Whether you're looking to reuse an old system or plan to breathe some new life into budget Xeon chips, there are plenty of ways to assemble your first home lab. If you're familiar with building PCs, you won't have too many issues when putting together a server for your experiments.
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That said, there are a couple of differences that set home servers apart from the average gaming PC. In fact, your entire setup can vary wildly depending on the types (and number) of services, containers, and virtual machines you wish to run on the workstation. So, we've compiled a beginner's guide to help you establish your own home server.
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What's a home lab?
And why should you build one?
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In the simplest of terms, a home lab is an experimentation hub where you can test different operating systems, self-host a myriad of services, and build all sorts of wacky projects that can potentially break the server. Home servers are perfect testing grounds when you want to learn about networking, managing clusters, or just want to play around with containers and virtual machines.
Picking the hardware
Plenty of ways to go about it
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Unlike your top-of-the-line gaming system, a self-hosting/experimentation server relies a lot more on the CPU cores and amount of memory than blazing-fast clock speeds and memory frequencies. That's precisely the reason why older dual-Xeon builds serve as amazing workstations, despite their terrible single-core performance. ECC memory, which can reduce the chances of data corruption from single-bit errors, is quite handy when you intend to set up a NAS on top of your home server. Having used everything from mini-PCs and laptops to gaming systems and enterprise-grade hardware for home servers, I'd recommend grabbing a consumer-tier CPU with plenty of cores when building your first experimentation lab.
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Budget Xeon systems are also worthwhile options, as they cost significantly less than your average gaming system. However, they have their own share of issues, namely the sky-high power requirements and poorly documented, thermally-challenged unbranded motherboards.
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If you can find pre-owned server systems at discounted prices, there's no harm in using them to build your home lab. That said, I advise doing your thorough research to ensure the parts aren't too outdated for the price. Alternatively, if you're fond of SFF systems and SBCs, Docker containers are still an option, though VMs are off the table if you're using budget-friendly mini-PCs or Arm-powered boards.
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Choosing the software
Virtualization platforms are ideal for home labs...
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Just like your custom-built NAS, you can put together a server using most modern operating systems. However, dedicated virtualization environments are perfect when you need an all-in-one experimentation hub. As someone who has spent months working on useful projects as well as unhinged ideas centered around Proxmox, it's my platform of choice for anything related to home labs. It uses the KVM hypervisor for solid performance and lets you deploy LXC containers using a myriad of TurnKey templates. Plus, it supports ZFS pools, making it ultra-useful for makeshift NAS solutions, and packs multiple security and networking options, all wrapped inside an easy-to-use UI.
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Related
A beginner's guide to setting up Proxmox
It's quite easy to configure Proxmox for your home lab server
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XCP-ng is a decent alternative to Proxmox if you want something that's similar to VMware's ESXi but without the obscene pricing or sudden licensing changes that Broadcom is infamous for. While it doesn't support native containerization (and no, I refuse to accept the Kubernetes plugin as a replacement for LXC/Docker containers), it's better when you wish to use your home lab in a production environment. Likewise, Hyper-V is another option worth considering, especially if you're used to Microsoft's product suite.
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A beginner's guide to setting up a home lab with XCP-ng
Want to use XCP-ng for your virtualization projects but don't know where to start? This detailed guide can help you out!
... Though you can run a server on Docker and Type-2 hypervisors
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If you're not fond of spending hours getting up to speed with new operating systems, you'll be glad to know that it's possible to create a home lab on the platforms you're already familiar with. For instance, TrueNAS Scale and Unraid are typically geared for NAS setups. But thanks to their built-in virtualization and containerization features, you can run most operating systems and containers on them, though they obviously won't provide the same performance as Proxmox or XCP-ng.
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Meanwhile, Type-2 hypervisors and Docker containers work surprisingly well for beginner home labs. The latter, in particular, can deliver robust performance on an Arm-powered SBC like the Raspberry Pi series. Heck, if you're hesitant to install a Linux distro on your current PC, you can leverage VMware Workstation Pro or VirtualBox to deploy a Debian machine and use it to host all your favorite services. While it won't be the same as experimenting on a full-fledged virtualization environment, running a hypervisor on top of Windows 11 is still a decent way to begin your self-hosting/home lab journey.
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Be warned: The home lab rabbit-hole goes pretty deep
If you've got time to spare and are even remotely interested in the fantastic world of computing, there's no reason not to build a home server. Even if you start out with a Windows 11 machine, you'll need a handful of accessories for the server. For example, a network switch is a must-have once your arsenal of devices starts to grow. If you're not already using your workstation as a NAS, it's a good idea to invest in a separate storage server for the large files and backup provisions. And once the 10GbE bug sinks its fangs into you, be prepared to shell out even more on upgrading your network.
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All that said, you should keep a firm eye on your budget and power consumption, as it's easy to go overboard when buying all the extra peripherals for the server. If you're not careful, you could end up with a rat's nest that, despite running everything you could ever want, drains far too much electricity and vexes your spouse to no end.