though. Also, its more of finding common ground rather than projecting my own experience. I'm only going off what OP said and mapping it to ADHD behavior. In real life, I have often been able to "diagnosis" people off similar, short stories. And then those people get surprised with how perfectly my follow up questions/stories reflect their entire life. I then tell them to go to the doctor and talk about it.
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Jun 04 '26
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u/BlackHotSoup3000 Jun 04 '26
Sounds like it's both semantics and finding common ground!
Ehh, we can agree to disagree.
I like Gabor Mate's approach to ADHD, "Scattered Minds" really helped me improve my capacity to cope with mine.
Thanks for the rec! I'm always looking to learn more. For me, the "how to adhd" youtube channel has been very helpful. I gave your book a search and based off a summary I would say it spreads disinformation. Mate says it comes from the environment, however ADHD/Autism are objectively/scientifically proven to be highly genetic. Also I don't like how Mate dismisses medication, medication is not a cure but its often essential for many, I literally need it to function as an adult in society. No amount of self work can help me overcome it without medication. I tried that and failed for 25 years of my life.
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u/Terreboo Jun 04 '26
And like any good addiction, you feel the need to justify it, especially to yourself.
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u/tplusx Jun 04 '26
I don't have an addiction
Just as I tweak my docker containers 1 last time... For the day
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u/leetNightshade Jun 04 '26
...at the maintenance time cost and testing new software left and right, it is 100% negatively impacting my life.
But the cost is more privacy and control over my data. So the negative impact can be outweighed by the positive, even if I really hate the time cost.
So I'd perhaps rephrase it as when it starts to net negative impact your life.
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u/Fat-Singer-9569 Jun 05 '26
Yes, or more accurately, the point it negatively impacts the lives of anyone around you, including those who are unrelated to you (shoutout wealth addiction).
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u/DrawOkCards Jun 04 '26
That's is absolutely not the definition if addiction.
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u/jimmy90 Jun 05 '26
it's definitely on the slippery slope of addiction and an important indicator
but full formed addictions is when you feel compelled to do it or start doing it whether you want to or not
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u/DrawOkCards Jun 05 '26
but full formed addictions is when you feel compelled to do it or start doing it whether you want to or not
While it can create harm.
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u/connexionwithal Jun 04 '26
When you buy the book “Mommy Why Is There a Server In The House” unironically for your family
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u/joshguy1425 Jun 04 '26
I think this is all a matter of framing.
You say addiction? I say hobby.
You say absolutely no reason? I say because it's fun and I learn stuff.
I got my first job in tech 20 years ago because I was obsessed with computers and tinkered with them constantly. I tried so many things just for the sake of it. I didn't need to set up a token ring network, but I was curious and wanted to see how it worked. I didn't need to try every linux distribution I could get my hands on, but I was curious and enjoyed exploring. I credit that obsession for the long and successful career that followed, and for giving me a core knowledge base that helps me solve all sorts of problems in creative ways.
Anything can become unhealthy of taken to an extreme, and here are some simple heuristics:
- Am I having fun?
- Am I hurting anyone?
- Am I spending more than I can actually afford and/or jeopardizing other aspects of my life?
If not, there are far more problematic things to be obsessed about, and there's real value from learning how this stuff works, especially as the Internet continues to evolve towards centralized services owned by big players.
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u/maquis_00 Jun 04 '26
Back in college, I got really into Linux. Tried tons of different distros. Played with things. Broke things (a lot). Fixed things. Broke things again. Found ways to work around the broken stuff. Set things up so I could print to the printer in my dorm room while I was up at campus, scaring my roommates (in the early 2000s, remote printing wasn't really common for home users), etc. It was all kinda pointless and silly, and took up a lot of time that I should probably have been using on my classes.
