Jokes aside, I consider the previous posts in this series extremely important. Each one covers a critical piece:
Streaming is Broken II: Choosing Hardware. Where we learned about a low-cost homeserver setup with my two cents on storage.
Streaming is Broken III: The Foundation (OS, Docker, and “Day One”). Where we configured our OS, Docker, and prepared the groundwork for what would come next.
Streaming is Broken IV: The Fortress: VPN and Gluetun. A chapter you normally won’t find in other tutorials, focused on security and privacy.
Streaming is Broken V: Hardlinks and Permissions. Tips to avoid future headaches in our configurations.
But if I had to choose just one post to explain how to configure a homeserver, it would be this one.
If you skip this post and head straight to the next chapter, your server would work just fine… for a little while. But then you’d notice the inevitable: You downloaded a 50GB movie, yet your consumed disk space jumped by 100GB.
Whose fault is it? It’s the file system’s inefficiency.
In this post, we’re going to solve our server’s biggest logical bottleneck: data duplication. We will implement the magic of Hardlinks and solve any potential Linux permission issues once and for all.
We have the server and our OS installed and configured. Before we start casting the actors who will play the lead roles, let’s pause for a moment to focus on the backstage. More precisely, on privacy. Regardless of whether you live in a country that actively punishes piracy or not, no one should know how you use your local network. Privacy matters!.
If you start a torrent download on the server right now, your real IP will be exposed to the world. Furthermore, ads, trackers, and telemetry data will flow freely through your network.
Now that we have our hardware, we can begin with the system configuration of our server. The MiniPC I bought came with Windows installed. It’s also possible to use Microsoft’s system for what we want, but it’s a ridiculous waste of performance and energy.
A robust Home Server is not a desktop computer that stays on all day: it’s a dedicated system. We will build the software foundation from scratch, transforming the mini PC into an enterprise-level infrastructure, ready to run 24/7 without human intervention.
To begin creating the HomeServer, we first need to decide on the hardware that will host our server. Here is some excellent news: we can have a state-of-the-art NAS with a zillion terabytes managed by TrueNAS, or even do everything with a Raspberry Pi (yes, it’s perfectly possible). It really depends on your budget.
In my case, I went with a Mini PC, more specifically a SOYO M2 PLUS V1.
It is no longer news that we have more and more streaming services. What seemed like a revolution with Netflix is now a headache for those who want to consume movies and series. I always looked favorably upon these services due to the ease and reasonable cost of access; as much as international corporations fail to understand, this is the main factor that reduces piracy. Furthermore, buying physical media became something exclusive to collectors, since a season of The Simpsons on BluRay cost much more than a monthly HBO Max subscription. So subscribing was a good deal, right? Yes, but in 2025 this no longer exists. Today we have countless problems related to streaming:
