price-per-unit-compute is really high

Well yeah, they’re optimized for storage. And if you’re starting from nothing, you’re going to need storage.

Synology is your budget home cloud, and it’s just good enough to handle basic cloud tasks and small-scale service hosting. If you grow out of it, you leave the Synology NAS for purely data storage, and add another box for heavier compute.

TrueNAS, on the other hand, is usually overkill for a home NAS setup because it’s designed for small-ish business use-cases, so it has a lot more CPU and RAM than you’d need when you only have a handful of users in a home setting. So it can probably handle any CPU workload you throw at it, within reason. It probably wouldn’t make a great compiling cluster, but it would do really well hosting things like NextCloud. If you’re looking for transcoding, you need to check the hardware and drivers on FreeBSD (maybe it’s not an issue, but it’s good to check first).

Do they have some kind of VPN or TURN system?

How would the router help with that? If you’re behind CGNAT, you’ll need something external regardless. If you’re not behind CGNAT, pretty much any router on the planet can do port fowarding, and many can handle a network-wide VPN if that’s what you’re after.

I’m behind CGNAT and I have a VPS that hosts my VPN and routes all traffic using HAProxy over the VPN to my internal devices, and my internal devices maintain a persistent connection to the VPN. It sounds complicated, but it’s really just two config files that I’d be happy to share if anyone is stuck. I do have a Mikrotik router, but it’s not needed for any of this, I only use it for static DNS routes so I don’t hit the WAN when accessing my services by their domain names (and VLAN for ZeroTrust shenanigans, but again, not needed at all). If I didn’t have that option, I could always just host a DNS server right on my NAS and do the same thing (any router can set the DNS server over DHCP).

How beefy? Multiple CPU?

No, I’m not that productive. I just want it to run builds of my Rust projects, and those can take some time. So 6-8 recent-ish cores is plenty. Right now I’m using a Ryzen 1700, and once I upgrade my PC, I’ll move my Ryzen 5600 to it. I want my builds to finish somewhat quickly without interfering with other services on the machine (e.g. if I’m running a build while we’re watching a movie, I don’t want the movie to stutter).

If my project grows (i.e. I get outside contributors), I’ll need higher specs.

And yeah, my preference for a single box is storage space. My NAS sits on my desk, and I’d really rather not get a rack setup. More machines means higher power and more space. I do have a couple of Raspberry Pis around for specific use-cases (e.g. one on my TV for RetroPie), but I’d really rather not have a handful of PCs running 24/7. Electricity is pretty cheap where I live, but even then, I’d rather not waste power just because I can get a good deal on servers. My single box uses something like 40-50W, and once I upgrade to my 5600, idle draw will drop another 10-20W (I have a 20-30W floor due to the drives).

Isn’t that basically just a commercial NAS? Go buy a Synology NAS, or get fancy w/ TrueNAS. You don’t need an entry-level enterprise-grade router at all, you can just plug the NAS in anywhere and you’re golden. You can usually install a few services like Plex/Jellyfin or HomeAssistant alongside the data storage if you like.

If that’s not going to work for you, you probably have a good idea of what will work for you. For me, a tiny x86 server isn’t going to cut it, because I want a beefier CPU to run CI/CD for my programming projects, so a beefier, modern CPU is quite valuable. That’s totally overkill if all you want is a simple streaming setup with 1-2 transcoded streams.

So I think there are two main markets here:

1. just give me something that works - these will flock to pre-configured solutions, like Synology or TrueNAS
2. I want something specific - they’ll DIY components together to build their own custom solution

The only other group I can think of is the group that can’t afford 1 and doesn’t know enough to do 2, but I really don’t think that’s a particularly big group, and they’d be better off reusing something they already have instead of getting some off-the-shelf solution.

I could absolutely be wrong here, that’s just my $0.02.

And probably royalties for using their “likeness.” But longer-term, I’m guessing total revenue for VAs will drop, and there will probably be less variety.

I don’t meet all of the items here (my homelab setup is still a WIP), but here’s basically what I have:

1. Cloudflare manages my domain and DNS, but nothing else; I only use them because they’re cheaper than my last registrar (Namecheap)
2. VPS at Hetzner acts as my edge - HAProxy forwards packets based on SNI over my WireGuard VPN to the relevant device on my network
3. I use Caddy on each device to handle TLS, and all services are inside docker with zero directly exposed ports
4. each service only has access to the files and other containers it needs to accomplish the task
5. my router is configured w/ static DNS, so all requests to services go to my domain name over TLS, but they don’t hit the WAN if I’m on my LAN

I don’t have continuous monitoring and alerting, mostly because the only people using my network are me, my SO, and my kids. I am planning on adding some alerting though, and I especially need to configure SMART reporting (had it configured at one time). So when I do that, I’ll add some dashboards for my various other services as well.

