Advice on Building a Cost-Effective Homelab for Virtualization & Storage

General
1

Hey everyone,

I’m in the process of setting up a homelab primarily for virtualization, storage, and network testing, and I’d love some advice from the experienced folks here. My goal is to create a setup that balances performance, power efficiency, and cost-effectiveness.

My Use Case:

  • Running Proxmox or ESXi for virtualization
  • Hosting a few lightweight VMs and containers (e.g., Home Assistant, Pi-hole, Nextcloud)
  • Experimenting with TrueNAS or Unraid for NAS and backup solutions
  • Testing various networking configurations (possibly with pfSense or OPNSense)

My Planned Hardware:

  • CPU: Considering an Intel Xeon E-series or AMD Ryzen 7 (not sure which offers better efficiency/performance balance)
  • RAM: 32GB to start, upgradeable to 64GB
  • Storage: Mix of SSDs for VMs and HDDs for bulk storage (any recommendations for reliable budget options?)
  • Networking: I have a managed switch, but I’m wondering if a secondhand 10GbE card is worth the investment

Questions for the Community:

  1. CPU Choice: Would you recommend Xeon over Ryzen, or is there a better alternative for a homelab?
  2. Storage Setup: Should I go with ZFS for better data integrity, or is Unraid more practical for my use case?
  3. Cooling & Power Efficiency: Any tips for keeping power consumption low while maintaining good performance?
  4. Upgradability: What components should I prioritize for future scalability?

I’d love to hear your thoughts, experiences, and any potential pitfalls I should avoid. Looking forward to your insights!

I also checked this: https://forum.45homelab.com/t/hl15-nas-build-storage-device-config-questions-ruby-on-rails

Thanks in advance!

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