This machine started life as a computer I built for gaming. One day I set out to swap the graphics card and move the RAM to DDR5 — which meant a new motherboard, and a new power supply to match the new card. And while I was at it, why not a new SSD too? By the time I came to my senses, I had built a whole new computer.
What was left over was a complete build missing only a processor. So I bought a cheap i3 with integrated graphics, dropped it into the leftover machine, and hung whatever disks I had lying around off it. That became the home server. I first set it up with GPT as my pair; these days I keep it running with Claude Code.
Specs
| Processor | Intel Core i3-12100 — 4 cores / 8 threads, integrated UHD Graphics 730 |
|---|---|
| Memory | 40 GB DDR4-3200 (32 GB + 8 GB) |
| Storage | 256 GB NVMe SSD (Samsung) + 500 GB SATA SSD (WD) |
| OS | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS |
| Software | Everything in Docker; all configuration in a git repository |
So what do you do with it?
Honestly, nothing serious. I first spun up things like Nextcloud on an AI's recommendation, just for fun, and never really ended up using them.
The one unusual piece is a vector-memory service called v-memories. When I first put this home server together, MCP was brand new and Claude had no memory feature yet. I was deep into MCP at the time, and I wanted to attach a memory to Claude that ran its own vector search. Now that Claude has built-in memory it doesn't mean much anymore — but being able to keep a memory I manage myself, on my own server, still feels appealing.
Working on this project, I found that spinning up a service was easier than I'd expected — and it left me wanting to keep using this home server for all sorts of things. This site is one of them.
I have a condition: I keep starting blogs. I build them and then can't keep writing. Wondering why, I decided it's that I don't live a life steady enough to write one consistently around a single theme 🙂↔️
Decades ago, back when I was still in middle school, I remember building a personal homepage and messing around with it. By now it has all been replaced by blogs and YouTube and Instagram and Facebook and TikTok and Setlog and things I don't even know about that are probably being made right this minute. I wanted to go back to it, just once more. I don't know who'll see it — but I think I'll pretend no one does, and fill it up with nothing but the things I find fun.