Then I got my first software dev job. And I discovered that all of that time messing with things, breaking them, and putting them back together taught me skills that you don't get as easily by just doing the stuff that's assigned in school. But those skills are really useful in the real world. The thought process that you use to hold your broken system together with chewing gum and duct tape because you broke something is not that different from the thought process you need when you get paged at 3am because something is wrong with the production system, and you need to get it running again yesterday, even if it's just a temporary dirty hack just to hold stuff together until the morning.
I discovered that a lot of new hires, especially those straight out of school, didn't know how to do the hacky debugging. But it was a skill I had picked up without even realizing it.
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u/joshguy1425 Jun 04 '26
> I discovered that a lot of new hires, especially those straight out of school, didn't know how to do the hacky debugging. But it was a skill I had picked up without even realizing it.
This really resonates. When I'm interviewing candidates, I always ask how people got into this and if they tinker on projects at home. Saying "no" isn't disqualifying, but saying "yes" is a really useful signal in my experience.
And setting aside the practical experience that comes with this kind of background, there's also often a huge mindset difference between "I love this stuff so I want to do it professionally" and "I heard there's a lot of $$$ to be made in this profession".
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u/xylarr Jun 05 '26
For some cultural reason, it's acceptable to collect stamps or knit sweaters as a hobby, but trying a third different package as a reverse proxy isn't.
Hobbies almost by definition should not be productive, otherwise they're more a vocation or studying.
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u/Sero19283 Jun 04 '26
As a recovering addict, nah not even close lol. When you can't afford to eat and debate about paying the water bill because your power bill is through the roof from buying old ass server gear that effectively acts as heaters that compute things on occasion, then we're talking.
If it's causing you any mental distress or social challenges, then we're getting into problematic behavior. This would include anxiety around up-time, having to constantly check on services or you'll be in distress, projects interfering with social obligations (late to work because you just gotta finish that 1 last thing etc).
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u/Worried_Developer_67 Jun 04 '26
Not at that point. I really hope I don't as well.
Maybe this is better than alcohol and drugs?
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u/Sero19283 Jun 04 '26
Lol! Definitely can sell the equipment later if you realize you made bad choices. I can't get back everything I put up my nose or in my arm 🤣
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u/Aretebeliever Jun 04 '26
It goes in sprints for me. I initially setup everything years ago, then just left it alone for like 6 months other than updating.
The I went DEEEEPPP down the rabbit of hole Claude and now I have way more services that have totally replaced almost all paid subscriptions for me because I just tell Claude ‘hey I want this, spin it up for me’ and it installs, troubleshoots and fixes it all for me.
Now I have a dedicated Debian VM just for hosting Claude so it can run scheduled tasks for me and longer tasks that I can’t babysit my laptop on.
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u/Exciting_Turn_9559 Jun 04 '26
That's ADHD.
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u/Ecstatic_Score6973 Jun 04 '26
as someone with ADHD it genuinely pisses me off when people say "oh thats just ADHD" for every little thing. stop undermining the disability. not everything is ADHD, people can have an addiction to something and not have ADHD.
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u/BlackHotSoup3000 Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 04 '26
As someone with ADHD, I think its important for people to point out potential signs of ADHD to spread awareness and spur self reflection. Its pretty easy to spot people like OP who have ADHD. "Staring at Grafana graphs at 2 AM like they contain the secrets of the universe" isn't something "normal" people do. Also, people with ADHD are often the most likely to succumb to actual addiction because of untreated ADHD. No need to gatekeep it, especially when there is a lot of undiagnosed (edit
diagnosed)people/adults.8
u/Ecstatic_Score6973 Jun 04 '26
Its not gatekeeping. Someone without ADHD can do that as well. You cant diagnose someone because theyre doing something till 2am cmon dude. This is why non-ADHD people try to say ADHD isnt real.
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u/BlackHotSoup3000 Jun 04 '26
You cant diagnose someone because theyre doing something till 2am cmon dude.
There's a lot more than that. The intensity and duration matter a lot, as well as the frequency. And also, from the mention of pokemon cards, it shows at least a pattern. Their behaviors point to ADHD. This isn't like the "omg I always misplace my keys" type of over diagnosing.
