Best Home Lab Server Pics and gear in 2024

Dell Optiplex XE2

OS: Pfsense 

NIC: Intel 4port GB nic

Cisco Catalyst 3850 upoe 

Dell R430

Processor: 2x E5-2630v3 8core 

Memory: 192GB 

Storage: 2x 128GB SSD in Raid-1 for OS and 6 1TB SAS Hard Drives in Raid-5

OS: ESXI 8.0.3 

VMs: VCenter, Home Assistant, AD Server on Windows Server 2025(Trial), ProxMox (noting currently running on it)

Unbranded Server:

Processor: E3-1225v3

Memory: 32GB

Drives: 3x 4 TB Hard Drives in RaidZ1, 1TB for Container Apps

OS: TrueNas Scale 

Apps: Dashy, Plex, tautulli

Lenovo M720

OS: Windows 11

Old Custom Gaming Computer

Processor: 6300FX

Ram: 16GB

OS: Windows 10 

Wireless APs:

TP-Link Deco Mesh Router turned to AP Only.

Other Equipment:

3x 8 Outlet PDUs (2 were free)

2x 24port EMS keystone patchpanels

Dual display 4port HDMI KVM 

2x Asus 27" Monitors

Home lab is for play and learning when I am not burnout after working as Network Engineer/System Administrator/Tier3 Service Desk... 

I’m from Madagascar, and I’d like to share my little home lab setup.

Hypervisor:

• Proxmox

Specifications:

• HP EliteDesk
• Processor: Intel Core i5 (4th Generation)
• Memory: 8 GB DDR3 SDRAM (1600 MHz)
• Storage: 1 TB mSATA SSD

Proxmox Configuration:

• 1 Node

Shared Storage:

• Open-source NAS
• Raspberry Pi 4 with OpenMediaVault
• External HDD: 1 TB

Hello,
i built my homelab out of my custom PC, my wifes custom PC which i stole (she has a remote setup now so she can be in any other room) 3 mini PCs and a custom NAS running TrueNAS Scale

the two large servers i call my H or heavy servers, i only turn them on when in use as they dont run any infrastructure, just VMS.

the white and gold server has:

ryzen 3950x

amd r7 240 for the proxmox hypervisor

a GTX 2070 super for my VMS, ARCH (btw) and Windows 11

64gb trident Z royale gold

the server on the far left has:

ryzen 3700x

32 GB gskill

gtx 710 for hypervisor

rtx 2060 for vms, windows for now

also docker experiments

the three mini PCs are different models that run a ceph cluster maintaining my DNS, home assistant, and vpn, these three are all hooked up to my UPS backups for when the power goes out so we don't lose internet

these ones are on 24/7

beelink 4 core 4gb ram

ace magician 12 threads, 16gb ram

hp elite desk 8 threads, 16gb ram

1tb shared ceph storage amongst all 3

they are located behind and above the switches

for storage i have several terabytes of local storage on both of the heavy servers as well as the TrueNAS which has 8 tbs that i use for hosting my data, as well as PLEX and Grafana

my router is a PFsense re-flash of an older cisco linksys ea4500 that is down stream of my ISP provided router located on the top shelf

display to the left is an RPI powered GUI Terminal, display on the right is RPI powered grafana display

for power distribution i have the 2 UPS' battery is split up among the smaller infrastructure related devices, and surge protection for the larger devices that are not part of infrastructure

My homelab, which also happens to reside in my HVAC closet in our basement, consists of the following hardware:

