Home Lab Equipment List: Everything You Need

This is the master checklist. Every component category a home lab needs, what to buy in each, and what to skip until you actually need it.

Most home labs grow over months, not days. You do not need everything on this list to start. But when you are ready to expand, this page tells you exactly what fits and why. If you are brand new, read the home lab starter guide first for a sequenced buying plan. This page is the comprehensive reference.

Compute

Compute is the foundation. Everything else in your lab exists to support, connect, or protect it.

Mini PCs (Best Starting Point)

Mini PCs replaced enterprise rack servers for most home labs. They draw 6-15W at idle instead of 200-400W, cost less, and run silent.

Entry-level compute:

• Beelink Mini S12 Pro (N100) — ~$170. 4 cores, up to 16GB RAM, one M.2 slot. The default first home lab purchase. Runs Proxmox with 3-4 lightweight VMs or a dozen containers comfortably.
• Beelink EQ14 (N150) — ~$200. Updated N150 chip, dual 2.5GbE NICs. Better than the N100 if you want a pfSense/OPNsense router or a basic firewall appliance.

Mid-range compute:

• MinisForum MS-01 — ~$430. i9-13900H, dual 10GbE SFP+, dual 2.5GbE, PCIe x16 slot for a GPU. This is the power-user home lab node. Runs a serious Proxmox cluster node, handles local AI inference with a GPU installed, and supports three M.2 slots plus a U.2 bay.

For a full breakdown of compute options, see best mini PC for home server and best mini PC for Proxmox.

What About Enterprise Rack Servers?

Decommissioned Dell PowerEdge and HP ProLiant servers are cheap on eBay ($100-300). But they draw 150-400W at idle, need a rack, and generate noise your family will hear. Calculate the electricity cost before buying: a server pulling 200W idle costs ~$210/year at the US average rate. A mini PC pulling 10W costs ~$11/year. The savings buy better hardware within two years.

Enterprise servers make sense only if you specifically need ECC RAM, IPMI/iDRAC out-of-band management, or more than 128GB of memory. For learning and running services, mini PCs win.

Storage

Storage splits into two decisions: the device that serves your data and the drives inside it.

NAS Devices

A NAS centralizes storage so every device on your network — Proxmox hosts, desktops, laptops, media players — can access the same files with redundancy.

• Synology DS224+ — ~$300. Two bays, Intel Celeron J4125, 2GB RAM (expandable), 1GbE. Runs DSM with Docker support via Container Manager. The right first NAS for most people. Pair with two drives in RAID 1 for mirrored redundancy.
• Synology DS923+ — ~$600. Four bays, AMD Ryzen R1600, 4GB RAM, expandable to 9 bays with a DX517. This is the NAS for people who know they will need more than 2 drives and want 10GbE via the E10G22-T1 add-in card.

See the full best NAS for home lab roundup for additional options including QNAP, TerraMaster, and DIY builds.

Drives

Your NAS is only as good as the drives inside it. NAS-rated CMR drives are not optional — desktop drives and SMR drives cause problems in RAID arrays.

• Seagate IronWolf 8TB — ~$160. CMR, 7200 RPM, 256MB cache, 3-year warranty with Rescue data recovery. The default recommendation for Synology NAS builds.
• WD Red Plus 8TB — ~$160. CMR, 5640 RPM, 256MB cache. Slightly quieter than IronWolf, slightly lower sustained write speeds. Either drive is a solid choice.

For drive selection details and the CMR vs. SMR distinction, see best hard drive for NAS and CMR vs. SMR for NAS.

SSDs for caching and VMs: If your NAS supports NVMe caching (DS923+ does), a 500GB-1TB NVMe SSD as a read/write cache noticeably improves random I/O for Docker containers and VM storage. For direct-attached Proxmox storage, a standard consumer NVMe (like a Samsung 970 EVO Plus) works fine.

Networking

Networking is the layer most beginners underestimate. A managed switch with VLAN support lets you segment IoT devices, lab traffic, and production traffic — the single most impactful upgrade for lab maturity.

