Summary

• SBCs are beginner-friendly & affordable for home labs, but can struggle with complex tasks.
• Mini-PCs offer decent performance for storage tasks & minor workloads, but aren't perfect.
• Old PCs are powerful, upgradable, & great for home labs, despite their additional space & power consumption.

For the average user, setting up a dedicated home lab might seem like a Herculean task that’s also quite draining on your wallet. But you might be surprised to learn that configuring a home server is quite a beginner-friendly process. In some cases, it’s even simpler than building a PC!

That said, the complexity and expenses incurred by your home lab depend entirely on your needs. Do you need more processing power for RAID-based NAS workloads? Or are you satisfied with just running Pi-hole, light web servers, and a handful of other containers on your PC? In this article, we’ll go over four different tiers of home labs to help you figure out which one’s the right choice for your computing setup.

1 Single-Board Computers

Beginner-friendly, but not very capable

Compared to a PC, credit-card-sized SBCs may seem like adorable toys. But it’s actually possible to establish a home server (albeit a barebones one) on a tiny Single-Board Computer. Since most SBCs in the market support Ubuntu and other Linux-based distros, you won’t encounter much trouble setting up your favorite Docker containers on these machines.

The small size of SBCs is another aspect that works in their favor, as you won’t have to make too much space to accommodate them. Even the more expensive boards like the newer Raspberry Pi lineup cost anywhere between $60-$100, meaning there’s no need to shell out thousands of dollars to get started with a home lab. Compared to the other options on this list, they also draw significantly low power, and you can run them 24/7 without worrying too much about the electricity bills.

Unfortunately, there are just as many drawbacks to running your home workstation off an SBC. As you may have guessed, these systems can’t deliver optimal performance in anything but the most beginner-oriented projects. Sure, you can handily run a light container or two on the SBC and expect a responsive experience on your ARM-powered board. But they can easily get overwhelmed once you initialize some of the more complex containers.

If you’re just starting out, SBCs can serve as decent options for home labs. But you should keep your expectations in check and be ready to move to the other options on this list once your repertoire of containers starts to grow.

2 Mini-PCs, NUCs (and even NAS devices)

Small in size, light in performance

In recent times, mini-PCs have started getting the mainstream recognition they deserve. That’s a neat development because they serve as a great entry point into the world of home labs. Most NUCs and even the more performance-oriented mini-PCs cost well under $300, so they’re still affordable for newcomers. Plus, they tend to ship with x64 processors, meaning they’re compatible with a larger set of operating systems than ARM-powered SBCs.

Space-wise, most NUC-sized systems can fit on any desk without requiring you to make additional room for them. As for the performance, you should expect decent results for most container-based tasks. Even the more affordable NAS/mini-PCs featuring low-end Intel Celeron processors and 8GB of RAM can pull their own weight when running a virtual machine or two.

However, they’re still far from perfect and serve as a middle ground between inexpensive SBCs and the more powerful desktops. Regardless, mini-PCs, NAS, NUCs, and other small form-factor (SFF) systems with similar specs are more than enough for storage tasks and minor home lab workloads.

3 Old PCs and mainstream desktops

Great for most users

The consumer tech sector is (in)famous for its rapid advancements, meaning even the best gaming PCs in 2024 can become outdated within a year or two. While you may not get the best FPS on these setups anymore, spare computer rigs make for incredible home labs. Not only are they more powerful than mini-PCs and SBCs, but they also offer plenty of upgradability.

For example, the average SBC caps out at 1G Ethernet, and the same holds true for the average mini-PC. While this may be enough for beginner setups, you can end up choking a 1GbE connection when too many clients connect to your home server. Upgrading these systems is also a pain, as you might need to buy expensive HATs for SBCs and adapters for mini-PCs.

Meanwhile, old systems – even cheaper mainstream desktops – can be upgraded with 2.5GbE or 5GbE NICs if you're planning to use them for dedicated backups. You’re also free to choose between multiple operating systems without worrying about the responsiveness of the server. Most full-sized systems built in the last decade come with a decent number of SATA ports, PCIe sockets, and USB connections, meaning you can easily plug in all your favorite accessories and peripherals into the makeshift server.

Of course, there are certain drawbacks to a server cobbled together from full-fledged desktop parts, namely the extra space and power consumption. When compared to the devices included in the previous tiers, they can also get quite loud under heavy loads. But as someone who first ventured into the home lab ecosystem using his 7-year-old system, I can testify that even the most outdated machines make for amazing workstations.

4 Professional-grade server PCs

The best of the best, if you’re willing to shell out extra money

Before I gush over how incredible server PCs are for home labs, it’s important to note that professional-grade hardware is only good for enthusiasts due to the complexity, hardware issues, and hidden costs associated with them. So, for the normal user, you should stick to mini-PCs or cheap, affordable full-sized systems for all your home workstation needs.

With that out of the way, there’s no need to explain why PCs designed explicitly for server usage provide the best performance in virtualization tasks. Even leaving aside the ultra-expensive Threadripper CPUs, older server setups from the late 2010s deliver top-notch multi-threaded performance with their higher core and thread counts. Server motherboards also pack tons of SATA ports, PCIe sockets, and memory slots, further enhancing their upgradability. While we’re on the subject of memory, server rigs serve as great NAS devices thanks to their support for ECC RAM sticks.

With old Intel Xeon chips available at dirt-cheap prices, you might be wondering why I keep mentioning that server PCs are expensive to use. You see, older server chips are infamous for their huge power draw. Compared to modern gaming processors that consume anywhere between 60-90W, even a single mid-range server CPU can have a TDP rating of over 100W! Factor in the power consumed by two high-end server processors, and your electricity bills can skyrocket if you run your server-grade home lab 24/7.

As if that’s not enough, these systems can make as much noise as a jet engine and can almost turn your room into a furnace. And for those who want to buy the server parts separately, good luck trying to find a huge PC case that can fit all the components and provide enough breathing room. All that said, there’s no denying that full-fledged servers crush every other option on this list when it comes to upgradability and sheer virtualization performance.

What’s your ideal home lab setup?

Since these are just my observations as someone who has gone back and forth between all four tiers of home lab servers, your experiences may differ a lot from mine. Clearly, there are pros and cons to every tier, and depending on your use cases, you might favor a cheap SBC over a full-fledged gaming desktop-turned-server.

If I were to jump into this rabbit hole once again, I’d still pick a spare PC as the starting point. You can cobble together a decent system using old parts and expect reliable performance in most server-related tasks without blowing a huge chunk of your paycheck on electricity bills.