All my websites
Every website I run is hosted here, including this site and the Northern Ember site, with room for whatever I build next. They sit behind a reverse proxy so one machine can serve several domains at once.
Horizon Science ยท Built and Running
Home Server
A dedicated home server I designed, specced, and built myself. It runs Unraid, hosts my websites and game servers, and is growing into the home for my media library, project databases, and backups, all on hardware I own and control.
Overview
From an idea to a machine on the desk
This started as a vague "personal cloud" idea that almost turned into a second gaming PC. I scrapped that and committed to a proper, dedicated server instead: cleaner, quieter, cheaper, and far less of a headache.
I picked every part myself and collected them over a few months, and it is now assembled and online, running quietly on the desk beside my main PC.
Status: built and online
The server is assembled, running Unraid, and doing real work: it hosts my websites and a Minecraft server my friends and I play on. The one piece still to come is the bulk storage. My two 8TB drives are busy in my main PC processing a movie library right now, so they move over once that finishes.
The build
The full parts list, chosen for quiet, low-power, always-on duty rather than raw speed.
CPU
Intel Core i5-14400 (boxed, includes the Intel stock cooler), with Quick Sync for media transcoding so no graphics card is needed
Motherboard
MSI PRO Z790-A WiFi II (DDR5, 6 SATA ports, 4 M.2 slots, 2.5Gb LAN, Wi-Fi 6E)
Case
Fractal Design Define 7 TG Dark Tint, with room for 5 to 6 hard drives
Power
Corsair RM850e, fully modular, with headroom to grow
Memory
16GB DDR5 to start (a spare stick), with 32GB and eventually 64GB planned
SSD
WD_Black SN7100 1TB Gen4 NVMe (M.2 2280) for the OS, Docker apps, and databases
Storage
Two 8TB Seagate IronWolf drives, moving in once they finish a job on my main PC, expandable to 5 or 6 over time
Cooling
The stock Intel cooler for now, maybe an Arctic Freezer 36 later
Cables
Six locking SATA III data cables for the drives
OS
Unraid
Later
A 1500VA sine-wave UPS for clean power and safe shutdowns
An inside look
What the build actually looks like with the side panel off.
Inside the case
Room to grow into
The i5-14400 sits under its stock cooler with a single 16GB DDR5 stick beside it, and the Define 7 leaves three open memory slots and a stack of empty drive bays for later. Building in a case this roomy made cable management easy and leaves plenty of space for the storage still to come.
Those bays are empty on purpose. My two 8TB drives are still in my main PC working through a movie library, so they get installed here once that job is done. Everything the server does today runs from the NVMe SSD.
Running it day to day
Unraid gives the server a web dashboard I can reach from any device on my network. Click either screen to view it full size. A few network details are blanked out.
Dashboard
Everything at a glance
Uptime, processor load and temperature, and memory use sit on one screen next to the containers that are running and the shares the storage is split into: one for app data, one for databases, one for websites, and one for the system itself.
Storage
Running on the NVMe for now
Everything currently lives on the 1TB NVMe pool, which is barely touched at around 20GB used. Unraid reports each device's temperature and read and write activity, so it is easy to see the drive is healthy and idle. The bulk storage slots in beside it once the 8TB drives arrive.
What it runs
The whole point of the build. Some of this is live today, the rest is close behind.
Game servers
A Minecraft server for my friends and me, running as its own container so it can be updated, backed up, or restarted without touching anything else on the machine.
My own media dashboard
Next up is a dashboard I am building myself as the hub for my movies, shows, music, and calendar in one place, instead of juggling separate apps. The i5's built-in Quick Sync handles the video, so no graphics card is needed.
Databases and backends
PostgreSQL and MariaDB for my websites and apps, including a real backend for the BCE Inventory Manager so its data can sync across devices.
Personal cloud storage
Nextcloud or Seafile for my own OneDrive-style file storage and syncing, fully under my control instead of a paid subscription.
Solar and sensor data
An MQTT broker, Node-RED, InfluxDB, and Grafana to collect and chart live data from the ESP32 controller behind the Horizon Solar Dashboard.
How it's set up
Unraid as the OS
Unraid handles mixed-size drives, makes storage easy to expand, has great Docker support, and lets me add parity for redundancy later. It fits a storage-and-apps server better than a full Linux setup or a VM-focused system.
SSD for live, HDDs for bulk
The NVMe SSD holds the things that change constantly (the OS, Docker apps, databases, and the media library's cache), while the hard drives hold the bulk: media, archives, file storage, and backups.
2.5Gb networking
The motherboard has 2.5Gb Ethernet, so the plan is a 2.5Gb link between my main PC and the server for fast transfers, with Wi-Fi 6E as a backup. For moving terabytes of media, wired wins.
Everything in containers
Each service runs in its own Docker container, so the websites, the game server, and anything I add later stay isolated. One can be updated or restarted without risking the rest.
Next steps
Where it goes from here
The immediate one is storage. Once my 8TB drives finish their current job they move into the empty bays, and the media library and backups can move onto the server for good. After that comes more memory, going from 16GB to 32GB and eventually 64GB so it can run more services at once without thinking about it.
Longer term I want a proper UPS for clean power and safe shutdowns, more drives with parity for redundancy, and the rest of the apps on my list added one at a time rather than all at once. The nice part is that the hard work is done: it is built, it is running, and everything from here is just adding to it.