Switches

• TP-Link TL-SG108E — ~$30. 8-port gigabit easy-smart switch with basic VLAN, QoS, and IGMP snooping. A fine first managed switch when your router is doing the heavy lifting and you just need more ports with basic segmentation.
• TP-Link TL-SG108-M2 — ~$80. 8-port 2.5GbE unmanaged switch. The right buy when your NAS and mini PCs all have 2.5GbE ports and you want the throughput bump without complexity.
• TP-Link SG2008P — ~$70. 8-port gigabit managed switch with 4 PoE+ ports (62W budget). Powers access points and IP cameras directly. Omada SDN compatible for centralized management.
• UniFi USW-Lite-8-PoE — ~$110. 8-port gigabit with 4 PoE+ ports (52W). Integrates into the UniFi ecosystem if you are running a UniFi gateway and access points.
• MikroTik CRS305-1G-4S+ — ~$150. 4 SFP+ 10G ports plus 1 gigabit RJ45. The cheapest way to get 10G switching for connecting a NAS, Proxmox host, and workstation at 10G speeds.

For the complete guide, see best network switch for home lab and best 2.5G switch.

Access Points

If you are running VLANs on your switch, your access point needs to support multiple SSIDs mapped to VLANs. Consumer routers in AP mode rarely do this well. A dedicated access point from UniFi or TP-Link Omada, powered over PoE from your switch, is cleaner than running a separate power adapter.

Budget ~$80-120 for a Wi-Fi 6 access point, or ~$150-200 for Wi-Fi 7. These are mounted on a ceiling or wall and powered by PoE from your switch.

Power Protection

A UPS is not optional once you have a NAS with spinning drives. An unclean shutdown during a write operation can corrupt a RAID array. A UPS gives your NAS time to shut down gracefully and protects all your gear from voltage sags and surges.

UPS Units

• CyberPower CP850PFCLCD — ~$130. 850VA/510W, pure sine wave. Enough for a single mini PC, a NAS, and a switch. The minimum viable UPS for a small lab.
• CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD — ~$240. 1500VA/1000W, pure sine wave, LCD display. The standard recommendation for a home lab UPS. Runs a typical mini PC + NAS + switch setup for 15-30 minutes on battery. USB connection to your NAS enables automatic shutdown.
• APC BR1500MS2 — ~$260. 1500VA/900W, sine wave, 2x USB charging ports. The APC alternative if you prefer their ecosystem or find the CyberPower out of stock.

Sizing matters. See how to size a UPS for your home lab to calculate your actual watt draw before buying. The short version: add up the wattage of everything you will plug in, then buy a UPS rated for at least 1.5x that total.

For the full breakdown, see best UPS for home lab.

Power Monitoring

You cannot manage power consumption you do not measure. A smart plug with energy monitoring between your UPS and the wall tells you exactly what your lab draws.

• Kasa KP125M — ~$18. Matter-compatible smart plug with energy monitoring. Logs real-time and historical power consumption. Works with Home Assistant for dashboards and alerts.

Racks and Mounting

Most labs do not need a rack on day one. A rack becomes worth it when you have 3+ devices that benefit from organized mounting, proper airflow, and clean cable management.

When to Get a Rack

You need a rack when:

• Cables between devices are becoming tangled and hard to trace
• You have a patch panel, switch, and UPS that could stack vertically
• Your NAS and compute are sitting on a shelf with poor airflow
• You are adding more devices and running out of surface space

Options

• NavePoint 6U Wall Mount — ~$70. Open-frame wall mount. Holds a patch panel, switch, and small UPS. Does not consume floor space. The right first rack for apartments and closets.
• StarTech 12U Open Frame Rack — ~$250. 4-post freestanding rack with adjustable depth and casters. The right rack when you have enough gear to justify a floor-standing unit and want room to grow.

A patch panel (24-port keystone for ~$25) and a set of short (6-inch to 1-foot) patch cables make any rack setup dramatically cleaner.

Software Stack

The best part of home lab software: the core stack is free.

Hypervisors

Proxmox VE — Free, open source, Debian-based. Runs VMs (KVM) and containers (LXC). Web UI for management. This is the default hypervisor for home labs. Install it on your mini PC’s internal SSD and point VM storage at your NAS via NFS or iSCSI.

VMware ESXi — The free tier was discontinued in 2024. Still available under Broadcom’s evaluation license but the home lab community has largely moved to Proxmox.

