2016
It Started With A PlayStation 2
Like so many good stories, this one started with a problem that had absolutely nothing
to do with servers.
I wanted to play backups on a modded PlayStation 2 Slim. The best solution at the time
was streaming games over SMB, but my desktop simply refused to cooperate.
One YouTube rabbit hole later, I had convinced myself I needed a server.
So I built one from whatever I could find.
A scorching hot AMD Bulldozer.
Eight gigabytes of mismatched DDR3.
A beige case that looked like it had survived the late nineties.
A forgotten GTX 460.
Two lonely 1TB hard drives.
It wasn't elegant.
It wasn't fast.
It was mine.
OpenMediaVault became my classroom. Every permission error, every failed SMB share and
every late night taught me something new.
The games eventually worked...
...most of the time.
First Server
Built entirely from scavenged hardware.
Big Lesson
Sometimes the project teaches more than the goal.
2017
Growing Pains
It didn't take long to realize that the first Vault wasn't built to last.
It consumed more power than it produced.
It generated enough heat to warm the room.
SMB was unreliable and ROM transfers were an exercise in patience.
Six months later it was retired.
By then I had started refurbishing computers and suddenly better hardware was
everywhere.
The second Vault arrived with more storage, more memory and a much better processor.
OpenMediaVault stayed.
Docker entered the picture.
Plex and Nextcloud soon followed.
It worked...
...until it didn't.
Plex buffered.
Nextcloud occasionally imploded.
SMB still found creative new ways to disappoint me.
Milestone
First serious self-hosted services.
Lesson
Better hardware doesn't solve every problem.
2019
The First Real Server
When my desktop was upgraded, The Vault inherited its hardware.
For the first time the server felt intentional instead of improvised.
OpenMediaVault had served its purpose, but I was spending more time troubleshooting
permissions than actually building.
So I made a decision that surprised a lot of people.
I switched to Windows.
Remote Desktop was familiar.
Administration became dramatically easier.
The software stack stayed alive.
I finally moved everything into a rackmount chassis.
There wasn't actually a rack yet...
Just an old wooden shelf hiding inside a closet.
But for the first time, The Vault looked like it belonged.
Major Change
Migration from OpenMediaVault to Windows.
First
Rackmount hardware enters the story.
2020
Everything Accelerated
Then the world stopped.
COVID left many people searching for something to build.
For me, that became The Vault.
More hardware found its way into the chassis.
More storage.
More services.
If it could be self-hosted, I wanted to understand it.
Plex.
Nextcloud.
Cloudflare Tunnels.
Countless experiments.
Somewhere during all of this I purchased the Aethercloud domain partially while assisting Renegade and partially because I wanted a space.
It wasn't meant to become what it is today.
It was simply another idea that curiosity refused to let go.
Discovery
Cloudflare Tunnels and web hosting.
Birth
The Aethercloud name quietly appears.
Today
The Vault Today
Nearly a decade later, The Vault has grown far beyond the machine that started it all.
One hundred and eleven terabytes of storage.
Nineteen self-hosted applications.
A proper server rack.
Enterprise networking.
Cloudflare connecting everything together.
What began as a way to stream PlayStation 2 games has become the foundation underneath
every project inside Aethercloud.
The hardware will continue to evolve.
It always has.
That's the point.
Services
19 Self-Hosted Applications
Network
2.5 Gigabit Backbone
Tomorrow
The Next Chapter
Every version of The Vault has eventually reached its limits.
Every one has taught me something.
Every one has made the next version possible.
The next chapter is already waiting.
Its name is Citadel.