My 3-Node HomeLab: From Game Hosting to Disaster Recovery (TrueNAS + Debian)
Finally got the hardware and setup. It’s a mix of old reliable hardware and my primary storage drivers.
- Node 1 (Gaming/Bots): i5-6500 | 12GB DDR4 | Debian 13. Powering FiveM, Minecraft, and Palworld for the crew + 3 Discord bots. (This only run for my friends atm and not all run at once)
- Node 2 (The Brains): R5-2600 | 32GB DDR4 | TrueNAS. My primary data hub running Immich (Google Photos alternative), Nextcloud, and Home Assistant. I’ve got the apps running on a 2x SSD Mirror for that extra snappiness.
- Node 3 (DR Server): i7-2700 | 24GB DDR3 | TrueNAS. This is strictly my "Oh Sh*t" box for disaster recovery. 4TB of Seagate/WD raw storage.
Everything is tied together with Tailscale so I can manage the 32GB RAM monster from anywhere. Uptime-Kuma is watching it all like a hawk. I know this is not a good setup for efficiency but on a tight budget just salvage all my old pc
Next steps: to store all of this on 1 rack and utilize the 4th mini pc.
P:S . I dont usually post stuff on reddit. Still learning
Posted Feb 25, 2026, 5:30 AM UTC
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