Some things I plan to add:

• backup and restore - I plan to use Backblaze, my main hurdle is that I don’t want to backup my large media files (movies and whatnot), and I haven’t put in the work to configure a service to handle backups; this is a top priority for me
• VLANs to separate devices - I want one network w/o internet access for my IP cameras, one for devices that need access to specific external sites (e.g. my smart TV, or a separate media device once I switch to a dumb TV), one for privileged services (e.g. my NAS, which will talk to multiple VLANs), and one for guests
• continuous monitoring and alerting - each device would report to a service on my VPS (or maybe a separate VPS)
• home automation system - my focus has been on replacing external services, and I don’t use an automation system yet, so I haven’t gotten to this; but I’m planning on using HomeAssistant as I roll out my other home monitoring stuff

So I’m probably halfway to what the OP has laid out. I don’t do this type of thing at work, and I don’t share anything outside my network, so I’m in no hurry. However, I do need to handle backups and SMART monitoring on my NAS ASAP, since those are the last glaring gaps in my setup.

I’d appreciate it as well.

I have a somewhat sophisticated setup as well that doesn’t use Cloudflare (aside from domain and DNS hosting) or AWS (I use a simple Hetzner VPS). I’m considering using Backblaze for backups, and everything else is self-hosted.

One of my main goals is that every responsibility should be modular and have a compatible drop-in replacement. I’m very interested to read what others with a similar perspective have done.

Yeah, I practice some ZeroTrust principles w/o using any of the above. I use Docker networks to associate services and their data and restrict them from accessing services/data they don’t need. I use HAProxy at the edge to route requests to specific nodes in my network, and all of that operates over my own WireGuard VPN. I’m working on creating VLANs for my network to further segment things, so I can dictate which devices can access which resources. For continuous monitoring and alerting, any separate device connected to my VPN would work (haven’t yet configured that); I personally don’t bother because my SO/kids will tell me if something they use goes down, and knowing a few minutes earlier wouldn’t matter.

You really don’t need AWS, Cloudflare, or Telegram for any of this. That said, it is interesting to read through when crafting your own solution, if only to check which parts you have and what parts you may have forgotten.

I’m pretty sure that ship has sailed, especially on Lemmy. I feel like votes as agreement instead of acknowledging constructiveness is more prevalent here than on Reddit, especially for anything vaguely political (or AI, Musk, etc). I’ve seen very constructive comments complete with citations and everything get heavily downvoted because they go against whatever the popular position is, while a low-effort comment next to it gets heavily upvoted because it agrees with the popular opinion.

It’s really frustrating, and I wish we had a platform that properly rewarded constructive discussion instead of popular discussion. Yet here we are.

they too, can then get more $$$ for less work.

I’m pretty sure it’ll be less money for less work, at least after the first few titles. Companies really don’t like paying more than they have to.

The latter, a VPS at the “edge” of my network. It doesn’t run any services itself other than HAProxy, which just routes connections to services inside my network.

That use case makes a ton of sense.

I only have my VPS and internal devices, so using DNS names makes it trivial to always get the best route since the only options are within my LAN (simple router config) or over WAN. If it was any more complex, I’d probably do the same as you.

I don’t care whether you personally care about your game saves

Exactly, nor should you. I’m just stating that I personally don’t care, so I’m not going to boycott Nintendo or something over it.

That said, I very much do believe individuals should actually own the hardware they buy, and I’m fully supportive of efforts to root their devices. I believe strongly in Right to Repair, and I believe customers should, at minimum, get documentation about how to repair their devices (i.e. board level schematics, part lists, etc), as well as no blocks from the vendor for manufacturers to sell parts. There’s a good chance that this type of information could help people root their devices, but as long as the vendor is commercially supporting their platform, I don’t think they should be obligated to provide source-level details (I’m buying the hardware here, not the software). But once they stop supporting it, they should be obligated to provide information about how to load alternative software onto the device so customers can continue supporting their own hardware.

Nintendo gets away with it because the laws protect them, and even obligate them to aggressively protect their brand. Those laws should certainly change. However, as long as they provide a product that provides value to me, I’ll get it. I’ll do what I can to mitigate issues though (e.g. I’m shopping for a new car, and I intend to remove/disable the chip that communicates w/ the manufacturer).

