Recently, I covered the first services that you should spin up in a home lab, including core services that are needed to make sure things work as expected with apps and other workloads you spin up. However, stripping things back to the basics, let’s talk about the first hardware I always buy for any home lab configuration. Before you ever power on Proxmox, ESXi, or Kubernetes, you need to think about the hardware foundation that makes the rest of the lab possible. Over the years of building and rebuilding labs, I’ve learned that there are certain pieces of hardware I always buy first. These provide a rock solid base that everything else can run on. Let’s look at the first hardware I always buy for any home lab and what components it includes.
Absolute core components
What I am going to highlight below are what I consider to be the absolute core components of a home lab to consider. What are these?
- Switch
- Mini PC
- UPS
- NAS in addition to or as a Mini PC substitute
Let’s take a look at these one-by-one and even consider some cost-effective and feature-rich options.
1. Switches
Most start out at home with an ISP-provided router or a prosumer router that you purchase at a retail store or online. However, the core of your home lab once you start getting serious about learning and building self-hosted applications is a managed switch.
A managed switch is one of the first pieces of hardware I buy because it unlocks VLANs, higher throughput, and the ability to segment traffic just like you would in a production environment. When I look for a switch, I look for at least the following basic capabilities:
- Management capabilities – what this means is you can “manage” the switch from a command line, or some other interface like a web interface or other tool to setup VLANs, configure LAGs, setup switched virtual interfaces, etc.
- Low power consumption and noise – Power efficiency is very important, especially in some parts of the world more than others you don’t want a power-hungry monster of a switch that sucks power and puts out tons of heat.
- 10 GbE uplinks on at least 2 ports – In my opinion, having 10 GbE is extremely preferred if not necessary. It allows you to do so many more things and have things like storage perform much better than if attached to 1 GbE.
- Optional – These days, outside of 10 GbE, if you can find a switch that is 2.5 GbE and provides multi-gig copper ports, this is a bonus.
What are a few options to consider?
Mikrotik CRS310-8G+2S+IN
This is what I think is one of the best all-around switches you can buy. It is a step up that adds 8 ports of 2.5G copper along with two SFP+ 10G uplinks. If you have newer devices with 2.5G NICs this is a great choice and it can still down level to 1 GbE for those devices. This gives you options and a bit of future proofing. It also is a fairly power efficient switch, keeping power draw in check. Read my full review of this switch here: Mikrotik CRS310-8G+2S+IN Review: 2.5 Gigabit Switch For Home Lab. You can find this switch for around $210 or so most places.
MikroTik CRS305-1G-4S+IN
If you already have some type of client switch with copper ports for your devices, you may be wanting to add 10 GbE ports to the mix. The MikroTik CRS305-1G-4S+IN is a fanless switch with four SFP+ 10G ports and a single 1G management port. It will allow you to uplink DAC cables or fiber between nodes. It draws very little power and has a strong reputation in the homelab community.
Netgear GS108T-300NAS
If you just need a reliable managed gigabit switch, the Netgear GS108T-300NAS is a pretty safe and inexpensive switch. It gives you eight smart managed ports, which is more than enough to start experimenting with VLANs and trunking. It’s one of those set and forget devices that just works.
I think these three switches cover most of the needs for most in their home labs. Between these three economical switches, you can have a mix of multi-gig functionality, 10 GbE, and aggregating uplinks from multiple home lab devices.
With these as well, you can start segmenting your network and plugging in hosts into different segments, all with the ability to manage them with good tools, especially with Mikrotik and Winbox.
2. Mini pcs
The next core hardware component of the first hardware I always buy for any home lab is a mini PC. Mini PCs have changed the dynamic for home lab environments. They can now effectively replace large, power hungry enterprise servers. Mini PCs have become my go-to for home labs over the past couple of years because they’re efficient, quiet, and powerful.
I’ve reviewed many of these devices and they’ve been excellent Proxmox and VMware hosts. You can scale these out horizontally and they are also quiet enough to run in most rooms of the house if you want to even run them in a bedroom.
Minisforum MS-A2
The Minisforum MS-A2 is a standout option as it has uniform Ryzen processors and it has Intel NICs which gives you the option to run either VMware or Proxmox. Also, you get DDR5 memory so you can go up to the 128 GB limit now, and multiple NVMe slots. So, this is powerful enough for serious workloads you want to run.
Build your own mini PC
This year, I also tried my hand at building a couple of Ryzen-based servers around the mini PC form factor Minisforum BD795i SE and BD790i X3D motherboards. I found these to be some of the best Mini-ITX combos available right now.
I’ve tested them with Ryzen 9 7945HX and X3D chips. You also have control over CPU features if you want to disable things like Core Performance Boost to cut power draw in half when efficiency matters more than raw performance. These boards are fairly flexible, and if you want to build your own home lab node, these are good options.
