Gear I Use & Recommend
This is the stuff I actually run, or would buy again without thinking about it. No “top 10 best” filler — just gear that’s earned its rack space.
Full disclosure: some links below are affiliate links. If you buy through them I get a small cut at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. I only point at things I’d run myself — the cut doesn’t change the pick.
Prices and exact models drift constantly. Links point at the current listing for each item so you always land on what’s actually in stock.
Mini PCs & Home Lab Compute
The N100/N150 boxes are the homelab sweet spot — silent, sip power, run a dozen containers without complaint.
- Beelink mini PCs — my default “just works” pick for a Proxmox or Docker node.
- Minisforum mini PCs — step up when you want Ryzen and more lanes.
- Raspberry Pi 5 — still the king for low-power always-on jobs.
More reading: N100 vs N305 vs Ryzen · Pi 5 vs mini PC
Storage — NAS & SSDs
- Samsung 990 Pro NVMe — fast, reliable, the boring-in-a-good-way choice.
- WD Red Plus NAS drives — CMR spinning rust for the bulk pool.
- NVMe heatsinks that actually cool — because a throttled Gen4 drive is a sad drive.
More reading: NVMe heatsinks that actually cool · DIY NAS build
Power — UPS & Protection
Your gear hates dirty power more than it hates being off. A UPS is the cheapest insurance in the rack.
- CyberPower UPS — solid line-interactive units with USB monitoring (works great with NUT).
- APC Back-UPS — the other safe bet.
More reading: UPS sizing without overpaying · NUT power monitoring
Networking & Home Lab Plumbing
- MikroTik routers — absurd capability per dollar once you climb the RouterOS learning curve.
- 2.5GbE / SFP+ switches — the budget path to faster-than-gigabit.
- SFP+ DAC cables — cheapest way to do 10G between two boxes.
- Zigbee coordinators (SkyConnect / SONOFF / ConBee) — for the Home Assistant crowd.
More reading: MikroTik in the homelab · pfSense vs OPNsense · SFP optics & DACs
VPS & Cloud Hosts
When the homelab isn’t the right home for something (public-facing, needs real uptime), these are the three I actually reach for. The DigitalOcean and Vultr links are referral links — you get signup credit, I get a little too. The Hetzner one’s just a plain link.
- Hetzner Cloud — unbeatable price/performance in the EU; my default.
- DigitalOcean — the friendliest docs and dashboard if you’re starting out.
- Vultr — handy for regions the other two don’t cover well.
More reading: Hetzner vs DigitalOcean vs Vultr
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