Avoiding Homelab Rabbit Hole

#HomeLab

Building a home lab is a rabbit hole: the more you explore the deeper you get.

I'm a big fan of tech and gadgets in general and I usually want to buy every second piece of hardware I come across.

Homelab hardware is not an exception. There is only one thing that keeps me sane. It's focusing on the [[device use case]]. I just need to answer a single question: "What problem are we going to solve?" and then build the setup accordingly.

Otherwise, it's an infinite waste of time and money.

It's very tempting to build the homelab on single board computers including the 3D printed case. It feels like crafting a granddad’s oldtimer in the garage. But is it worth the effort? Probably not. There are mini PCs that offer a better value for money than most of the SBCs unless you need to build something really custom.

Let’s be honest: who hasn’t dreamed of a beastly home lab server rack that can beat the shit out of any tough computationally expensive task. Is it worth it? Again, probably not.

There are trade-offs. Think about portability, power, price, noise upgradability, and coolness—pick two, maybe three. Align this choice with the use case to find the sweet spot and get out the rabbit hole.