Homelab Overview

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My homelab is a production‑style environment I built to deepen my infrastructure skills, test real‑world architectures, and maintain services with the same discipline expected in professional roles. Every service documented here is deployed, monitored, backed up, and validated with reproducible evidence.

The Hardware at a Glance

• Infrastructure: Distributed ARM64/x86 Lab.
• Primary Hypervisor: Oracle VM VirtualBox environment
• Security Baseline: TLS 1.3 enforced, VLAN Segmentation, Identity-Aware Proxy.
• Goal: "Building scalable, documented, and hardened infrastructure."

Hardware Enclosure:

• Pi 5 — housed in a 3D‑printed mini‑rack (MandicReally design) for optimized airflow and cable management

• Pi 4 — mounted in a CNC‑milled aluminum enclosure from DeSalvo Systems

Core Services

Each service has a dedicated technical manual with build steps, verification commands, and evidence.

• Pi-Hole
• PI5 RAID Array
• Obsidian Summary

Security Evidence

• SSL Labs Rating: A+ View Audit

• SecurityHeaders: A View Audit

These audits are run against the live environment and updated as changes are deployed.

Network Diagram

🧭 Future Projects

🗂️ Homelab Virtualization & GPU Passthrough Plan

Project Journal — Windows Gaming VM, Plex, Proxmox, Dual‑GPU Architecture

🧭 Overview

This note documents the architecture, hardware requirements, and design decisions for running:

• Proxmox VE as the hypervisor

• Windows Gaming VM with GPU passthrough

• Plex Media Server with hardware transcoding

• UniFi Network Controller

• Dual‑GPU layout (RTX 3070 + RTX 2060)

• Ryzen CPU considerations (2600X vs 5800X/XT)

This is the long‑term reference for future upgrades and rebuilds.

🧩 Core Requirements

1. Hypervisor

• Proxmox VE (free, full‑featured)

• KVM/QEMU for virtualization

• VFIO for PCIe passthrough

2. Hardware

• CPU with IOMMU support (AMD‑Vi)

• Motherboard with clean IOMMU groups

• Two GPUs (one for host/Plex, one for VM)

• Sufficient PSU (750W+ recommended)

🎮 Windows Gaming VM

GPU Passthrough

• RTX 3070 dedicated to the Windows VM

• Exclusive ownership — cannot be shared with host

• Sunshine for game streaming

• Moonlight or any client for playback

Expected Performance

• Near‑native GPU performance

• VM overhead ~5–10%

• CPU‑bound titles depend heavily on host CPU

🎬 Plex Media Server

Hardware Transcoding

• Requires a GPU available to the host

• RTX 2060 assigned to Proxmox host for NVENC/NVDEC

• Plex uses GPU for:

  • H.264/H.265 transcoding

  • 4K → 1080p conversions

  • Multiple simultaneous streams

Why Plex Cannot Use the 3070

• GPU passthrough gives exclusive control to the VM

• Host cannot access a passed‑through GPU

🧠 CPU Considerations

Ryzen 5 2600X

• No integrated GPU

• Would require two discrete GPUs

• Significant bottleneck for a 3070 gaming VM

• Higher power draw under dual‑GPU load

• Limited headroom for multiple VMs

Ryzen 7 5800X / 5800XT

• Strong single‑core performance

• Excellent for gaming VMs

• Plenty of cores for Plex + UniFi + Windows VM

• No need for 5800X3D unless chasing ultra‑high‑FPS

• Drop‑in upgrade on AM4

5800X3D Pricing Note

• Expensive due to low supply + high demand

• Not required for this project

⚡ Power Budget

Estimated Load (under gaming VM + Plex transcode):

Total Peak: ~500–600W Recommended PSU: 750W+ (Gold or better)

🏗️ Recommended Architecture

Host: Proxmox VE

• CPU: Ryzen 7 5800X / 5800XT

• GPU 1: RTX 2060 → Plex

• GPU 2: RTX 3070 → Windows VM

• Storage: SSD/NVMe for VM performance

• Network: Bridged mode for UniFi + VM access

VM Layout

Windows Gaming VM

• 4–6 vCPUs

• 16–32GB RAM

• RTX 3070 passthrough

• VirtIO drivers

• Sunshine installed

Plex

• Runs on host or LXC/VM

• Hardware transcoding via RTX 2060

UniFi Controller

• Ubuntu Server minimal

• 1–2GB RAM

• Low CPU usage

🧱 Why Proxmox (Not VirtualBox)

• Full PCIe passthrough support

• ZFS, snapshots, backups

• LXC + KVM

• Stable long‑term platform

• Clean VM lifecycle management

• Free with all features

VirtualBox cannot passthrough GPUs → not viable for gaming VMs.

📌 Final Notes & Future Upgrades

• The 5800X/XT is already ideal for this setup

• No need for 5800X3D unless ultra‑high‑FPS gaming is required

• Dual‑GPU layout is mandatory due to 2600X lacking an iGPU

• Proxmox provides the cleanest long‑term architecture

• Sunshine/Moonlight provide low‑latency streaming