NAS Operating Systems

Synology DSM — Ships on Synology hardware. Polished web UI, native Docker (Container Manager), snapshot-based backups, built-in apps for photos, surveillance, and file sync. No configuration required beyond initial setup.

TrueNAS Scale — Free, Linux-based. ZFS for storage, built-in Docker/Kubernetes support, iSCSI targets. The right choice for DIY NAS builds on custom hardware. More powerful than DSM but steeper learning curve.

Containers and Services

Docker + Docker Compose — The standard for running self-hosted services. Most home lab services ship as Docker images: Pi-hole, Home Assistant, Jellyfin, Plex, Nextcloud, Gitea, Uptime Kuma, Traefik.

Portainer or Dockge — Web UIs for managing Docker containers. Portainer is more feature-complete. Dockge is lighter and compose-file-native. Either beats managing containers from the command line for most people.

Home Assistant — Home automation platform that doubles as a lab dashboard. Integrates with smart plugs for power monitoring, UPS status via NUT, and network device tracking.

Cabling and Accessories

Bad cables cause intermittent problems that waste hours to diagnose. Buy quality cables and label everything.

Ethernet

• Cat6 patch cables — For gigabit connections. Buy a multipack of 1ft, 3ft, and 6ft lengths. Slim-run or flat cables are easier to manage in tight spaces.
• Cat6a patch cables — Required for 2.5GbE and 10GBase-T connections. Cat6 technically supports 10G up to 55 meters, but Cat6a is rated for the full 100 meters and has better shielding.
• Bulk Cat6a — If you are running drops through walls, buy a 250ft or 500ft box of solid-core Cat6a and terminate with keystone jacks. Stranded cable is for patch cords only.

SFP+ and DAC Cables

For 10G connections between SFP+ ports (like on the MikroTik CRS305 or MinisForum MS-01), DAC (Direct Attach Copper) cables are cheaper and lower latency than SFP+ transceivers with fiber:

• 10G DAC cable (0.5m-3m) — ~$15-25. Passive, no power needed. The right choice for short runs between devices in the same rack or on the same shelf.
• 10G SFP+ transceivers + fiber — ~$20-30 per transceiver plus fiber cost. Required for runs longer than 5 meters or between rooms.

Other Accessories

• Label maker — A Brother P-Touch (~$30) pays for itself the first time you trace a cable without pulling it. Label both ends of every cable.
• Velcro cable ties — Not zip ties. Velcro can be repositioned. A roll of 100 costs ~$8.
• Keystone patch panel — 24-port blank panel ($25) with Cat6a keystone jacks ($1 each). Clean termination point for wall runs.
• Short patch cables — 6-inch patch cables (~$10 for a 5-pack) between your patch panel and switch eliminate the spaghetti.

Common Mistakes

Buying a rack before you have rack gear. A rack with two devices in it is wasted space and money. Use a shelf until you genuinely need vertical organization.

Ignoring power draw. A lab that draws 200W continuously costs ~$210/year in electricity. Measure your actual draw with a smart plug before and after adding hardware. Some people discover their “cheap eBay server” costs more to power annually than the server itself cost.

Skipping the UPS. It costs ~$130-240 to protect thousands of dollars of hardware and irreplaceable data. One power event that corrupts your NAS array will cost more in time and data than the UPS ever would.

Overbuying network gear. You do not need 10G networking to start. Gigabit is fine for learning. 2.5GbE is the sweet spot for most home labs. Buy 10G when you have a specific, measured throughput bottleneck — not because it sounds better.

Running everything on one flat network. VLANs are not difficult once you have a managed switch. Segment your IoT devices, lab experiments, and trusted devices. A compromised smart bulb should not have access to your NAS.

Not labeling cables. This is tedious for 5 cables and essential for 15. Start the habit early.

Wrap-Up

Here is the complete equipment list in order of buying priority:

Total starter lab: ~$1,160. You can spread this over months. Each stage is independently useful.

For a tighter budget, see home lab under $500. For the step-by-step buying sequence, see the home lab starter guide. For GPU and AI workloads, see best GPU for local LLMs.

This page will be updated as prices shift and new hardware launches. Bookmark it as your reference checklist.