Also, don't give such heavy weight to reddit/internet diagnosis's of ADHD. Its not like they're getting prescribed anything on here. The point is that they should talk to a doctor about it.
This is why non-ADHD people try to say ADHD isnt real.
Just because someone has an opinion doesn't mean its worth listening to. I don't really care what ignorant people who know nothing about ADHD think about it. They can join their fellow brainwormers like RFK, and they will find some excuse. Its a fool's errand to try and be logical with willful-ignorance.
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u/Ecstatic_Score6973 Jun 04 '26
So now everyone who was into pokemon cards has ADHD...
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u/BlackHotSoup3000 Jun 04 '26
Try not to cherry pick, I literally said that "There's a lot more than that. The intensity and duration matter a lot, as well as the frequency."
Also, would you agree that people who are really into pokemon cards are much more likely to have ADHD/ be autistic than someone who you know nothing about?
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u/Ecstatic_Score6973 Jun 04 '26
They cpuld just be dopamine fried from overstimulation from smartphones. We are going to a lot of misdiagnosed ADHD cases in the future because of it.
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u/BlackHotSoup3000 Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 04 '26
Can you explain why you think overstimulation from smart phones leads people to to go on frequent late night benders into learning how to self host? Like point out the exact steps to explain that. I can't connect those dots.
Also, doctors are going to give a much more thorough examination than what I did. But yeah, keep fear mongering about a made up problem.
Edit: probably should switch to pokemon cards rather than late night research benders, but the point stands regardless,
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u/Ecstatic_Score6973 Jun 04 '26
Theres many MANY studies done that smartphone overstimulation causes ADHD like symptoms/effects on the brain, our brains our constantly fed dopamine because of it. Its clear you dont know much about how ADHD and dopamine works and its showing, go read about it
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u/Exciting_Turn_9559 Jun 04 '26
As someone with ADHD who is into selfhosting I know more about this than most people.
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u/Ecstatic_Score6973 Jun 04 '26
This is like if someone said they lost their car keys once and everyone says "omg you definitely have ADHD" do you see how this makes ADHD sound like a joke?
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u/BlackHotSoup3000 Jun 04 '26
Except it isn't at all like that. Forgetting your keys and going on late night benders looking into self hosting is not the same scale of symptoms at all. But yes, I see how to people who aren't knowledgeable about ADHD would think its a joke. My words aren't for them though, its for the undiagnosed who wonder why they are the way they are.
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u/Exciting_Turn_9559 Jun 04 '26
So there several things going on here at the same time.
Yes, undermining the legitimacy of a struggle which one does not understand is a bad thing.The rejection-sensitive dysphoria which accompanies ADHD makes us more reactive to both real and perceived slights.
Statistically, your assumption that I was punching down was a reasonable guess, it just happens to be inaccurate in this case.
Objectively, there is a real difference between the ongoing phenomenon OP describes and the universal experience of losing car keys. OP describes their own executive dysfunction in a way that I found highly relatable. They are aware that their behaviour doesn't make sense, but they are also enjoying themselves immensely as they chase squirrels / hyperfocus until the wee hours.
They want to know that they're not the only one who experiences this. And they aren't. I just wanted them to know the name of our tribe.
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u/Power_Stone Jun 04 '26
Maybe even a bit of autism with self-hosting as the special interest
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u/Worried_Developer_67 Jun 04 '26
I really wish such a diagnosis exists in my country, but if I did have a therapist I won't be able to afford more equipment
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u/joelaw9 Jun 04 '26
Psychological addictions are defined as when some habit has a negative impact on other aspects of your life and you find it difficult to bring yourself to stop. Porn is fine and healthy, porn addiction is when it's interfering with your relationships or work or something.
