From compact and budget-friendly SBCs to enterprise server-grade hardware, there are plenty of devices that can serve as the core of your home lab. But establishing your tinkering station is just the first step in a long, ever-evolving process. Once you’ve set up the perfect OS on your home server, you may want to outfit your setup with extra peripherals. So, we’ve compiled a list of the best products that can grant some pizzazz to your home lab.

5 UPS

Don't let power outages disrupt your home lab operations!

For those unfamiliar with them, Uninterrupted Power Supplies are useful devices that allow your computing equipment to remain functional during blackouts. If you’re cursed with frequent power outages, a UPS can be an absolute game-changer for your home lab. Not only does a UPS prevent data loss from random power cuts, but some of the more high-end models boast additional features like surge protection and voltage regulation to protect your home lab from sudden voltage fluctuations.

4 Graphics cards

Necessary for gaming, video editing, and AI workloads

Assuming your home server has some free PCIe slots, there are plenty of reasons to arm it with an extra GPU or two. Most Type-1 hypervisors and bare-metal virtualization platforms like ESXi and Proxmox allow your VMs to access the graphics cards slotted into your server rig. If you want to edit videos or run some games on virtual machines, slotting additional GPUs will increase your server's performance, provided you're willing to go through the whole ordeal of enabling GPU passthrough on the hypervisor and the virtual machines.

AI training and machine-learning workloads can also benefit tremendously from the computing prowess of modern graphics cards. Likewise, for those running image generation servers in their home lab, allocating a GPU with huge amounts of VRAM can significantly reduce the time it takes to create an image.

3 Dedicated switch

No, not the gaming console from Nintendo

If your home lab consists of more than a few devices, you’re bound to need a dedicated switch at some point. Besides providing a plethora of ports for all your computing gadgets, a network switch can drastically increase the Ethernet speed of your LAN connection.

For those willing to invest in more expensive switches, you can get additional features like PoE support and VLAN compatibility. If you’re setting up a new home server, I’d go so far as to suggest investing in a good-quality network switch to avoid bottlenecks in the future.

2 NICs

And other non-GPU PCIe cards

If your home server’s motherboard is restricted to 1Gigabit Ethernet speeds, a 2.5GbE or 5GbE NIC can drastically improve the transfer speeds of the network, assuming your switch and LAN cables aren’t holding it back, of course.

In case your home lab requires ultra-fast read/write speeds, you might want to look into 10GbE cards. But apart from expensive NICs, there are a couple of other expansion cards worth highlighting. For example, you can check out USB expansion cards if you’re running out of ports for your USB passthrough needs. Not all server mobos may have enough SATA ports for your drives, so you can grab PCIe-to-SATA adapters and put your unoccupied PCIe slots to good use. While we’re on the subject of drives…

1 Storage devices

Trust me, you’ll need all the storage provisions you can get

The storage capacity of your home lab may not be a big deal when you’re just starting out. But as the home lab evolves (or devolves?) into an unorganized setup comprising multiple devices, you may find yourself running low on storage. Mounting more HDDs on your server chassis can provide an affordable means to increase the storage capacity of your setup. If your connection isn’t bottlenecked by slow networking devices, you can throw some NVMe SSDs into the mix to enjoy blazing-fast transfer speeds.

That’s before you consider external devices to back up your essential data. While many enthusiasts may want to run VMs with dedicated NAS operating systems on top of their home server, a separate NAS enclosure can provide more robust backup provisions. Alternatively, you can opt for DAS units if you want access to more drives over a USB connection.

• Seagate IronWolf

  $100 at Amazon

• Crucial T700 4TB SSD

  $275 at Amazon $350 at B&H $285 at Newegg $350 at Best Buy

• Synology DiskStation DS923+

  CPU

  AMD Ryzen R1600

  Memory

  4 GB DDR4

  Drive Bays

  4

  Expansion

  2x M.2 PCIe NVMe, 1x PCIe 3.0 x2

  Ports

  2x 1 GbE, 2x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, 1x eSATA

  Caching

  Yes

  $543 at Amazon

Building a home server is worth the extra cost

There’s no denying that a home server can be an expensive venture. The proper server hardware alone can drain your wallet, and that’s before you include all the networking accessories, storage devices, ECC memory sticks, and PCIe cards you may need for your tinkering station.

Plus, you’ll have to contend with other expenses, like electricity bills. As someone whose power consumption skyrocketed after running a dedicated server for hours on end, I recommend keeping a close eye on the wattage of your home lab if you don’t want to be caught off-guard with obscenely high electricity bills.