Disclaimer: This blog was written without the help of LLMs (although that should be obvious) or any kind of financial incentive. I bought all the hardware myself, don’t have stocks in any of these companies and don’t use affiliate links. The result is entirely my own, unprofessional rambling. Though no one can claim to be devoid of bias, this article is as honest as I dare to be with myself. Which may not be a whole lot after spending hundreds on a weird homelab, but it’s the best you’re going to get.
Very detailed blog I wrote about my strange homelab setup.
Yep, my current ESXi box is a 2018 Dell SFF that runs surprisingly well at under 80 watts (idles just under 20).
Dell makes a 200w power supply for it - the biggest limitation is RAM - it can only do 64gig.