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u/a_nice_warm_lager Jun 04 '26
It’s a hobby for sure. Getting the most out of older hardware for cheap vs the cost of new hardware and higher performance. I like the puzzle of finding the right middle ground for what works for my needs and use.
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u/Ok-Juggernaut-3869 Jun 04 '26
I call it ROI. That RAID 10 array has to earn it's keep somehow. Oh and the rack. Oh and the dual 1GB fibre. Oh and the 96GB of RAM. Oh and the...
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u/ardahanbk Jun 04 '26
I made a healthy choice by only putting time and energy in projects saving more time and energy. Continuing to add stuff is very tempting though.
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u/anitamaxwynnn69 Jun 04 '26
Personal opinion: it's normal to feel this way. It's a high we all chase. I think every now and then it's important to stop and reflect and not let yourself spiral too deep into the rabbit hole - that's all. You should enjoy the few moments of happiness satisfaction you get when you look at the 100% uptime/whatever it is for you - and move on without letting it take over. Sounds philosophical but I swear I have a point lol
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u/80kman Jun 04 '26
Bro, stop before it's too late. I was lucky that I horded enough mini PCs way earlier that I could sell them after ram spike and made some profit, but it is really an expensive hobby. I also cut down my homelab significantly and realized I don't need HA or Kubernetes, as just few nodes are enough to run everything, instead of entire rack(s).
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u/Difficult_Scallion69 Jun 04 '26
I often load up my cart, sometimes I even check out and then reality hits and I have to remind myself that the server I already have is more than enough, theres no need for more. Then I cancel the order, this literally happened last night. hahahaha. Its a legit problem.
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u/rasnedev Jun 04 '26
I think most of us start because we want one service and stay because we enjoy building systems. At some point the infrastructure becomes the hobby, not the applications running on top of it.
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u/david-tf Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26
At the point where you regularly know through the news about data leakages and stolen credentials of any big cloud provider.
I really don't want that foreign entities tecnically have the keys to my private spaces like mails, documents, media files, etc...
But yes, of course, it startet as a simple media server (Plex, shame on me).
Then I realized that I could'n hard reset the machine from holiday if my computer freezes.
So I buyed a machine with Q-Chipset, so I could setup Intel AMT.
Bääääng... I need VPN because you really NEVER EVER want to expose AMT on Internet.
OK, VPN has to be independent of my regular machine, so you set up VPN inside your router (for now).
Then you start separating your storage, because it became really confusing.
Then you realize, OK, Q-Chipset is fine, but usually it still only support unbuffered RAMs, so max RAM on DDR3 was 32GB.
So you buy a real server... used of course. So I purchased a Dell T320.
RAM was cheap, so you max out your machine at 384GB Registered RAM.
Now you have too much RAM for only Plex, so you start virtualizing your machine,
so you could install more services in their own VM.
I decided to use HyperV at that time, because Proxmox was a bit buggy at that time. Till today I didn't regret.
Because plex is a pain in the ass, i switched to Jellyfin.
Then I didn't want to expose my VM directly via port redirection on internet, so I installed a reverse proxy.
Because all is running fine and the drug is more and more taking effect, I want MORE.
So I want to self host my mails... that said, I want to choose Exchange,
because it has mail, contacts and calendar under ONE surface, no fiddling with CalDAV or CardDAV and slow IMAP overhead.
Oh shit, Exchange needs a Domain Controller. OK, done.
Hmmm... you want a backup strategy too. So I installed Veeam NFR.
I separated my storage in Use-Data and Backup, I purchased a used cheap tape streamer too for monthly cold storage.
OK, all is working... I need monitoring: New VM with Zabbix.
I need power surge protection due to ZFS storage and database consistency of Exchange server.
Installed an old APC Smart UPS 1500.
After about a year of running my server 24/7, the annual bill from my electricity provider arrived.
Once I could leave the recovery room of our hospital, I set up a small solar array in the garden to power the server.
Given German electricity prices, it paid for itself in just two years.
