Best Home Server in 2022 for Virtualization and Containers

Are you looking at buying or building new hardware for your home lab enviroment? Are you looking for the best home server, best docker container server, or best virtualization server to fit your use case? I have been using Supermicro Edge/IoT servers in my home lab since the beginning as they have a great mix of features, functionality, and capabilities for my needs. I recently added a Supermicro E300-9D-8CN8TP server to my fleet. Take a look at the video as I describe the new server, show the inside of the server, hardware, add-on cards, RAM, and discuss networking.

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Introduction to home lab hardware and new Supermicro server - 0:00
Taking a quick overview look at the E300-9D server - 0:51
Describing why I use the Supermicro Edge servers - 1:24
Looking at the server on the bench - 2:16
Looking at the rack mount brackets, etc - 2:55
Taking off the top cover and looking at the inside - 3:04
The inside plate covering the internals - 3:15
Describing the hard drive mounting options - 3:30
Looking at the Supermicro add-on card for additional NVMe capacity - 3:51
Describing the memory configuration - 4:26
Describing the CPU configuration and model - 4:35
Describing the networking capabilities - 5:28
6 1Gbps ports and 2 10Gbps - 5:38
Describing the built-in IPMI management - 5:50
License for OOB firmware and update management capabilities - 6:10
Possibilities of configuring networking, VLANs, carving out traffic - 6:33
Converged networking configurations - 7:00
Concluding thoughts of the new Supermicro Edge IoT server for home labs - 7:30

Best Docker Containers for Home server:

Best Quiet Home Server in 2022 for Virtualization:

Virtualization vs Containerization in 2022 home lab:

[johnwalshaw]

Great review. Couple points of feedback you may already be aware of. That's 4x1G and 4x10G (2 SFP+ 2RJ45). For the IPMI license, it can be generated from a simple CLI command, which for a home lab, why not. I decided to do a case mod, and mounted an external exhaust fan directly above the proc heat sink. I also added an air shroud above the heat sink to focus the air flow. Last but not least, the smaller stock fans have their RPM halved with some cable mods. It's now super quiet and runs cool. Realizing this case mod would affect the 2.5" SSD mounting, but if you have the vertical space, the case mod goes a long way to making a very quiet and cool system.

[markos]

Fantastic, just something I was looking for over last 2 days.

[ThBeowulf]

I've been using Dell 7060s and 7070s micro form-factor PCs for similar reasons. I have them configured with Proxmox, maxed out on RAM, NVMe for boot/configuration, SATA SSD local node storage (ISOs, VMs, containers, etc.) and an external NAS for shared data. Two fit perfectly side-by-side on a shelf and since the airflow is front to back, I can physically stack them to "scale up".

I do like these Supermicro machines too as they're definitely more "server grade". The price of the micro PCs though is hard to look past.

[danielebadiali]

HOLYY SHIITTT I LOVE YOU ❤❤❤ I'VE BEEN SEARCHING AROUND THE INTERNET FOR 5 HOURS AND THEN NOW IT'S OVER FINALLY I LOVE YOU MAAN

[admustanggt]

How much power does that guy draw at idle and under load?

[drvcrash]

love the little supermicros. Ive been running a lab two node vsan on a pair E300-8D's over 5 years now. they rock

[eyesonly]

I've still got my HP-85B lab computer with an HP-IB interface module and a working tape drive. These computers were masters of lab data collection and plotting said data on HP-GL pen plotters. A day long since past.

[RicardoMeleschi]

FYI - It's 4x1GbE Ports, 2x10GbE, and 2xSFP+ Ports. This is a fantastic little box, I have an older SYS-E300-9D-4CN8TP myself that I use as a 10Gb router for my homelab.. Overkill? Absolutely, and I love it! =)

[FrAllard]

Official specs state that there is 4x 1GbE, 2x 10GBase-T, 2x 10G SFP+ and 1 dedicated LAN for IPMI 2.0. You said 6x 1GbE in the video. Two of those copper ports are 10G

[PoeLemic]

I really enjoyed this overview. I hope you keep making videos on this topic. I just found out about your channel by a recommendation. And, I'm just getting into having a HomeLab, so new to it.

[alfreddumas]

I've built my lab with Dell R710s and the latest units are T7810 towers with E5-26xx cpus and other than the electric bill when i let then run 24/7 i am happy with the capabilities

[TheMemcon]

Looks like a great home server, but the price is a little hard to swallow. Definitely will continue to look at SuperMicro though. Thanks for the video.

[azaram]

I hate to nitpick but my OCD can't deal with that top cover not sliding together neatly! 😅
Started with the middle unseated and ended with the left unseated.

[jblow]

Looks pretty cool. Been running a 25 instance container farm on a Lenovo M920 tiny for the past 2 years and it's been rock solid as well. Love the low power stuff where I can run a full blown 10TB online groupware collaboration system on under 50 watts.

[jeffnew]

Cute server, but I don't see a slot on the back to expose a network card. As a vSAN node, 10G would do, but for mainstream use, my servers have 25G Mellanox-X4 cards. Since yesterday, I've been working with Dell to configure my first new server in 10 years. The first was a T620. It's been a great server for a decade, but vSphere 8 will obsolete it next month. The new server is an R740 Cascade Lake. Plans are to add a second, identical, server early next year. I'll be divesting myself of the T620 and an R720, so the home lab won't be growing, it'll just be staying current. vSAN nodes are four HP EliteDesk 600 G5 Minis with Thunderbolt to 10G adapters. All-flash (M.2). Ready for vSAN 8 when it ships. "Second site" for vSphere Replication, SRM and Horizon Cloud Pod is a cluster of three Lenovo M93p Minis. I think those are aging out as well, but I haven't started looking for a replacement yet. Those will be cheap machines. In the mean time, the second site cluster and vCenter can remain vSphere 7 for awhile. Kind regards.

[doman]

Saw the thumbnail. Clicked the video. Checked the price. Closed the video after 30s ... :D

[BrianThomas]

I've been using ARM for my home lab. I've been thinking about using Proxmox for ARM, but I'm not sure how good it will run. I'm using 3 of the Rock chip 8 core variant with 16GB of RAM.

[inusahcodjoe]

1st time ever hearing of a super micro server brand....ll live to buy one

[tenderloin]

If you can put the server away to a garage, then old loud server from a real data center like Dell R720 with 512 GB of RAM is perfect for a home lab. Runs ESXi like a champ for less than a $1000. It does eat electricity though because of dual socket Xeons, like a whole amp and a half.

[hassell]

I use older server chassis, either surplus from ebay or hand me downs. Followed by removing old parts and swapping to "newer" components that are supported.