Just taking my first leap into the self hosting arena. Ordered an Umbrel Pro (N300 chip with 16GB of ram) and a 4TB to get started. My goal is to run Immich, Nextcloud, Jellyfin (with Arrstack), Home Assistant, Tailscale, Adguard/piHole, and Project Nomad eventually. Future purchase already planned for a dedicated NAS and a full Ubiquity stack once I move in a few months. Not new to Linux or IT but hardware specs give me a headache. Should i stick with the default Umbrel OS or go a different route?
If you wanted to be able to play with some applications I think Umbrel Pro will allow you to do that. However, I think you will face constraints on the processor and RAM sooner rather than later. Using something like Proxmox would allow you to learn and play, but RAM is what’s needed for virtual machines, perhaps you can getaway with containers.
If you had a box you could stuff lots of RAM in with a decent processor and maybe a quad NIC you’ll have options. Though the price of RAM is eyewatering. I would buy second hand to play with.