I Shut Down My PC. The Music Stopped, Too.

By the time I turned my PC back on, we’d already given up on the song.

It had stopped right after I walked into the living room. My partner was on the couch with their phone, tapping Next and getting the same little spinning circle. I’d just shut down the computer in the next room.

“Did you turn it off again?”

I said I’d sort it out and went back to the office. I pressed the power button, waited for the login screen, and opened the music server. Then I went back to the couch and asked my partner to try again. By then they’d put the phone down.

“It’s fine. We can leave it.”

So we did. The PC I’d just waited to turn back on sat there running for the rest of the evening. The thing I’d turned it on for never got played.

Every little job had a good reason to live on that PC

The music library came first. The albums were already on the drive, and I was at my desk most days anyway. It seemed silly to move files to another machine just so we could listen to them from the living room.

Then I set up a folder for the family. We’d been sending the same videos back and forth and asking who had the full-size copy. With a shared folder, somebody could put the video there once and everybody knew where to look.

I added a nightly backup after realizing some of those files only lived in that one folder. I set the job to run after bedtime, when nobody was likely to be copying anything. I checked it the next morning, saw it had worked, and got on with my day.

Each thing made sense on its own. Months went by before I noticed I couldn’t turn off the machine without taking all three with it.

I started asking if anyone was using my computer before I shut it down

One evening I was about to restart for an update when my partner called from the couch. “Hang on. I’m halfway through copying the weekend video.” I left the restart window open and waited at my desk.

A few minutes later they said it was done. I restarted, and before the machine came back up, they tried opening the file they’d just put there. The folder had disappeared. I called back that it would be back in a minute.

After that, I started asking before I shut down. Sometimes I asked twice. A file copy might have finished, but somebody might still be watching something or trying to open a document. Occasionally I closed the door to the office, remembered I hadn’t checked, and went back in to leave the PC running.

It was an odd thing to be irritated by. Nobody in the house was asking for anything unreasonable. They were just trying to use a folder I’d told them they could count on.

Leaving the PC on was my fix for a while

Eventually I stopped asking. I’d switch off the desk lamp and leave the machine on. When I needed to run an update, I’d wait until later or send a quick message to say the shared folder would be down for a bit.

One evening I came home, set my keys down, and saw light coming from the office. The monitor was on. My chair was empty. For a second I tried to remember what I’d left running before I went out. It was just the music library. Nobody had played anything all day.

I tried making exceptions. Leave it on if we were expecting a file. Shut it down if we weren’t. Remember to leave it on again for backups. That lasted about as long as it took me to close everything one night on autopilot.

The next morning I opened the backup log. The last successful run was still from the night before last. I’d added a few files since then and assumed they’d been copied. They hadn’t.

I ran the job manually while I made coffee. Nothing had been lost. What bothered me was that I could set up a backup, test it, and still cancel it with the same click I made every night without thinking.

The question that changed what I looked for

A few days later my partner asked if they could see the weekend video while I was out. My first thought was to tell them which folder it was in. My second was to try to remember whether I’d left my computer on.

I couldn’t remember. So I sent back, “I’ll check when I get home.” They knew where the video was. I’d shown them. What they couldn’t do was turn my work computer into something they could rely on without checking with me.

That evening I wrote down three things I wanted to work while my PC was off. I wanted us to be able to play an album, open the family folder, and back up the files in it overnight. Then I made another list for things I wanted to try when I had time, like a couple of Docker apps or a small virtual machine.

I could figure out the second list later. I needed to prove one thing on the first list. Could I put an album somewhere else, actually turn off my PC, and still play the next track from the couch?

I looked for someone doing the exact thing I wanted to do

I’d been looking up home servers and ending up in videos about drive bays and network speeds. This time I looked for someone who’d put a folder of music on a separate machine and shown what it looked like to use it.

That’s how I found Arthur from Hobby Support Int. He connected a SATA drive to a ZimaBoard 2 1664, opened ZimaOS in a browser, and pointed Navidrome at his music folder. I watched until his album covers came up. Then I went back a few seconds to see which machine was doing what.

The computer on his desk was where he was setting things up. The drive and the music service were on the board. That was the part I’d been missing. I was used to doing everything on the PC in front of me. I could still use it to manage the library, then turn it off and leave the music running on the little server.

