Homelab Media Box on Hetzner (16TB)
A 16TB Hetzner auction server running my family's media library: Jellyfin and Plex with Quick Sync transcoding, the *arr apps, Caddy and Portainer in Docker.
Overview
I’ve always liked owning my media and my infrastructure. Renting cloud space or relying on streaming never felt right. So I built my own server: a bare-metal Hetzner auction box with 16 TB of storage and 64 GB RAM, running an orchestrated suite of self-hosted apps that power my family’s entire digital library — movies, books, automation, and more.
It’s cost-effective, private, and surprisingly elegant.
Why Hetzner
Running this at home wasn’t realistic. My local ISP gives me gigabit down but only 40 Mbps up — perfect for gaming, terrible for hosting 4K streams. Hetzner’s auction servers offered the sweet spot:
- Symmetrical bandwidth for multiple concurrent streams
- Dedicated Xeon E3-1275 V6 with Intel Quick Sync for hardware transcoding
- Refurb pricing far below cloud costs
That GPU alone can handle a dozen simultaneous 4K transcodes — better than my M2 Mac Mini ever could.
Stack Overview
| Layer | Tools & Services | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Media Servers | Plex • Jellyfin | Dual-system for redundancy and flexibility |
| Automation | Radarr • Sonarr • Lidarr • LazyLibrarian | Hands-off downloads and metadata management |
| Access & Requests | Jellyseerr • Wizarr | User requests, onboarding, and family invites |
| Torrenting | qBittorrent + ProtonVPN | Private, bandwidth-aware downloads |
| Edge & Management | Caddy • Portainer • Organizr | Reverse proxy, container orchestration, and unified dashboard |
| Storage & Hardware | 16 TB HDD • Xeon E3-1275 V6 • 64 GB RAM | Reliable, powerful, and inexpensive |
Principles Behind the Stack
- 🧩 Ownership + Convenience – Control the stack end-to-end without friction.
- 🔒 Privacy First – VPN-tunneled traffic and local user management.
- 👨👩👧 Family-Friendly – Simple, curated, multi-user access with Jellyseerr.
- 🧠 Documented Setup – So future-me can rebuild it fast.
- 💸 Cost-Effective – One flat Hetzner fee replaces every cloud bill.
Challenges & Choices
- Why not Proxmox? Hetzner doesn’t offer it as a recovery image, and by the time the base stack was live, it wasn’t worth wiping everything. I plan to migrate on my next hardware refresh — but the current Docker/Portainer setup has been rock-solid.
- Why not host at home? Upload speed. High-bitrate 4K content crushed my local network. Hetzner’s symmetrical connection solved it overnight.
Impact
- Hosts the entire family’s 4K media with zero buffering.
- Serves multiple simultaneous remote streams effortlessly.
- Centralized management with one-click container deploys.
- Monthly cost lower than a few streaming subscriptions combined.
Reflection
This isn’t just a server — it’s my personal cloud. It’s proof that with a bit of care, you can own your data, automate everything, and still give your family a Netflix-tier experience without surrendering privacy or paying the big guys.
Next stop: Proxmox and GPU passthrough. But for now, it just works — and that’s the best feeling in tech.
Tech Stack
Docker / Portainer, Caddy, Plex, Jellyfin, Jellyseerr, Radarr/Sonarr/Lidarr, qBittorrent, ProtonVPN, Hetzner Dedicated, Intel Quick Sync