So I was wondering, what is exactly the use case of owning a server rack with huge CPUs and 256GB of DDR4 RAM with 1PB of storage?
Obviously, I’m kind of exaggerating here, but it does seem that most homelabs are big server racks with at least two CPUs and like 20 cores in total.
Why would I want to buy a server rack with all the bells and whistles when a low-power, small NAS can do the trick? What’s the main advantage of having a huge server, compared to an average Synology NAS for example?
Honestly, I only see disadvantages tbh. It consumes way more power, costs way more money and the processing power it provides is probably only relevant for (small) businesses and not for an individual like me.
So, convince me. Why should I get a homelab instead of a regular NAS?
Honestly, homelabs are overkill in almost every situation, but they can be a fun learning environment. It gives you hands-on experience, and running everything in a Synology NAS isn’t usually reflective of how you might encounter things in practice.
This depends what you want to homelab, too.
If you want to meddle with apps, running Docker containers on a Synology NAS could be fine. Make sure you buy a NAS with expandable ram just in case.
If you want to meddle with storing data then Synology is fine. It’s easy to use and did its job reliably when I used one. I only went from running a Synology NAS to a beefy server NAS running TrueNAS because I wanted to store a lot more data and I wanted to use iSCSI for disk volumes for my Kubernetes cluster. But my Synology was fine for various complex needs for like 4 years.
If you want a small but practical homelab on the cheap, grab a Synology NAS and an intel NUC or two to start out. You can make it insanely far with just that.