Hardware
16 guides about hardware for your home lab
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Building a Homelab on ARM64: Raspberry Pi 5, Orange Pi, and Beyond
A practical guide to building an ARM64 homelab with Raspberry Pi 5, Orange Pi 5, ROCK 5B, and other SBCs — OS choices, Docker, clustering, and power efficiency.
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Intel N100 Mini PC Builds: The Best Value Homelab Servers in 2026
Build a homelab around Intel N100 mini PCs with recommended models, benchmarks, RAM and storage tips, and use cases from Proxmox to NAS.
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IPMI and BMC Remote Management for Your Home Lab
Master out-of-band server management with IPMI, iDRAC, and iLO. Covers serial-over-LAN, virtual media, fan control, alerting, and security best practices for homelab hardware.
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PCIe Cards for Your Home Lab: HBAs, NICs, and Expansion
A practical guide to PCIe cards for homelabs — HBA controllers, 10GbE NICs, NVMe expansion, SAS expanders, bifurcation, and compatibility pitfalls to avoid.
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Home Lab Power Consumption: How to Measure, Monitor, and Reduce
A practical guide to understanding, measuring, and optimizing power consumption in your home lab — from Kill-A-Watt meters to BIOS tweaks and hardware choices.
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UPS Systems for Your Home Lab: A Complete Guide
Everything you need to know about uninterruptible power supplies for home labs — sizing, brands, Linux monitoring with NUT, automated shutdowns, and battery care.
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Home Lab SSD Buying Guide: SATA, NVMe, and Everything In Between
How to choose the right SSD for your home lab — SATA vs NVMe, TLC vs QLC, endurance ratings, enterprise vs consumer, and the best drives for boot, cache, and VM storage.
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Building a Quiet Home Lab: Noise Reduction Guide
Practical tips for building a home lab that won't drive you out of the room. Covers fan replacements, case selection, SFF builds, noise measurement, and the trade-offs between silence and cooling performance.
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10 Useful Raspberry Pi Projects for Your Home Lab
Practical Raspberry Pi projects that actually earn their keep in a home lab. From network-wide ad blocking to monitoring dashboards, these are the Pi projects worth your time.
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Setting Up a Proper Server Rack at Home
A practical guide to choosing and setting up a server rack for your homelab. Covers rack sizes, depth considerations, cooling, cable management, PDUs, shelves, and keeping noise and heat under control.
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ECC RAM in Your Home Lab: Do You Actually Need It?
An honest look at ECC memory for home lab use. What ECC actually does, when it genuinely matters, when it doesn't, and whether the extra cost is justified for your setup.
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Mini PCs for Your Home Lab: A Practical Buyer's Guide
Comparing Intel NUC, Beelink, MinisForum, HP EliteDesk Mini, and Lenovo ThinkCentre Tiny for homelab use. CPU, RAM, power, noise, and pricing breakdowns.
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Homelab Hardware Lifecycle: Upgrading, Retiring, and Recycling
Manage your homelab hardware through its full lifecycle. Covers upgrade planning, component testing, data wiping, parts reuse, e-waste disposal, and building a hardware inventory system.
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Buying Used Dell PowerEdge Servers: What to Look For
A practical guide to buying used Dell PowerEdge servers for your home lab — which models to target, what specs to check, where to buy, and what to avoid.
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Home Lab Budget Builds: $100, $300, and $500 Setups
Three home lab build guides at different price points — from a $100 starter to a $500 powerhouse. Real hardware recommendations with specs and use cases.
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Power Monitoring with Smart PDUs and Home Assistant
Track your homelab's power consumption with smart PDUs and smart plugs, then integrate with Home Assistant for dashboards, automation, and cost tracking.