Guides · SmallGrid
Guides
Practical and opinionated setups for small, efficient homelabs. No port-forwarding heroics. No rack cosplay.
Which OS for a Home Server? Proxmox vs Bare Metal vs NAS Distros
A practical comparison of Proxmox, plain Linux, and NAS-focused distros for small, low-power homelabs.
Mini PCs Under £200: Picking a Tiny Box That Can Actually Homelab
How to choose a used or budget mini PC that can run Jellyfin, Docker, and a small homelab without murdering your power bill.
Remote Jellyfin Without Port Forwarding: Tailscale + SmallGrid Setup
Use Tailscale to reach your Jellyfin server from anywhere without opening ports or wrestling with DDNS.
How Much Power Is My Homelab Using? (And What It Costs)
Measure and estimate power usage for your home server, and turn watts into monthly cost in real money.
First Things to Self-Host: A Sane Starter Stack
A practical starter stack for a small homelab: services that are worth running yourself and won’t eat your time.
Safe Experiments: Snapshots and Test Environments for Your Homelab
Use snapshots, test VMs, and simple clones so you can tinker without nuking your working setup.
Updates Without Drama: Keeping Your Homelab Patched Safely
A simple update routine for homelabs that keeps things secure without breaking everything every weekend.
Quiet Storage: Add Disks Without Turning Your Home Into a Datacentre
How to expand storage quietly: enclosures, placement, power, and why vibration is the real villain.
Proxmox for Normal Humans: One-Node Starter Setup
A clean one-node Proxmox setup for small homelabs: simple layout, backups, and low-power defaults.
Jellyfin on Ubuntu (Low-Power Setup That Just Works)
A practical Jellyfin install with sane folder permissions, libraries, and optional hardware transcoding.
Backups That Don’t Lie: 3-2-1 for Home Servers
A simple backup strategy for homelabs that focuses on restores, not vibes.