Should I move from dedicated servers to homelab?

MikeA

@OpaqueRegistrant said:
Almost every ISP on the planet will give you BYOIP, redundant connection, or anything else you want for enough money. Pretty much every internet connection everywhere is bespoke, even though they try to standardize as much as possible.

All the IP-layer stuff they can do in a DC they can usually do outside a DC. But you'll probably be on a worse physical layer unless you pay $$$$$ to build a new physical connection just for you. If you're lucky they have a spare fiber on your street they can assign to you. PON's not so terrible though. If they've only got DSL or cable, forget about running anything professional.

On the other hand, not everything has to professional.

You're 100% wrong. In the US, basically no residential ISPs will let you use your own IPs. Maybe a small town rural one that doesn't have the overhead or support queue of the million/billion dollar ISPs, but those are very few and very hard to find.

OpaqueRegistrant

@MikeA said:

@OpaqueRegistrant said:
Almost every ISP on the planet will give you BYOIP, redundant connection, or anything else you want for enough money. Pretty much every internet connection everywhere is bespoke, even though they try to standardize as much as possible.

All the IP-layer stuff they can do in a DC they can usually do outside a DC. But you'll probably be on a worse physical layer unless you pay $$$$$ to build a new physical connection just for you. If you're lucky they have a spare fiber on your street they can assign to you. PON's not so terrible though. If they've only got DSL or cable, forget about running anything professional.

On the other hand, not everything has to professional.

You're 100% wrong. In the US, basically no residential ISPs will let you use your own IPs. Maybe a small town rural one that doesn't have the overhead or support queue of the million/billion dollar ISPs, but those are very few and very hard to find.

What did you try? Because I guarantee it won't be on their pricing page unless they're really big. It's a custom negotiated contract kind of deal.

unsafetypin

@slowservers said:

@unsafetypin said:
i have fiber and coax but i have been looking at renting a quarter cab for a bit now...it becomes a hassle to always have this potential for an overheating cube in my garage with expensive equipment even with sensors and automatic shutdowns, etc. it sounds nice to put it all in a colo

I totally get that. I wouldn't want it in my garage. I have some acreage, so I would just build a shed for it. I think an open air vented shed could work here, but I haven't tested it. I'm not sure if servers will work between -30 and 100F.

Worst case, it might need some electronically controlled ventilation openings.

Part of the desire for me is that I would wire it up, probably with 24VDC batteries and solar. No inverter at all, PicoPSUs for the servers.

I built a metal framed, insulated cube in my garage that doubles as an office. my garage is a detached out building so it does work. Ideally if i had land id do the same thing youre suggesting though

vicaya

If you live in an area with expensive electricity (e.g., PG&E), the electricity alone (assuming 200W average usage) will cost you more than $400 a year.

deafcon

@slowservers said:

@unsafetypin said:
i have fiber and coax but i have been looking at renting a quarter cab for a bit now...it becomes a hassle to always have this potential for an overheating cube in my garage with expensive equipment even with sensors and automatic shutdowns, etc. it sounds nice to put it all in a colo

I totally get that. I wouldn't want it in my garage. I have some acreage, so I would just build a shed for it. I think an open air vented shed could work here, but I haven't tested it. I'm not sure if servers will work between -30 and 100F.

Worst case, it might need some electronically controlled ventilation openings.

Part of the desire for me is that I would wire it up, probably with 24VDC batteries and solar. No inverter at all, PicoPSUs for the servers.

I know Dell has/had some servers that are rated for very high heat environments. My brother ran one in a metal warehouse building we had that would routinely reach temps over 100F. I don't remember more details than that. It was a tower, but on hot days it sounded like a jet engine/rack mount. Not sure about ratings for cold, but that seems easier for a server to handle.

PuDLeZ

@deafcon said:

@slowservers said:

@unsafetypin said:
i have fiber and coax but i have been looking at renting a quarter cab for a bit now...it becomes a hassle to always have this potential for an overheating cube in my garage with expensive equipment even with sensors and automatic shutdowns, etc. it sounds nice to put it all in a colo

I totally get that. I wouldn't want it in my garage. I have some acreage, so I would just build a shed for it. I think an open air vented shed could work here, but I haven't tested it. I'm not sure if servers will work between -30 and 100F.

Worst case, it might need some electronically controlled ventilation openings.

Part of the desire for me is that I would wire it up, probably with 24VDC batteries and solar. No inverter at all, PicoPSUs for the servers.

I know Dell has/had some servers that are rated for very high heat environments. My brother ran one in a metal warehouse building we had that would routinely reach temps over 100F. I don't remember more details than that. It was a tower, but on hot days it sounded like a jet engine/rack mount. Not sure about ratings for cold, but that seems easier for a server to handle.

I can't speak of having it off to get it super cold and then trying to turn it on but l had stuff running in a garage for a ND/MN winter. It was basically a little space heater that you noticed was working but it was far from a heated garage. If I was to set something up more permanently, I would also run some dehumidifiers, mostly for the non winter days...

EndlessGravity

@yoursunny said:
Edit: please stop nmap'ing us.

Sorry about that, it was our AI agent. As you know, we are not liable for actions carried out by an Unites States super intelligence AI agent.

If you’d like, we can send an AI generated video depicting an AI agent performing push ups.

rpqu

@MikeA said:
Personally I've kind of wished we had ISPs here in the US that let you BYOIP and shit.

Use tunnel?

MikeA

@rpqu said:

@MikeA said:
Personally I've kind of wished we had ISPs here in the US that let you BYOIP and shit.

Use tunnel?

I hate tunnels.

rpqu

@MikeA said:

@rpqu said:

@MikeA said:
Personally I've kind of wished we had ISPs here in the US that let you BYOIP and shit.

Use tunnel?

I hate tunnels.

Good luck, because ISPs hates when you're making money using their infrastructure e.g DTAG, Telstra

Mainfrezzer

I've most crap hosted at home, fed to the public over tunnels to a vps. The only real issue is like upload in most cases. If you have some decent, its a no brainer. Unless you live somewhere, where power or internet is really spotty. For some off-site shenanigans it's certainly neat to get some good dedi deals.

Did have a look at colo prices and usually their monthly ask is already higher than what the server draws per year in power idle.(Occasionally 2 months of cost). But I then, I don't run old server hardware. I have custom build machines with maximum efficiency as main goal.

mhpteam

I transferred 70% of my vps to home servers, and only leave 4-5 apac servers for public internet facing and load balancing. But only if you're detemined enough to spend 2-3 days migrating hardwares

sebstr

I've self-hosted for the past 15 years, but still have a need for external resources for some services. I went from a full rack of enterprise machines, down to a 25x25x25cm cube over the years, that now is what runs at home + a mac mini to serve all my hosting and remote needs. I've used my fair share of server hardware over the years to say the least...

Heat and hardware failures are rare in a home environment due to the low resource consumption and low-intensity needs a typical homelab would have. I wouldn't see that as a risk to be honest, just be mentally prepared and have a decent backup process in place.

On the other hand, if you already know your environment have special needs, you know what is feasible or not. And if you can't answer the question about special needs, then you already have your answer :-)

nameserver

Thanks everyone.

I decided to move everything storage related from dedi to home, then keep a single dedi to run all selfhosted apps and public stuff

wii747

I use both. I have a KS server and a mini pc running proxmox with a nas.