Written 9 Sep 2026. This is a how-to, not a product card.

Postgres is not the first service

Pi-hole and the house folder do not need a database. Postgres, Redis, and Nextcloud wait.

Forums love a “real” database. You do not need one to finish the weekend path. House-wide ad block is the first useful thing. The share is a folder on that computer. Photos and movies still wait: not the first service.

What a database is

A program that stores rows (or documents) and answers questions about them. Useful later, when an app you actually run needs one. Pi-hole keeps its own small store. Samba is files. A second copy of the house folder is rsync to a USB disk, not a replica set.

When it can wait

If the job is ads, a house folder, or SSH from the couch, install the program. Tick Lab plan after it works. Postgres does not make those jobs more true. A container that only exists to host Postgres is the same later-skip as Docker is not the first weekend.

What next

First service: house-wide ad block. Share: a file share. Later photos: not first.

Optional: house folder vs a later database as a sandbox in ByteRush — same Labthrift passkey as Plan. Skip if you just want to keep reading.

Skip

• Skip Postgres, MySQL, Redis, and Mongo this weekend.
• Skip Nextcloud because it wants a database.
• Skip a RAID array so the database can be “serious.”