148: Homelab Disaster Prep

84 snips

May 2, 2025

Stephen Schattin

In this enlightening discussion, guest Stephen Schattin shares his experience of enduring a week-long power outage that affected his homelab. He emphasizes the critical importance of disaster preparedness for self-hosters and offers practical tips on managing power outages. Stephen also explores innovative solutions using Tailscale and Unraid 7.1 for improved networking and system management. Dive into their conversation about integrating Home Assistant for enhanced automation, making sure your tech doesn’t go dark when the lights do!

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ADVICE

Practice Controlled Power Outages

Practice controlled power outages to learn emergency management before disaster strikes.
Consider investing in portable battery and solar systems for backup during extended outages.

ANECDOTE

Data Center Backup Limits

Stephen's data center UPS provided only about three hours of backup power during the outage.
He plans to use a Generlink transfer switch with a Honda generator for cleaner and safer power management.

ADVICE

Plan Secondary Heat Source

Plan for a secondary heat source besides electric heating systems during outages.
Gas furnaces can sustain heat even when the power grid fails, unlike electric heat pumps.

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A week-long power blackout knocks out our guests homelab. We dig into Unraid 7.1, and push Home Assistant to keep things running—even when the power doesn’t.

Special Guest: Stephen Schattin.

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ha-unraid — This custom integration allows you to monitor and control your Unraid server from Home Assistant. Unraid is a popular NAS (Network Attached Storage) operating system that provides flexible storage, virtualization, and application support.
hass-unraid — This Docker container parses and forwards all WebSocket messages from your Unraid server to Home Assistant using the MQTT protocol. This enables you to create dashboards that provide a superior overview compared to Unraid's native capabilities.
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