but it does seem that most homelabs are big server racks with at least two CPUs and like 20 cores in total.

That’s just the people that post a lot online about it.

And these racks usually start with “I found this super cheap rack server on eBay” and not an actual need.

I started with a basic as shit NAS and was happy with it.

Then i wanted Hardware Acceleration for my Plex Server because i wanted to stream high resolution content when i was out of the house.

I then rebuilt my old Gaming Rig into a server.

After i realized that i now have much more power to use i started to host a bunch of services; AdGuard, Plex, Sonarr, Radarr, Prowlarr, Overseerr, Homarr, Lidarr, SabNZBs, Kavita, Kaizoku, HomeBox, HomeAssistant, Nextcloud, FoundryVTT, PaperlessNGX, Audiobookshelf, Romm and Whisper for my HomeAssistant.

That’s stuff i would’ve never even had the chance to host on something simple like a little NAS.

Oh and most homelabs are NOT racks with 2 cores… in my case, old gaming PC with Ryzen 5 2600X, 16Gigs of Ram and GTX1660 Super

Something I’m not seeing here is many people in the cyber and info security spaces will have a homelab capable of complex configurations in order to mimic enterprise environments for their research.

This could be as simple as a single VM or as complex as multiple segregated networks to try to traverse.

The use case is that I want beefy server hardware just because.

Having multiple sufficiently-powered virtual machines makes OS development really low friction. Though I’d personally go for a blade subrack instead.

with 1PB of storage

As data hoarder this is a goal to achieve :)

What’s the main advantage of having a huge server, compared to an average Synology NAS for example?

You can do much more things much more efficient. If you’re out for a NAS, get a DiskStation, even the simple ones with 2 slots are absolutely fine. Get a Seagate Exos X20 with 20 terabyte of storage, or 2 of them for a RAID, and you’re good to go. Or build something yourself with an external case and a Raspberry Pi.

Why should I get a homelab instead of a regular NAS?

Right now I’m using Docker and I’m hosting an ActivityPub server and a front-end (client) for it, a web server, a Minetest gaming server, a web Git platform and a custom application for some specific logging i’m doing. The same server also runs a reverse proxy and a Docker management platform. All on one older SOC machine with a recycled 1TB SSD. I couldn’t do this with just a NAS, even if the DiskStations are (were?) very “hackable”.

If you want to do anything more than just providing files via network, build a custom setup that fits your needs.

The big server is all about density and convenience. The thing will run many, many VMs without having to skimp on resources, and it will be easy to admin the VMs remotely.

I have plans to pick up a big workstation to replace the little desktops I have around, and it will be more convenient since getting as console on a VM is much easier. Servers might also have a BMC, which would help admin the server.

Definitely go for the beefy server. You can then run benchmarks just to flex

My take (having neither but building a NAS in the background of other jobs) is that if you don’t need the rack, don’t buy the rack. If you already have a NAS and you really want to play with the power that a rack would give you, go for the rack. If you don’t need it don’t buy it, simple as.

I was debating between getting myself a NAS or some PC to setup my homelab. I decided for a PC as it gives me more freedom to install and personalize it the way I want.

At the moment I’m running FreeBSD with jails on a Q920 with an i5 processor, 16 GB of RAM, one internal SSD with 512 GB and 2 external USB SDDs with each 1 TB which costed me around 300 Euros.

Seems more than enough for the services I want to provide to myself which are the following.

Navidrome > serves all my music locally and remotely.

Zabbix > to monitor my servers

DNSMasq > ad blocking and local dns

gitea > repo for code and other docs

Transmission > torrenting

Radicale > webcal and webdav

Photoprism > local photo gallery

Vaultwarden > Password manager

SearXNG > search

HAproxy > to serve my public content easily to the web

Mastodon

Emby > local media server

And I run a Linux VM on bhyve to serve 2 tools that I was not able to make work easily on FreeBSD.

Besides that, the node replicates some data from my VPS as a backup solution.

And I can’t complain at all. That PC is doing its job just fine. No need for any rack that uses huge amount of electricity.

I felt similar when deciding on a server for my small lab. I’ll probably get a rack in a few years, but right now I’m at a point where an old desktop pc does the job and I’m happy with it.

Definitely go for the beefy server. You can then run benchmarks just to flex

Although 256gb of ram may not be enought to run matrix synapse.

Like others have said, it’s all about your goals. If you just want to selfhost some apps or have additional storage/local backups, by all means, keep it simple and efficient.

In my case, my homelab is justified because of my job. I’m a senior systems engineer who specializes in designing, deploying, and managing distributed infrastructure. So having a dedicated server room at home with a rack, 20A circuits, and HVAC allows me to more easily emulate certain environments, test out hardware on loan from vendors, experiment with new ideas or software solutions, and stay immersed in my craft.

Aside from the work-related benefits, in return for my higher than average power bill my home network gets to rival most corporations, and I can self host anything I (or my wife) wants.

While this setup is great for me, I would never recommend it for someone who would be better off with a NAS.

Here’s my list of “maybe somedays” that I’d love to have all run off a single machine:

1. Hash cracking. Red teaming isn’t my career yet, but it would be nice if I had the tools ready when I get to that milestone

2. locally served “Cloud” gaming. I’m tired of being limited to a single desktop when I could be playing skyrim on my phone, but I hate supporting *aaS models—I want to own my cake and eat it too.

3. VM server. Basically turn everything else into a thin client. Also, what @ursakhiin@beehaw.org said. If I ever want to do realistic training, and not just stick to hackthebox indefinitely, I’m going to need to mimic a full network’s worth of computers with multiple VLANs. Or have multiple different OSes emulated to do all kinds of pentesting.

4. Finally start those Mastodon/Matrix/Lemmy/every other federated app instances that I’ve been right around the corner from hosting for ages

5. media server

6. Websites and web-apps, even if only locally served. Possibly have copies of wikipedia and archive.org and other highly usefulness-to-power-consumption ratio sites for when I eventually go off grid

7. maybe email… maybe. I hear it’s more of a headache than it’s worth, though, so maybe not

8. home IoT server. Handling all the functionalities so I don’t have to stream security cam footage to some random company’s untrustworthy server across however many hops along the way

and probably a few other ideas i’ve had over the years that I can’t think of at the moment.

Could I accomplish all this on a couple powerful towers and a half dozen smaller/cheaper/more power efficient devices? Certainly, but this reduces cables, network overhead, and weird edge case problems having that many devices on a single-maintainer network causes. Instead of dealing with updating, upgrading, and hardening a dozen or more devices, this would give me a single point of failure that I can build resentments against whenver it has a hiccup.