I have been building out my home lab since 2020 and recently wanted to setup my partners parents with a simple home server where they could backup photos and documents locally. I wanted it to be a fairly small and unobtrusive device that could be run with minimal input. For this I decided to try UmbrelOS.
UmbrelOS brings the cloud to your home! Store your files, run your own VPN, download and stream media, run a Bitcoin node, and more.
Hardware
For the hardware there are a few options available, the first is a small mini PC looking device that they are calling the Umbrel Home, the second is a Raspberry Pi install image, otherwise you can just install UmbrelOS with a Linux command if you want a custom setup.
I went for what I had on hand a Pi4 with 8GB of Ram, now that you can find them!
The Umbrel Home looks cool but I am not sure when they will be available again and I wanted to get this set up right away!
For the storage drive I used a USB C SSD that had 512GB of storage. This was an older drive that I repurposed now that larger storage SSDs are on the market. I would have liked to add more storage but this is just an initial setup to see if Umbrel can meet their home server demands.
I read online that the Pi Image will wipe the drive you connect to it at boot so be warned!
I decided to wipe the SSD and format to ext4 (the required format for the Umbrel storage drive) preemptively just to make sure things went smoothly.
Software Install
For the software install the instructions on Umbrel’s website are quite impressive detailing out all the steps one by one to get everything up and running. The only thing I did differently was use the pi-imager software instead of balena etcher.
Follow these to a T and you wont go wrong! They even have purchase links for everything you need!
Install Instructions for umbrelOS on Rasberry Pi4
Here is my little setup, a whole server that fits in the palm of my hand or a large pocket!
Boot Up
make sure you install the SD card, connect to Ethernet, and plug in your ssd into one of the USB ports before connecting power. As I noted previously the SSD you connect on first boot for configuration will be wiped!
The other big gotcha for the raspberry Pi4 is to make sure to use a compliant power supply that can deliver 5v at 3Amps.
Once powered up let is simmer for a few minutes for it to configure everything and start up the web server.
Then just navigate your phone or another computer on your network to umbrel.local and the desktop like UI should appear.
Software Setup
Now that you have your Umbrel up and running we want to install some apps! there are a plethora to choose from even a local AI chat bot you can Run! But I was mainly interested in the NextCloud, Tailscale, and Plex apps.
All of the apps install with basically one click, but you may need to do some research on how to set up the individual apps correctly once running.
For NextCloud you just need to install the app, which can take a few minutes, then login with the default user name and password. from there you just need to change the password for the umbrel account. But I would suggest going a step farther and adding a whole new admin account for regular use.
I also wanted the server to be accessible from anywhere on the internet, this means a VPN. I was pretty successful in installing Wiregaurd on my Unraid server but this was not available in the Umbrel app store, but I did find Tailscale. This software both runs and manages your VPN to the Umbrel device using a static IP that is accessible over the Internet. I am still investigating it but it seems really cool. With quick setup on iPhone and many other devices this may be my go to local VPN setup in the future!
If you have not heard of Plex yet you are missing out! its an amazing piece of software that hosts, streams, and manages your media library from Movies, TV Shows, Music, etc all with apps that run on most smart devices!
Immich looks interesting as a high performance photo hosting and backup tool but I need to do more research.
Closing Thoughts
This was super easy, like super duper easy to do! I setup the whole thing so quickly I was able to write this whole article in the same day!
There is not a whole lot of customization in the settings which does concern me when they outgrow this solution. like how easy will it be to upgrade storage, or move the server contents to a larger Umbrel computer or different home server setup…
There are also lots of apps, but a large portion are targeted at bitcoin and crypto stuff. I would like ability to add my own apps. This would requre more knowhow but I was able to configure and install my own docker containers in CasaOS (a similar kind of server overly) you can check out those setups below.
Overall I think this is a great intro into running your own home server. Ya its a bit simplistic but that means that anyone can get started managing their own data! You never know when Google or Amazon are going to kill off your favorite service or maybe they change it so it does not fit your needs, or a subscription becomes a financial drain.
These services that they provide are really easy to sign up and use, but the minute you want to migrate away there will be massive friction. Just think how long it would take you to download your entire photo library. Even worse that “entire download” might not be an option you are provided. Sit for a few hours trying to individually select your data from a service, then have the export fail, and you will be ready to try anything else!
