[OSVapor]

Hey guys wanted to start a thread to see what everyone is currently using for a Home Lab ?

Quick example of my Home network lab;

Unifi Dream Machine Pro firewall
2 ESXi hosts separated out for Home and Attack labs
Dedicated Backup server with Direct Attached Storage
Synology NAS

Homelab VMs:
Pi-Hole (DNS Black hole)
GrayLog
Security Onion (ELK stack)
Kali Purple
Ubuntu
CentOS
Windows server 2019
Active Directory
Manage Engine AD Audit
Manage Engine Vulnerability Manager
Backup Server

Attack Lab VMs: (typically used for AD attacks)
Windows 10
Windows 11
Windows server 2016
Windows server 2019
Windows server 2022
SQL server
Veeam server
Exchange Server
Kali Linux
Parrot OS


Interested to know what everyone else is using for their setup or testing

[VKNS]

Dell EMC PowerEdge T40 - Tower - Xeon E-2224G 3.5 GHz - 8 GB - HDD 1 TB
Running Windows Server 2022

Running the following:
Pi-Hole - 1.4 million domains on my Adlist, including telemetry, adware and malware.
Plex - Media streaming around my house, I really only use this to watch movies with my friends in my living room.
TTRSS - Allows me to create an RSS news feed that I actually want to see and access from anywhere.
Uptime Kuma - Network uptime monitoring platform.
GNS3 - Network virtualization software that allows me to put theoretical study into practice.
Sonarr - PVR Platform for Usenet.
Folding@Home - Simulates protein dynamics and sends results to scientists; currently set to fold Breast Cancer simulations.

Fairly straight-forward as I don't have a lot of capital to dump into hardware at the moment.

[Hackers]

I stopped using my full home setup because I'm working from the office nowadays, but I basically just have four laptops and a tower and then a bunch of 17-24 inch monitors and a nice flat screen TV to connect to. I don't game anymore and chose to keep my home setups pretty lowkey compared to in the past. The laptops are all very nice in the $1500-3500 range, but obviously not nearly as powerful as a good rig. If I was getting back into gaming or video editing I'd go back to a tower, but for now I really have no need.

I spend most of my device budget on dedicated servers or other monthly services for my hobby projects. It's nice because I don't have to upgrade over time and the monthlies to have access to a super powerful Linux server is far lower than the estimated "monthly" cost of owning that same server. Of course parts can be swapped out and in the longterm, it's better to own, but this works for me because I'm on the go a lot and don't lose the raw computing power of a proper rig even though I'm on a laptop. I can just SSH in and do whatever I need to do. In the future I'd probably consider buying the hardware & renting the rack space, but in a worst case scenario that can be a very expensive bet and not really worth it unless the datacenter has good climate control, on-site support as-needed, etc.

[OSVapor]

Dell EMC PowerEdge T40 - Tower - Xeon E-2224G 3.5 GHz - 8 GB - HDD 1 TB
Running Windows Server 2022

Running the following:
Pi-Hole - 1.4 million domains on my Adlist, including telemetry, adware and malware.
Plex - Media streaming around my house, I really only use this to watch movies with my friends in my living room.
TTRSS - Allows me to create an RSS news feed that I actually want to see and access from anywhere.
Uptime Kuma - Network uptime monitoring platform.
GNS3 - Network virtualization software that allows me to put theoretical study into practice.
Sonarr - PVR Platform for Usenet.
Folding@Home - Simulates protein dynamics and sends results to scientists; currently set to fold Breast Cancer simulations.

Fairly straight-forward as I don't have a lot of capital to dump into hardware at the moment.

I did not know of Folding@Home before this, That is really great. I am setting up to contribute power as well.