I have experience administering ad/web servers professionally and I thought I lacked the domain expertise to manage my own but really, it’s the $$$ that violently curbs what you can do. Bootstrapping old hardware is great (if you have it) but standing up GenAI requires a high-end GPU to even play around in the space. So like many other dads-to-be, I stripped a couple of old laptops and pcs from their casings, clustered them with a NAS, an RTX 4090 and RTX 3060 to run multiple AI services at once.
Why build a server? For what purpose? It could be the open-source FREE alternative software… Or mistrust of the ridiculously wealthy companies who use your data from their apps/site to get paid? work.. hobby? I started down this road with a media center in mind but that has since evolved and grown into my own VPS with GenAI (LLM, text2img, img2img, video), home automation and monitoring, DNS sinkhole, git and more!
Here I document the journey, server rack and decisions along the way.
Starting Points
If there is one word that comes to mind… it’s PLAN.
Questions I considered…
- Existing computer hardware (PCs, Laptops, SBCs)?
A 4 drive NAS, old gaming computer, mini pc, a le potato, 2 Raspberry Pi 5 - Buying any hardware?
Back then, I had caught the AI bug and grabbed all the pieces for a high-end consumer PC to host my own LLM and image gen. I also picked up a mikrotik router (rackmount), tp-link router, tp-link switch, patch cable (rack mount), power surge and fan. - What is it’s purpose/use?
GenAI, Media Server & Home Automation