Why You Should Have a Home Lab
Home labs are – in my opinion – one of the single greatest ways to develop core skill sets in IT; be it networking, administration, automation, and much more. If you have worked a job in an IT environment, you are usually limited with the amount of tinkering and exploring you can do. With a home lab, it's all yours; you break it, you fix it.
Home labs can be incredibly enriching and rewarding. You have to depend on Google, forums, and your peers for nearly everything. Because you're setting the environment up from scratch and practicing continuous maintenance, the amount you learn is unparalleled. It's my opinion that you can learn much more in a short time in your home lab than on the job.
If you search online for images of home labs, you are going to find mixed results. There are a lot of home-labbers with some very elaborate setups. The good news is that home labs come in all varieties. You may not start with much, but in the future, you too may have a very elaborate setup.
The Home Lab Experience
Home Labs Are...
- A monetary commitment
- A time commitment
- Marketable resume enhancements
- Job interview subject matter
- A wealth of knowledge
Skills One Can Learn in a Home Lab
- Virtualization
- Server Administration
- Network Engineering and Administration
- Systems Engineering and Administration
- Cybersecurity (Red and Blue)
- Software Development
- DevOps (CI/CD)
- Database Administration
Lab Equipment Scouting
Minimum System Recommendations
These are strictly recommendations. Work within your constraints and graduate up as your circumstances permit.
- At least two network interfaces for redundancy and NIC bonding
- At least two disk bays
- 128 GB to 256 GB SSD for the operating system
- 1TB+ SSD or 10,000 RPM HDD for storage
- At least a single quad-core, hyperthreaded CPU
- Enterprise-grade preferred (eg. Intel Xeon)
- Motherboard capable of utilizing 64GB+ RAM (preferrably server RAM)
- A system that will grow with you
Small Form Factor Computers
If space is an issue – or you are not planning on using a server rack – there are some small computers that have decently powerful specifications with a small footprint.
- Intel NUC
- Lenovo ThinkCentre Tiny Desktops
- Dell OptiPlex
- Laptops
Some form factors to consider
- Stick PC
- Mini PC
- Laptop
- Tower
- Rackmount
Equipment Scouting Process
You should have a good idea of what kind of system you want before you start looking. What form factor are you looking for? What are the minimum specifications you prefer?
Some questions to ask your self
- Does it come with any components pre-installed and will you need to upgrade any of those components?
- CPU
- GPU
- RAM
- Disks
- Power Supply
- If you need to upgrade components
- Which CPUs are compatible? How many sockets?
- Which GPUs are compatible?
- What is the maximum amount of RAM?
- Number of pins?
- Double data rate (DDR)?
- Frequency?
- How many disk bays?
- 3.5" or 2.5" disks?
- If 3.5", do you want a 2.5" adapter?
- How many network ports? Speed?
Examples of Good Buys*
*All prices as of May 2021

- $255 (shipping included)
- Excellent entry-level box!
- Quad Core i7-3770 3.4GHz
- 16GB DDR3 RAM (32GB compatible)
- 1TB SSD
- Single 1Gbps NIC

- $323.25 (shipping included)
- Excellent entry-level box!
- Quad Core i7-6700 3.40GHz
- 16GB RAM (64GB compatible)
- 750 GB HDD (could easily swap to SSD)
- Single 1Gbps NIC

- $213.48 (shipping included)
- Includes Xeon D-1518 2.2 GHz, Quad Core
- No RAM (self-install)
- PC4 2133/2400 MHz
- Up to 32GB non-ECC | 64GB ECC
- PC4-2133 32GB RAM - $148 (x2)
- No Disks (accepts 2.5”, could use SSDs)
- 256GB High Performance SSD - $44
- 1TB High Performance SSD - $105
- Two 1Gbps network interfaces
- 1 iLO BMC/IPMI network interface
Total Price for all parts: $658.48

- $565.88 (shipping included)
- (2x) Intel Xeon X5670 6 Core 2.93GHz
- 64GB Server RAM
- (1x) 240GB SSD Solid State Drive
- (2x) 2TB SAS Hard Drive Disk
- Two 1Gbps network interfaces
Home Lab Design
Everyone's home lab will look different, mainly due to the fact that everyone's homes are different. Perhaps your house is wired with network cabling, perhaps not.
Perhaps you have a room down in the basement far enough away to insulate the noise of a server rack. And maybe, you have patch paneling installed with multiple network drops throughout the house.
Maybe, you live in an apartment with a single network drop where the internet service provider's (ISP) equipment is installed. In this case, maybe you only have single modem and wireless router.
The point is: work within your constraints. You may be happy with a simple setup or you may want to make changes later as time, money, and circumstances permit.

Where Do I Start Building My Lab?

Step 1
- Modem: $
Depends on your ISP and Internet service type. You may want to upgrade your modem to a more high performance model. Make sure it’s compatible with your ISPs requirements. - Router: $ – $$$
Depends on the quality router you get and the feature set (can also build your own pfSense router). You should aim for a router with 802.1q VLAN support - 8 Port Managed Switch: $
Gigabit managed switches with 802.1q are surprisingly affordable. Brands like Netgear will do just fine for the home network. Just make sure it’s managed. - Virtualization Server: $$ – $$$
Probably the most expensive item on this list, with good reason. Just make sure you use SSDs where possible.
Step 2
- 802.1q Compatible Wireless AP: $ – $$$
Not as important, but will enhance your home security by creating VLANs and firewall rules for different wireless networks.
Step 3
- Raspberry Pi Cluster: $ – $$$
Have some fun with some IOT projects. Not required, just a suggestion as a next step.
Step 4
- Use your imagination. Think of some projects you're interested in. Check out YouTube videos online from other home lab creators.
Supplemental Links
Lab Equipment Links
LabGopher (eBay aggreator)
eBay
Mercari
OfferUp
Newegg
Memory.net (RAM upgrades)
Server Monkey
The Server Store
Got Equipment?
Start deploying your home lab environment!

Vendor Links
- Recommended hypervisor for your Virtualization Server: Proxmox VE
- Excellent open-source firewall software: pfSense
- Very powerful SDN switch compatible with Proxmox: Open vSwitch
- Containerized Linux compatible with Proxmox: Linux Containers (LXC)
- The tried and tested VPN server, great for home labs: OpenVPN
- Extremely fast and lightweight tunneling: Wireguard
- No static IP address? No problem: No-IP (Dynamic DNS)