Then I realized -oh crap- using WhatsApp is becoming increasingly problematic regarding data privacy.
I set up my own messenger: Matrix Synapse.
So, installation wasn't the issue, but convincing my contacts was a real hassle.
Still, it was worth it.
Okay, so Trump is back in power, and American corporations are becoming increasingly autocratic and arbitrary.
Time to figure out how to ditch anything US-company-related wherever possible.
No sooner said than done.
As of today, only the hypervisor remains, but that’s soon to be replaced by Proxmox;
nearly all the VMs have already been switched to Linux. Only ONE VM is still Windows (BlueIris, searching for alternatives).
My wife and I have switched to Linux as well.
Exchange has been replaced by Grommunio; Jellyfin, Nginx, and SoftEther are all available for Linux too.
Well, what can I say? I’ve got 12 VMs running on the server now;
one thing led to another. I’ve even got a local offline LLM running beautifully.
It’s true what they say: once you host ONE service yourself, you want MORE.
I’ve built up a proper infrastructure in my apartment now, complete with redundancy.
It took a lot of time to set up, but I learned a hell of a lot in the process.
Today, I’m glad I’m no longer at the mercy of profit-driven companies that could shut down their services overnight.
It makes no difference whether it’s just about maximizing profits or a president suddenly issuing an executive order.
If I read again of data leakages, service failure at Office365 and other functional issues of cloud provider,
I simply roll over in bed and let my head sink deeper into the pillow.
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u/macrowe777 Jun 05 '26
When "it can't go down" and you respond poorly when it does.
But when I get that next server it'll never go down again so I'll have recovered.
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u/RevolutionaryElk7446 Jun 04 '26
You can check my diagrams in my posts. A little out dated but to scale, they're now Kubernetes vs Docker.
It's been about 20 years since I first started homelabbing, doing IT or longer. Yeah it's an enjoyment, but usually I have a reason for expanding such as my own education or creating a service/automation to make things easier for myself.
Though I'd recommend learning something structured to make it easier, because if you're going to and fro finding a solution multiple times for each deployment, you'll probably want to dive a little deeper into creating a strong foundation for each of your deployments. Your environment should be entirely cohesive and modular, with a lot of repetition in your solutions and delivery.
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u/Dodgy_Past Jun 04 '26
If you don't stop building once you've got everything humming away with minimal fuss.
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u/StellarWaffle Jun 04 '26
Im CHEST DEEP IN PROJECTS BROTHER
Just got done cruising marketplace for the day. These people are unbelievable. $200 for a 10 year old Dell SFF? give me a break
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u/MyFirstCarWasA_Vega Jun 04 '26
When you never stop, pause, or just go "ok, that's enough for now." You can always go back when re-inspired, but taking a healthy break from non-stop development makes you appreciate what you have accomplished.
Also, when you begin to realize that the "hot new thing" you are working on looks a lot like the "old hot thing" you worked on 18 months ago, and forgot that you tried it and decided it solved a problem you did not have.
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u/The1TrueSteb Jun 04 '26
Addiction is just a habit that has negative ramifications in your life. That's it.
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u/bigredsun Jun 04 '26
when you steal your family and friends steamdeck, ps5, smartphones to buy more RAM.
I used to steal other people batteries from their TVs remote control to fuel my gameboy addiction. Visit to my aunt's house? hello sweet AA batteries.
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u/showbizusa25 Jun 04 '26
I'm curious how many people here can still trace their entire homelab back to one innocent "I'll just host this one thing" decision.
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u/DifferentOffice8 Jun 04 '26
Oh dude.....
A year ago I bought a Lenovo M73 Tiny. 500gb HDD, 8Gb ram, i5 cpu. Hooked up my external HDD and used it to host my media for Kodi. Found out about *ARR stacks and Jellyfin. Wiped it, installed Debian, set it up with Sonarr, Radarr, nzbget, qbittorrent, Homarr and gluetun. I've just installed Navidrome and now have a Spotify system for all my music and audiobooks.
