I have had a home lab for the longest period of time to play with technology, play with stuff that I do and want to do. It provides a great way to learn, test, try new products and of course create new blog posts. Everyday I manage and maintain network, virtualization(VMware), Windows enterprise infrastructure and assist my Red Hat team team members. Home lab is a powerful learning tool. The only thing my home lab lacking is the storage.
Here is how my current home lab setup looks like. It is simple.
VMware ESXi Host
- Dell R720 2U server – 2x Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2660 0 @ 2.20GHz (16 Cores / 32 threads total)
- 16 x 16GB Kingston RAM (256GB total)
- PERC H710 RAID Adapter
- iDRAC Enterprise
- 2 TB of SAS drives.
ESXi is running off of a usb.
I have nested VMware ESXi hosts running in a cluster with VCSA using FreeNAS as shared storage. This will allow me to test upgrade and patches. I am have VMUG Advantage membership which will allow me to use VMware license to run my VMware lab.
Custom Build
- Windows Server 2019
Motherboard : ASUSTeck Computer Inc.
Model: Z8NA-D6(C)
Processor: Interl Xeon E5606
Memory: 48 GB DDR3 - Windows Server 2019
Motherboard : ASUSTeck Computer Inc.
Model: Z8NA-D6(C)
Processor: Interl Xeon E5606
Memory: 28 GB DDR3
HP 1810-48G Switch fanless L2 switch
pfSense
I’ve been using pfSense for a while. I’m running pfSense on a custom box. pfSense is an open source software and currently I am using it as a router, firewall, and IDS/IPS. I am still exploring its capability.
It is running on a custom box with AMD processor and 4GB of RAM.
3 NIC
Ubiquiti UAP-AC-PRO AP