From Snail NAS to a Proper Homelab: A Tech Enthusiast’s Upgrade Journey
Published:
Before you read this, please note that this article is originally posted on Feishu, and I used DeepSeek V3 to rewrite it.
Router: Goodbye “Snail,” Hello 2.5G!
Requirements:
- 2.5G ports (because gigabit is so 2010)
- ImmortalWrt (with nginx reverse proxy & ZeroTier for remote access)
- Reliability (so I can travel without worrying about my home network collapsing)
| Part | Model | Qty | Price (¥) | Total | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mini PC | G31F with Intel 8505 (6x 2.5G ports) | 1 | 940 | 940 | 12th-gen hybrid cores, overkill for a router 😅 |
| RAM | Used DDR5 8GB×2 (from a friend) | 2 | 0 | 0 | Free upgrades FTW |
| Boot Drive | Steam Deck’s spare 64GB M.2 2230 SSD | 1 | 0 | 0 | Recycling at its finest |
| Adapter | 2230 to 2280 bracket | 1 | 5 | 5 | Best ¥5 ever spent |
| Total | ¥945 |
Fun fact: 16GB RAM for a router is ridiculous, but DDR5 starts at 8GB sticks. Maybe one day, OpenWRT will run AI models? (Let me dream.)
NAS: The Underground Data Fortress
Requirements:
- 4+ 3.5” HDD bays (data hoarding is a lifestyle)
- 16GB+ RAM (for PVE, Docker, and my bad decisions)
- Faster than an old i7-4790K (it’s 2024, grandpa)
- SR-IOV support (because virtualized storage shouldn’t feel virtual)
- Lives in the basement (noise? size constraints? What are those?)
- Power-efficient-ish (electricity bills are real)
| Part | Model | Qty | Price (¥) | Total | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mobo+CPU | Erying 13500H ITX (3x M.2, 1x PCIe x8) | 1 | 1468 | 1468 | Tiny but mighty |
| Case | Great Wall KM7B (13-bay monster) | 1 | 190 | 190 | Cheaper than a pizza |
| Fans | Thermalright (6x) | 6 | 20 | 120 | Cooling orchestra |
| PSU | Cooler Master GX650 Gold | 1 | 429 | 429 | Efficient and quiet |
| RAM | 16GB×2 DDR5-5600 | 1 | 585 | 585 | Dual-channel supremacy |
| HBA | M.2 to 6x SATA | 1 | 99 | 99 | More drives, more problems |
| HDDs | WD HC550 16TB×2 | 2 | 1688 | 3376 | Helium-filled goodness |
| Old Drives | HC320 8TB + TiPlus SSD | 1 | 0 | 0 | Hand-me-downs still work |
| Boot Drive | Intel H20 (32GB Optane + 512GB) | 1 | 239 | 239 | Hybrid speed demon |
| Cooler | Thermalright tower | 1 | 100 | 100 | Keeps things frosty |
| Total | ¥6,606 |
Future-proofing: Still have 1x M.2 and PCIe x8 slot—ready for 10G networking or more SSDs. Because data expands faster than my budget.
System Architecture: The Frankenstein Setup
Router OS
Custom-built ImmortalWrt (Linux 6.6 kernel). The old 5.15 kernel kept freezing—turns out 12th-gen CPUs need modern love. Who knew?
NAS OS
- Proxmox VE (PVE) as the hypervisor
- Synology DSM (via Arc Loader) for storage management
- SR-IOV passthrough for the HBA card (near-native performance, full SMART support)
Services: The Organized Chaos
- IO-heavy apps (Syncthing, Plex, etc.) → Run directly in Synology’s Docker
- Everything else → Docker inside an LXC container (NFS-mounted to Synology)
“Best practices? Never heard of them.”
Running Docker in a privileged LXC with NFS isn’t technically ideal, but it saves RAM and “just works.”
Only issue? NFS-mounted LXCs sometimes refuse to shut down nicely. A small price to pay for simplicity.
Bonus: LXC GPU passthrough makes Jellyfin hardware transcoding effortless. No more buffering for mom’s drama marathons!