Sure, but I almost never care about backing up saves anyway. It would be nice for it to be a thing, but it’s really not something I personally care about.

Ideally, Switch’s software would be FOSS so I could do whatever I please with it, such as developing my own games, turning it into a media server, etc. But it provides enough value that I own one and some games to play with my wife and kids. I also own a Steam Deck which does have a FOSS OS, so it’s awesome that both exist.

Exactly. I tried Tailscale to get things off the ground, but it didn’t do precisely what I wanted, so I abandoned it and built exactly what I needed, which for me was a VPN at the gateway that tunneled SSL traffic via HAProxy to my internal network.

If Nebula solves your problems, great! I find I don’t need its features, and prefer to keep things relatively simple, which for me is a WireGuard VPN and a handful of containers to run my things. My setup is basically HAProxy -> Wireguard VPN -> Caddy (TLS termination; docker container) -> Docker container on internal network. HAProxy routes to the appropriate machine, and Caddy renews TLS certs and routes to the appropriate container. I could probably accomplish the same w/ Nebula, but I understand my setup a bit more than Nebula.

Eh, the Switch has a few things going for it:

• smaller form factor and better battery life
• joycons are nice for casual gaming
• physical media can be lent and resold
• simpler to use - matters a lot for kids

I have and love both. I really like first party Nintendo titles, but I really dislike Nintendo’s legal arm.

I’m not sure what the point is? Here’s my setup:

1. wireguard VPN on my edge VPS
2. lots of services behind my router that connect to that VPN
3. router DNS to resolve my domains to my internal services when on my LAN

This gets me like 95% of the benefit of something like Nebula or Tailscale. When connecting to my internal services, I get LAN speeds if I’m on my LAN and WAN speeds if not. I initially started with Tailscale, but realized that I really didn’t care about most of what it provided.

Hansen did justify the potential 30 FPS cap during that other interview by saying, “You know, it’s a first-person [and third-person] single-player game, you don’t necessarily need that 60 frames.”

…

We’ve been developing [for Xbox and PC] in tandem the whole time," Hansen reassured me. “But, honestly, one of the things that surprised me most was that, early on in development, we realized that often the Xbox Series X performs better than the PC.”

…

“I’m a weird Art Director in that art is actually my third priority behind ‘Does it run well?’ and ‘Is it fun?’” Hansen told me.

Something doesn’t add up. They say they’ve been developing for PC and console in tandem, yet somehow the PC has worse performance, and they’re considering a 30fps cap? Yet their top priority is “Does it run well?”

Sounds like complete BS to me. I think they’re targeting console first and merely making sure it runs on PC, but doing very little to optimize things for PC. That’s the only way I can think of for the console to run better than the PC, because the XBox Series X is basically a mid-tier PC, if that.

But it’s named after an American state, so I’m claiming it. Oh, and we put pineapple on a lot more than just Hawaiian pizza, just yesterday I had pineapple, pepperoni, and jalapeno, no Canadian bacon whatsoever, and my wife likes philly steak, pineapple, and jalapeno.

Just like how we stole pizza from the Italians, we’ll also stole Hawaiian pizza from our friends up north. It’s nothing personal. 😜

Heathen!

I do like pineapple on pizza, if it’s properly dried (nobody wants soggy pizza). But I consider American pizza to be an entirely different beast than Italian pizza, they’re not the same dish at all. With American pizza, pretty much anything goes, and generally the more toppings the better. But Italian pizza should be simple and cooked in a brick oven. Even my uncultured yankee self understands that much. 😆

Makes sense, thanks for the explanation.

My understanding is that it’s largely tradition, but I suppose there are some other things to consider.

I’d just chuckle to myself thinking of their hands flying all over the place while also trying to type. 😆

I’m sure other cultures do unholy things with American cuisine as well, but honestly, we do enough of that ourselves (e.g. Trump eating well-done steak, or this monstrosity).

Hmm, I’ve had spaghetti with meat sauce quite a bit and it’s not really an issue (i.e. spaghetti bolognese).

That said, we don’t eat pasta very often (again, American), and I don’t like Italian much anyway. But I’ve done bolognese, carbonara, alfredo, aglio e olio, pesto, marinara, etc, all with spaghetti noodles and it’s fine. I’ve also done most of those with penne, farfalle, fettuccine, and others. Pick your noodles, pick your sauce, and go to town.

I’ve never been to Italy, so I’m guessing a lot of those pairings are very much non-traditional, but they all seem to work fine.