Skip to main content

​
Your homelab, reimagined

Homelab v3 is a deliberate, clean-slate rebuild of a production-grade home infrastructure. Where v2 evolved organically over time, v3 is designed intentionally—every decision documented, every component purposeful, and every layer built with future goals in mind. This documentation captures the complete architecture, design decisions, and operational runbooks for a homelab running:
  • Proxmox VE for virtualization across two nodes
  • Unraid as a dedicated NAS with ZFS and parity protection
  • Docker for containerized services (media automation, books, photos, authentication)
  • Traefik for reverse proxy with automatic HTTPS
  • AdGuard Home for DNS and ad-blocking
  • Proxmox Backup Server for VM snapshots and recovery
This isn’t a tutorial—it’s a living technical reference for a real homelab in production use.
Current status: Planning phase. This documentation will be updated as each phase of the build completes.

​
Get started

Design philosophy

Understand the core principles and architectural decisions behind v3

Hardware architecture

Explore the physical infrastructure, from compute nodes to storage arrays

Network design

Learn about VLAN segmentation, firewall rules, and DNS architecture

Storage architecture

Dive into Unraid pools, NFS exports, and the /data mount structure

​
What makes v3 different

Bare-metal NAS separation

Dedicated Unraid host replaces TrueNAS-as-a-VM for better performance and reliability

Proxmox OS redundancy

Mirrored NVMe boot drives eliminate single-point-of-failure risks from v2

Proper VLAN segmentation

Four VLANs with explicit firewall rules instead of partial segmentation

UPS protection

NUT-based graceful shutdown protects against data corruption on power loss

Kubernetes-ready architecture

Network, storage, and compute designed to support future k3s migration

GitOps-friendly design

All configuration in version control with clear separation of secrets

​
Key technologies

  • Proxmox VE 8.x — Two-node cluster with QDevice for split-brain prevention
  • Minisforum MS-A2 with Ryzen 9 7945HX (primary compute node)
  • Dell Optiplex 3070 Micro with i5-9th gen (secondary compute node)
  • Raspberry Pi 4B for lightweight monitoring and cluster quorum
  • Unraid 7.2.3 with hybrid ZFS + parity array
  • 5x WD Red Pro 12TB (dual parity + 3 data drives)
  • 2x WD Red Plus 4TB in ZFS mirror for critical data
  • 10GbE SFP+ DAC for dedicated storage traffic
  • UniFi Dream Machine SE (router/firewall)
  • UniFi managed switch with 2.5GbE and VLAN trunking
  • Four VLANs: Management (10), Trusted (20), Services (30), IoT (40)
  • AdGuard Home for split-horizon DNS and ad-blocking
  • Traefik reverse proxy with wildcard TLS certificates
  • Authentik for SSO and identity management
  • Sonarr, Radarr, Prowlarr for media automation (ARR stack)
  • Plex on Unraid with Intel QuickSync transcoding
  • Immich for photo management with ML-powered search
  • Audiobookshelf, Calibre-Web-Automated for ebook/audiobook libraries

​
Built for production

This homelab runs real workloads for real users. It’s not a lab in the experimental sense—it’s production infrastructure that happens to run at home.
Every design decision prioritizes reliability and recoverability over experimentation. New technologies are introduced in isolated sandbox environments first.
You’ll find:
  • Multi-tier backup strategy with Proxmox Backup Server, rsync scripts, ZFS snapshots, and off-box replication
  • Graceful UPS shutdown via NUT to prevent data corruption
  • Hardlink-preserving workflows for torrent seeding and media management
  • Monitoring and alerting with Beszel, Uptime Kuma, and Healthchecks.io
  • Zero-downtime migrations via parallel DNS cutover

​
Documentation structure

This documentation is organized by infrastructure layer:
  • Overview — Architecture overview and design philosophy (you are here)
  • Hardware — Physical hosts, rack layout, power, and UPS
  • Network — VLANs, firewall rules, DNS, and remote access
  • Storage — Unraid pools, share layout, NFS exports, and UID/GID strategy
  • Compute — Proxmox clustering, VM layout, and resource allocation
  • Services — Docker stacks, service inventory, and application architecture
  • Operations — Backup procedures, monitoring, and runbooks
  • Build phases — Sequential build roadmap from Phase 0 (procurement) to Phase 6 (Kubernetes)
Use the search bar to quickly find specific services, configurations, or decision rationale.

​
Who is this for?

This documentation serves multiple audiences:
  • You (the operator) — as a comprehensive reference during troubleshooting, upgrades, and expansions
  • Future you — when you need to remember why a decision was made six months ago
  • Contributors — if you ever expand the team or hand off components
  • The community — as a reference architecture for production homelabs
If you’re looking for a beginner’s guide to homelabbing, this isn’t it. If you’re looking for a well-documented, production-grade homelab architecture with clear decision rationale, read on.
Version: 7.0 | Author: Gio | Status: Planning phase

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Get started for freeTalk to us