This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/homelab by /u/crazyclown87 on 2025-07-25 13:30:10+00:00.
Hi, my name is u/crazyclown87, and I'm a homelabaholic
clears throat
It's been 15 minutes since my last "quick config change" that somehow turned into a 6-hour rabbit hole of optimizing transcoding settings that were working perfectly fine before I touched them.
I told myself I was done. I had everything I needed. My trusty Dell T3500 with its ancient X5670 was chugging along beautifully - managing my ZFS pool, running my entire arr stack, serving up Jellyfin transcodes on a GTX 950 that's older than most of the movies it's transcoding. "This is enough," I said. "24GB of RAM is plenty," I lied to myself.
But then... voice breaking ...then the 4K remuxes started stuttering. Immich's machine learning was eating RAM like it was at a Golden Corral buffet. My poor GTX 950 was thermal throttling so hard I'm pretty sure it filed for disability benefits.
So I relapsed. Hard.
"Just one more node," I whispered as I clicked 'Buy It Now' on that HP EliteDesk 800. "It's for dedicated transcoding," I rationalized. "It's practically a necessity."
Now my 1Gb NIC has the audacity to negotiate down to 100Mb like it's 2005, my storage is filling up faster than my excuses, and my wife asked me last week if I was having an affair because I've been sneaking downstairs at 2 AM to "check on the servers."
I mean... technically I AM having an affair. With a Dell and an HP. And frankly, they're not more reliable than my relationship.
The worst part? That shiny new HP is just sitting there with a single Ubuntu VM, mocking me. Completely underutilized. It's like having a Ferrari and using it to get the mail.
looks around nervously
And don't even get me started on my "command center." Three monitors spread across my desk like mission control - left monitor showing the Ubuntu login from my GTX 950, center displaying the Proxmox interface I refresh compulsively, and the right one extending my Windows 10 laptop that won't stop nagging me about end-of-support. Because apparently my laptop is also too old for Windows 11. Even Microsoft has given up on me.
I have two keyboards. THREE if you count the laptop. Why do I need three keyboards? I don't know, but I'm afraid to unplug any of them in case something breaks.
Around the corner, the HP EliteDesk sits there with its own keyboard and mouse, staring at me with that cold login screen like a disappointed parent. "You bought me for transcoding," it seems to say. "Yet here I sit, doing absolutely nothing."
My desk is a monument to poor life choices - empty energy drink cans that could probably be recycled into another server, Cheetos bags that serve as evidence of my 3 AM "quick maintenance windows," and a paper calendar that still says November 2024 because who has time to flip calendars when there are Docker containers to update?
Oh, and there's a bottle of 409 cleaner that's been sitting there since... well, since that calendar was current. It's like a museum piece now. "One day I'll clean this mess," I tell myself, right before spinning up another LXC container.
hangs head in shame
I've accepted that I'll never have enough RAM, storage, transcoding power, or desk space. My name is u/crazyclown87, and I'm powerless against the urge to add "just one more container" to my already-maxed-out infrastructure.
Thank you for listening. Now excuse me while I go research whether the T3500 can fit a second GPU...