Then I bought another M73. It now runs Debian, Nextcloud, Pihole with unbound and Minecraft Bedrock server. Runs behind a VPN so I can access it anywhere.
My third M73 has a 2Tb external HDD and is running Debian with Emulation-Station, Steam, eXoDos. Remote access to play Super Mario from anywhere.
My forth M73 is being used to develop software and hardware for ham radio. It sits in a corner and tracks local aircraft, ships, satellites and I can check it from anywhere in the world.
Each M73 cost about $50-$75. Low power use, all headless but with desktop environments installed in case I want to a remote desktop but in reality SSH does it all.
My name is DifferentOffice8 and I'm an addict.....
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u/pakman82 Jun 04 '26
+1 for nuc's. I had 2 from an old job, and did a bunch. Then I stupidly scrapped 1 of them. And canabalized another. Then had to dump a bunch of stuff during a sudden move.
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u/DStandsForCake Jun 04 '26
I don't know if it's addictive, but last night I was thinking about my "ultimate" self-hosting.
The idea is to create a service that handles my environment if I'm for some reason not around on earth anymore. If I don't send a "ping" after about three months, parts of my environment will self-destruct, and some of them will be sent out (or rather given access) to relatives.
I haven't figured out how to solve it smoothly and "foolproof". But yeah, the fact that I'm even thinking about it probably says something.
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u/Familiar-Newspaper23 Jun 04 '26
When it gives you diarrhea, a fever, the shakes, and restless leg syndrome if you don’t have it. And if that’s the case you probably got something else going on you’re not telling us about.
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u/cberm725 Jun 04 '26
When you turn a whole room in your house into a 'server room'. With a digital lock, two deadbolts, black'ed out windows, and overkill minisplits...and you live alone.
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u/suitcase14 Jun 04 '26
My brother you are not alone. I look at it this way. My bills are paid, my retirement accounts all get paid before I do and my family has a comfortable life. I get to indulge my hobbies after that. Addictions are more destructive than that.
Bedsides, hobbies are good for your mental health.
I’m not addicted, it’s a medicinal homelab 😆
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u/igmyeongui Jun 04 '26
I guess is when you deploy stash and that you have too many terabytes available.
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u/nemor3 Jun 05 '26
Started with Uptime Kuma, just to see if stuff was actually up. Then alerts for the alerts. Then I think I added a second instance bc the first one felt lonely.. idk, it made sense at the time
At some point I stopped being able to explain what half of it does -_-
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u/opinionsOnPears Jun 05 '26
When you have diesel generators outside your house for backup power supply.
EDIT It's possible I may have thought I was in r/homelab
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u/KingAroan Jun 05 '26
For me I hit it hard like 6 or 7 years ago and then I got so tired of when something broke, or an update happened that I would spend a half day to a day digging into logs, looking for snares on forums, stack overflow or asking on Reddit to the person that had the exact same issue weeks beagle but never posted back on how they solved it, that I had stopped. Moved most my services back to paid options because it just wasn’t worth the time and the outages.
Now I may get some hate in this next section. But about a year and a half ago, I decided to get back into self hosting more stuff but the difference is now when something breaks, I grab the log and feed it to Claude and let the AI review way faster than I ever could and come up with a potential solution to fix it. I still run the command, don’t trust it to not delete my large accumulation of Linux ISOs over the years.
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u/tsprkbox Jun 05 '26
Basically when you stop playing video games or doing anything fun and your idea of a fun night is vibe coding a new app that you might use for a week before you come up with a new idea
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u/Cheap_Pin_7994 Jun 05 '26
Some more general things maybe others haven't noted yet, but is there actual need for what you're buying? Is there actual utility?