In the rack, top-down

• 24-port patch panel with Monoprice thin patch cables going to the switch
• Cisco 3750X 48-port PoE switch
• On the shelf from left-to-right is my pfSense firewall, Lutron Hub, and AT&T fiber modem
• Dell R720xd - this is my "new old" server running Unraid and currently has almost all of my data on it. It has 2x Intel Xeon E5-2670 CPUs in it, 128 GB of DDR3 RAM, and 12x 2 TB hard drives alongside 2x 128 GB SSD drives for cache, and finally an Nvidia Quadro P400 used for Plex/Jellyfin transcoding
• HP ProLiant DL360p Gen8 - this server is rarely ever turned on and I plan to sell it sooner than later; it's running Proxmox and has 2 or 3 VMs on it but I only power it on as-needed and haven't needed to do so in almost a year. It has 2x Intel Xeon E5-2640 CPUs, 64 GB of DDR3 RAM, and 4x 800 GB drives (I think?)
• Dell/EMC Avamar Storage Node - this is my "old old" server which previously ran Unraid and all of the drives have since been migrated to the "new old" server. It has 2x Intel CPUs in it and 96 GB of DDR2 RAM. I need to sell or recycle this one too. 🙂
  
• Other notes: the unsightly blue cable hanging down and plugging into the switch is running through the drop ceiling on the finished side of the basement to a 4x RJ45 wall jack feeding the connection upstairs to the rest of the house - this is accomplished using some 2.5G MoCA adapters, but I need to figure out a better way to go about the presentation. I also plan to eventually get a short Monoprice thin patch cable that's red in color to plug into port 47 of the Cisco switch and port 20 of the patch panel to signify that the connection is to the firewall.

On the stand

• This is my "new new" server that I built recently in a Fractal Node 804 case. It's running Proxmox VE as the base OS with several LXC containers and an Ubuntu VM running Docker/Portainer and TrueNAS as the NAS OS with the SATA expander PCIe card being passed through to it. The card has 8x 4 TB drives attached to it. The mobo is an Erying motherboard from AliExpress that has an 11th gen Intel Core i7-11700B CPU and 32 GB of DDR4 RAM with the aforementioned 8x 4 TB storage drives.

Miscellaneous

• Mounted on the wall in the HVAC closet is an old monitor connected to a VGA KVM for switching between servers
• Upstairs in my office are the 2x Dell OptiPlex 7050 Micro computers that are also running Proxmox VE with a few LXC containers running. They have Intel Core i5-6600T CPus and 32 GB of RAM. These will be moving to the server rack eventually when I sell/get rid of the 2 rackmount servers and can install another 2u shelf for them to live on (hopefully alongside the mini PC being given away) 😎  
• I'm also already noticing the limitations of the Fractal Node 804 case and the Erying mobo used because I want to install a GPU for doing local AI stuff but there are only 2 PCIe slots, and the SATA expander card occupies the one that would fit a GPU...so I'm already weighing my options for selling this hardware and building something else that will accommodate a GPU and proper RAID controller in IT mode instead of the SATA expander card.
• I'm also considering switching back to Unraid as the NAS OS because it's "simpler" to me than TrueNAS, uses way less RAM, and allows for mixed size drives. I got my start in homelabbing using OpenMediaVault and then Unraid, and watched SpaceInvaderOne's videos and wanted to "challenge" myself to learn to use TrueNAS, but now that I'm using Proxmox with VMs and LXC containers and essentially just need my NAS to be a NAS and not run any unnecessary plugins or Docker containers, TrueNAS seems less necessary.

Hi, here is my setup!!

I have fallen in love with the idea of a miniature yet powerful lab so I been sticking to SFF devices. 

Here is my kit:

• Two nodes that make up my XCP-NG cluster
  • HP Prodesk 
  • Dell OptiPlex
  • pFsense router (beside the unifi switch)
  • 8-Port Unifi switch (managed)
  • Unifi AP
  • TrueNAS - All flash NAS (beside the two stacked nodes)
  • USB attached HHD/SSD enclose (retired as TrueNAS does not play nice with it) 
  • CyberPower UPS 

• What I am running:
  • XCP-NG as the hypervisor with Xen Orchestra for management
  • 3x Docker host (too many containers I lost count 🤣)
  • Linux vms for coding, scripting and IaC practice 
  • TrueNAS Scale for storage and redundant virtualizations (also host my home media)
  • I use ansible for provisioning, configurations and patching 
    • Have been considering in introducing Terraform locally as well however a bit limited on resource availability but it's a 2025 goal.