I watched Tech with Gerard next because I wanted to know what I could do with the machine after moving the things we already used. He showed the ZimaOS App Store and created a virtual machine on his 1664. I could picture doing those on different weekends. One to get the family set up. Another to try something for myself.

I also kept Learn To HomeLab’s Docker walkthrough handy. The useful part for me was watching someone deal with an app that wouldn’t start. I’d been making a list of things I wanted to run. Now I was thinking about where those apps would keep their files, and how I’d work out what had gone wrong if they didn’t start.

What three creators showed in their setups

Hobby Support Int.@HobbySupportInternational

★★★★★

A local music library, shown from setup to playback

Arthur connects SATA storage, points Navidrome at his music folder, and shows the album library running on his ZimaBoard 2 1664.

Tech with Gerard@techwithgerard

★★★★★

A ZimaOS app and a separate VM

Gerard uses Jellyfin to walk through the ZimaOS App Store and then creates a virtual machine on his ZimaBoard 2 1664.

Learn To HomeLab@learntohomelab

★★★★★

What to check when a container won’t start

On the 8 GB ZimaBoard 2 832, the creator deploys Docmost with Docker Compose, explains storage mappings, and checks container logs when setup fails.

If it had only been music, I’d have gone with the 832

For a music library and a couple of shared folders, I would have started with the 832 and its 8 GB of RAM. But by the time I’d written both columns, I was planning for music and shared files to stay available while backup jobs ran, with the option to add containers or try a lightweight VM.

I picked the ZimaBoard 2 1664 because I wanted some memory left after I’d set up the jobs we’d use every day. It has 16 GB of RAM and 64 GB of eMMC storage. My plan was to keep ZimaOS on the onboard storage, put music and shared files on a SATA drive, and keep a separate copy of important files.

I still wanted to see what my apps actually used. When I got to a VM, I’d start with one small instance and check memory usage while the ordinary services were running. Then I could decide what else belonged on the same machine.

The first night, I moved one album and got an empty screen

I copied one album to the SATA drive, set up Navidrome in ZimaOS, and opened the library from my phone on the home Wi-Fi.

It was empty.

For a minute I wondered if I’d picked a project that was going to take the whole weekend. I’d already found the server from my phone. I just couldn’t get it to show me the one album I’d put there.

I went back to the PC and checked that the files had copied. They were right there. Then I looked at the folder I’d given Navidrome and realized I’d pointed it at the wrong place. I changed the path and refreshed. This time the cover came up.

I started the first track in the living room and went back to the office. I clicked Shut down, waited until the monitor went dark, and walked back out. The track was still going. I tapped Next just to check the phone could pull up another song. It did.

I didn’t move the rest of the music that night. I wanted to sit there for the few minutes it took that track to finish without going back to the office once.

I moved the family folder and checked that I could get a file back

Over the next few evenings I copied the rest of the music and then moved the shared folder. I had my partner try opening a video from their phone before I retired the old share. They found it without coming into the office to ask which copy was the right one.

Then I scheduled a backup of the migrated folder to another drive. The next morning I looked at the backup destination, picked one of the files, and restored a copy to a separate folder. I opened it. That told me more than the fact that a job appeared to have run.

I’d planned to start a VM that night. I left it for the weekend. I wanted a few days of the family opening their own files before I started changing anything else. Once that was working, I installed the first container I’d been putting off.

I realized my work PC hadn’t even been on that day

A few days later my partner asked if the video from the weekend was still on my computer.

“It’s in the shared folder. You can open it from your phone.” I said it without looking up. A moment later it occurred to me that I hadn’t even turned on the PC that day.

That evening I put the album back on. When the track ended, the next one started. From the couch I could see the office doorway. The desk lamp was off, the monitor was dark, and I stayed where I was.

If you’re leaving a PC on for the whole house

Think about what stops first when you turn it off. For us it was music. At your place it might be the shared folder or the backup you only remember when it hasn’t run. Move one service, then try using it with the PC actually off.

• For basic file sharing and one or two lightweight services, I’d start by looking at the ZimaBoard 2 832.
• For a media library, shared files, and scheduled jobs alongside Docker apps or a lightweight VM, I’d choose the ZimaBoard 2 1664 for the extra memory headroom.

If I did it again, I’d still start with that one album. I’d turn the PC off, sit back down, and let the song finish.