A year ago, I would have said that a HomeLab is a collection of hardware and software, a high-tech playground for learning/sharpening IT skills. It can be used to simulate a variety of enterprise network and client-server environments as well as for self-hosting web-based and local services.

But the last year of my IT career convinced me that I’m either the dumbest or the unluckiest IT professional alive so now that I’m retired, I’ll mostly be avoiding IT endeavors except where self-hosting provides me with services that enrich my life (and those of my friends and families), keep my personal data secure, and provide me with privacy that is sorely lacking private. Besides, for many people (especially those just getting started in the hobby), a homelab may be nothing more than an old laptop. (Hardware requirements for this hobby aren’t very demanding.) That’s hardly a “collection of hardware”, right? Further, 50% of my current homelab “hardware” is a VPS (Virtal Private Server) that I’ve never seen or laid hands on, hosted on some rackmount server in some datacenter in Dallas.

Retirement allowed me and my wife, Krista, to expatriate to Panama (lower cost of living, greater availability of affordable housing that’s near the beach, better/cheaper healthcare and more). Lots of stuff (homelab equipment and otherwise) went into storage, to be shipped to us once we settle on a location and buy a house in Panama. So my homelab now consists of an Intel NUC (BoraBora) with an attached 8 x 12TB storage array that travels with me, along with the aforementioned VPS. That’s it. Again, not exactly a “collection of hardware”

Short answer: because there are some really great self-hosted services available. BoraBora runs Jellyfin, and serves (to me, locally, and to friends and family, remotely) an ever-growing library of 650+ movies and every episode of 35 different TV shows. Soon, I’ll be adding music, self-hosted YouTube videos, and personal photos and videos.