Top 3 Homelab Projects: TrueNAS, Nextcloud, and Proxmox HA Cluster
One of the things I enjoy most about running a homelab is the freedom to experiment, break things, and rebuild them better. Over the past couple of years, I’ve played with a wide range of self-hosted projects—from media servers and photo archives to monitoring stacks and private clouds. Some experiments were quick installs, while others became long-term fixtures in my setup.
Looking back, three projects clearly stand out as the ones I’ve spent the most time building, refining, and learning from.
1. TrueNAS – The Foundation of Everything
TrueNAS has been the backbone of my lab from the start. I originally ran a system with 10 x 8TB drives, averaging around 180W of power draw. While the capacity was great, I found myself constantly revisiting the hardware design to balance performance, power efficiency, and resilience.
My next evolution is moving to WD Ultrastar HC530 14TB drives, rebuilding for lower consumption while still running the Docker workloads I depend on: Plex, Jellyfin, Radarr, and Sonarr.
What makes TrueNAS so addictive is that it’s never “done.” ZFS tuning, hardware swaps, and the balance between raw storage vs. apps running on it keep me constantly iterating. In many ways, TrueNAS isn’t just a storage platform in my lab—it’s the core infrastructure that enables everything else.
2. Nextcloud – My Private Cloud
Self-hosting Nextcloud was a game-changer. Running on Ubuntu 22.04 in a VLAN 50 environment, accessible externally through Cloudflare Tunnels, it became the closest thing to running my own “mini-Dropbox.”
What I like most about Nextcloud is how it extends beyond file sync. With 10+ users onboarded, it’s now a collaborative space for sharing documents and photos—backed by the confidence that the data stays in my control.
It’s also been a fantastic exercise in security hardening, DNS configuration, and multi-user performance tuning. For anyone in the homelab community who wants a project that’s both practical and impressive to show off, Nextcloud is easily one of the best.
3. Proxmox HA Cluster + Monitoring
Finally, there’s my Proxmox high availability cluster—a three-node setup that pushed my lab into a more “data-centre-like” experience. Setting up HA wasn’t just about resiliency; it was about learning clustering concepts that translate directly to my professional world.
But no cluster is complete without observability. That’s why I paired it with Prometheus and Grafana, building dashboards to monitor storage, VM performance, and resource trends. Debugging duplicate metrics in Grafana has been frustrating at times, but it’s taught me a lot about exporters, label management, and how to cleanly present data.
This project has been the most complex but also the most rewarding—bridging the gap between a hobby lab and enterprise-grade systems.
Final Thoughts
These three projects—TrueNAS, Nextcloud, and my Proxmox HA cluster—have consumed the bulk of my homelab time, and for good reason. They’re not just “cool installs”; they’re platforms that scale with me, both as a technologist and as someone who enjoys experimenting with infrastructure.
Every rebuild, migration, or dashboard tweak is another step in my journey to turn my homelab into something that feels like a mini data centre, all while keeping it personal, flexible, and fun.
If you’re thinking of tackling one of these projects yourself, my advice is simple: start small, expect to break things, and enjoy the process. That’s where the real learning happens.