Budget friendly and low power option
On the budget friendly and low power end, the Geekom A5 2025 edition was a great mini PC that I tried out this year. I found it really good, especially for Proxmox. It comes with a Ryzen 5 7430U and 16GB of RAM out of the box. It’s not as powerful as the Minisforum boards or the A2, but if you want a low-power node or cluster of nodes to run several VMs it is ideal without spending too much money.
Below is a pic of Proxmox running on the Geekom A5 2025 edition.
3. UPS
The last in the core list of things to prioritize in buying components to get started in your home lab is a UPS. Why not take the money you would spend on a UPS and upgrade the mini PC, or buy a fancier switch? Well, don’t skimp on this important piece of hardware.
Not only does a UPS help protect you from your home lab going down dirty and losing or corrupting data, it also protects your hardware investment from surges, brown outs, etc. So, don’t think of a UPS as an unnecessary piece of hardware. Think of it as something you NEED to put in place as a core part of your home lab.
When I choose a UPS, I look at capacity in VA, and also pure sine wave output if you want the best and cleanest output for your gear. Also, a “nice to have” is a UPS that has some type of monitoring and control software, either using a USB connection or the network.
Here are some brands that I trust and have used:
- The APC Back-UPS Pro 1000VA is a dependable choice for small labs. It has enough runtime to gracefully shut down a couple of mini PCs and a switch, and it has a nice front display for status at a glance.
- The CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD is a very popular unit in the home lab community. It delivers 1500VA of capacity, pure sine wave output, and USB monitoring. It’s a great middle ground for protecting multiple nodes and networking gear.
I also recently tested an interesting new technology in the space of UPS units in the GoldenMate 1000VA UPS unit with a LiFePO4 battery. Check out my review of the unit here: GoldenMate 1000VA UPS Review with LiFePO4: Never Need to Replace Battery!
4. NAS in addition to or as a Mini PC substitute
When it comes down to it, NAS devices today are actually very powerful compute, memory, and storage units in their own right. In fact, they have gotten so good that the choice today may be to get a mini PC “OR” a modern NAS device.
I honestly think NAS devices are almost what I would describe as a “hyperconverged” node for home lab. They have everything you need, including compute, memory, and storage in a single package that provides a lot of horsepower for running home lab workloads.
If I am looking at a NAS device, I look for support for higher speed networking, like 10 GbE, and make sure the processor and other components support virtualization, which most do these days. Again, most NAS devices ARE essentially a mini PC with a backplane to large storage connectivity.
Here are some incredibly powerful NAS devices that I have tested out lately.
Aoostar WTR Max
One that impressed me recently is the Aoostar WTR Max. You can read my review of the unit here: Aoostar WTR Max Review: The Almost Perfect NAS Mini PC. It’s a compact NAS that feels more like a mini server.
It runs on a Ryzen 7 8845HS, supports DDR5, and has room for multiple NVMe drives. So as you can tell by its hardware, it doubles as strong Proxmox or Docker host if you want it to. This is what I mean by these boxes being a true hyperconverged node.
TerraMaster F8 SSD Plus
The TerraMaster F8 SSD Plus is another interesting option because it’s designed around an all NVMe drive configuration. With eight NVMe bays it doesn’t have any spinning disks. So it’s all about building an all-flash storage array.
For labs that need serious IOPS for testing high performance workloads, it’s an affordable way to step into NVMe storage without having to buy a piece of enterprise gear. Keep in mind the NVMe slots don’t run at full speeds of the latest drives. Why? Check out my blog on that topic here: Why Your Mini PC’s NVMe Drive Isn’t as Fast as You Think. TerraMaster’s TOS software continues to improve as well and you can use this hardware as a target for an iSCSI LUN, etc.
I am currently using the Terramaster F8 SSD Plus as an iSCSI target for a VMware vSphere cluster.
Ugreen NASync 4800DX
One last NAS to consider is the Ugreen NASync 4800DX. Ugreen is newer to the NAS scene, but they’ve made a strong showing with devices like this one. The 4800DX is an eight bay NAS that has a modern Intel CPU, and 10GbE networking.
What’s nice about Ugreen’s line up is that it has a nice balance of hardware with features in software. The OS isn’t as mature as Synology’s DSM, but it gives you everything you need along with a hardware design that is slick. For someone who wants a large capacity NAS with plenty of expandability, it’s a good choice.
These three devices show how the NAS market for home labs is changing and has grown extremely powerful. Instead of just simple storage boxes, these are now very much like compact servers. The Aoostar WTR Max and flash NAS devices like the TerraMaster F8 SSD Plus, as well as the polished newcomer, the Ugreen 4800DX are all really good options for your first hardware for your home lab.
Wrapping up
If you have been wondering about specific hardware or where to start from a physical perspective with your home lab, hopefully this discussion has given you some insights into what should come first. Trust me, I have certainly made mistakes when it comes to hardware and wasted funds in the wrong place. But, do learn from my mistakes and take my advice, start with these core hardware pieces in your lab and you won’t regret your purchases.
Software stacks will change often in your home lab, but good hardware that has a lot of capabilities is an investment that continues to pay off. Choosing wisely will make the rest of your lab journey much smoother.
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