From a Raspberry Pi with an old HDD to a full home server

It all started with a mix of curiosity and stinginess. I wanted more cloud space, but I didn't want to pay for it.

I had some old hard drives lying around and started researching how I could access them over the internet directly from home. I already had a basic understanding of networking — back in 2000, I used to port-forward on the router to play CS with friends — so that was my first instinct.

But researching further, I discovered that simply exposing ports was no longer best practice. That's when I entered the world of VPNs, and from there I fell into a much deeper rabbit hole: the homelab.

# The beginning: Raspberry Pi and early attempts

I already had some hardware knowledge from my work as a video editor. I suffered a lot with bad machines over the years, so I was forced to learn in practice about CPU, GPU, RAM, and how each part impacts performance.

I also had a Raspberry Pi 4 sitting in a drawer (which I bought in the past for emulation), so I decided to use it as a starting point.

• connected the HDDs to it
• started with Raspberry OS
• access only via LAN

Then I tried to spin up an Ubuntu Server, but I got stuck on the CLI. I still didn't have enough of a foundation.

I ended up moving to OMV (OpenMediaVault), which was the first setup that really worked as a NAS.

I even managed to configure Tailscale on it, but in practice, I wasn't using it as a "cloud" yet — it was more of a local storage with network backups. I also started playing around with things like Pi-hole.

# The turning point: real interest in infra

That was the entry point. From then on, I started studying more on my own:

• networking
• communication between machines
• security and privacy
• open source tools

It was precisely when I started diving into the open source world that I really acquired a taste for Linux and the command line. At first, I'd get stuck easily, but today I feel much more comfortable navigating, debugging, and understanding what's happening in the system.

One thing led to another. I started taking courses, studying cybersecurity, and better understanding what I was doing — not just copying tutorials.

With that came new experiments:

• Wazuh (SIEM)
• Suricata (IDS/IPS)
• device hardening
• testing with VMs (VirtualBox / VMware)
• pentest and SOC labs

At this point, the Raspberry Pi couldn't handle it anymore.

# Upgrade: dedicated server with repurposed hardware

During an upgrade to my work workstation, I repurposed the old parts and built my current server. Today it runs with:

• Ryzen 7 5800X
• 16GB RAM
• GT 1030

Initially, I went back to Ubuntu Server and spun everything up manually (Wazuh + other services), but after a few breakages and losing days in troubleshooting, I realized I was spending more time maintaining than learning.

That's when I decided to simplify and migrate to ZimaOS.

# Current setup

Today the server runs:

• ZimaOS as the base
• Immich → personal photo cloud
• Jellyfin → media server
• Zima (NAS) → files
• Tailscale → remote access via VPN
• UpSnap → remote Wake-on-LAN
• MotionEye → IP camera monitoring

Additionally:

• I use it as a subnet router on Tailscale
• I use it as an exit node to access my network in Brazil

And I still use VMs to test new things before taking them to the server.

# What changed in practice

The project started just as "I want more storage without paying." It became:

• a real learning environment
• a networking and security lab
• a base to study infrastructure
• and today it directly influences my career transition