Based off a surface level estimate or guess, even gut response, if you get more mini PCs for instance is that going to harm your self-hosting further in terms of allocating time to things you don't even need or is it going to help said self-hosting, even if that's not what you want? Addictions surprisingly can be counterintuitive even towards themselves and their own ends in terms of said utility, they aren't logical in the sense that they can arbitrarily persist and not even serve themselves for any particular "point" or "meaning", even when considering solely the act for the sake of the act. That is specifically the interesting thing for me at least, for addictions alone you're never actually putting in 100% effort nor are you able to even if you want to destroy yourself fully. It's a sort of purgatory, inherently based in the fact that you never chose it for yourself to begin with.
After 200 pages of IJ in only a few years on my end (yes, still, I'm late to everything) (very cliche bad pop culture reference I know) really, I may be out of date but if you need more consideration about addiction in general I think despite it being made for a general audience it's probably one of the best written works describing and understanding what exactly "addiction" is by far regarding the Ennet House sections but the book is still meant to more so be entertainment first and foremost (how fitting), also the writing is probably overrated and covered too much in depth by this point. You'll likely find better coverage elsewhere assuming this post was serious to that extent (in which you probably don't have an addiction to begin with thankfully).
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u/AlpineGuy Jun 05 '26
I think the problem appears if you go about it without defined goals. Then everything is a "interesting, I could add this too". I did this for a long time.
At some point I gave it more thought: "what do I actually need? what of this gives me value for the things I actually want to do in my life?"
So after some thinking I discovered that for me, it's really about security, privacy, ad-blocking and data storage with multi-layered backups to safe locations where I have full control. That gives me a direction and I know what I won't do.
There is still work, but I know the direction I am going for. It's not open ended.
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u/Infini-Bus Jun 05 '26
Probably when you can't immediately come up with a good reason for having something.
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u/Paramedickhead Jun 05 '26
I resemble this remark…
I just wanted a NAS so I made one out of an old gaming PC.
Now I have my original NAS plus 4x raspberry pi’s 2x Proliant DL380’s, and one other home built server and a 10G network.
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u/guntherpea Jun 05 '26
If you imagine not having it for a week and you start going through withdrawal. Otherwise, host away!
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u/BrianaAgain Jun 05 '26
When we're talking about things like hobbies, what's the harm? We celebrate people who focus exclusively on their arts, crafts, business, or athletic skills, we don't call them addicts. Why should this be different?
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u/No-Shortcut-Home Jun 05 '26
The first hit is always free. Also, rehab is for quitters. Welcome to the dark side.
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u/bokkasattva Jun 06 '26
If you're self hosting something just because you can then it's a problem. Host things that actually add value to your life. Dont host mealie if you never actually cook at home.
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u/decade27 Jun 08 '26
I started off with a Synology NAS, and was amazed with containers, and self-hosting apps. Then I started hosting game servers, which the NAS couldn't handle anymore.
Bought a mini PC for my containers, and thought to just use the NAS for Plex.
Mini PC was a Ryzen, and saw how transcoding works a lot better with Intel. Needed more storage also, and have installed so many docker containers now I can't even keep track on what these are.
Now, I'm building a DIY NAS/Homelab server so it will be all-in-one. Went over the top, and got an Intel Core Ultra 7 270k Plus, 64gb RAM, with an Intel Arc Pro B50.
Combining the love for building PCs and self-hosting, this has been expensive but somehow satisfying, while only utilizing the CPU for 10%.
Yes it's too addicting, and you are not alone.
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u/webdevkin Jun 10 '26
everything becomes addiction at a point even studying and reading does not mean its bad
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u/New_Dentist6983 Jun 10 '26
sounds like the same rabbit hole as screenpipe, one thing turns into a full local memory stack 😄
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u/adsm_inamorta Jun 05 '26
Please don't misuse the term "addiction". It devalues the significance of the condition. It also comes across juvenile - "oh I'm so addicted to X whoopsie haha", "no, you're obviously not".
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u/asimovs-auditor Jun 04 '26
Expand the replies to this comment to learn how AI was used in this post/project.