Help building first home lab

[teanieweeniebeanie]

Budget (including currency): $2k but can go up to $3k

Country: US

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: General gaming with Xbox game pass

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

 

Hi everyone. Im new to building my own machines but not new to working with the technology described below. 
 

Basically I want to build a home lab running Proxmox as my hypervisor on top of which will sit multiple VMs, docker containers, and a NAS. 
 

looking for recommendations on running the following:

 

VMs/Docker:

Windows VM w/ GPU passthrough for gaming Xbox Game Pass games. 
 

Mac VM for general use/app testing

 

VM or Docker container running plex with GPU passthrough as well for video transcoding (possibly a second GPU)

 

VM running pfSense to handle all my networks needs

 

VM or Docker container running PiHole

 

VM for Home Assistant

 

VM with TrueNas

 

I’m looking for a way to build this all into one system if possible or if recommended. Would this be too much for one system?

 

I would ideally want to have a PCI NIC to passthrough to pfSense and bring in the connection from my ISP as a WAN connection. I would also want 6-8 HDDs running in a RAID configuration to store all my data. Also if possible, a few SSD for Plex metadata caching and some boot drives that can sit in a mirrored config. Can be a tower or server chassis to keep it all in. 

any advice would be appreciated with this build. 

[dogwitch]

new or used parts?

[teanieweeniebeanie]

I’m open to either as long as it works.

[Electronics Wizardy]

4 hours ago, teanieweeniebeanie said:

Windows VM w/ GPU passthrough for gaming Xbox Game Pass games. 

This can be picky with anticheats and some games, but generally work. But be warend.

 

4 hours ago, teanieweeniebeanie said:

Mac VM for general use/app testing

 

Should work, but hackintoshing always has a few issues. Also be warned mac on x86 is probably nearing its end.

 

4 hours ago, teanieweeniebeanie said:

VM with TrueNas

 

With proxmox, I'd let it handle ZFS on the host for storage, then probalby just use a container for doing network shares.

4 hours ago, teanieweeniebeanie said:

VM or Docker container running plex with GPU passthrough as well for video transcoding (possibly a second GPU)

 

Should work fine. How much transcoding do you plan on doing here, you can probably get away with the cpu alone or igpu for most home plex uses.

 

4 hours ago, teanieweeniebeanie said:

VM running pfSense to handle all my networks needs

 

Should work fine, pretty easy setup if your used to this stuff.

 

4 hours ago, teanieweeniebeanie said:

I’m looking for a way to build this all into one system if possible or if recommended. Would this be too much for one system?

 

One system can handle this easily, but there will be some issues likely setting it up. Also be warned if one thing goes down your whole network is down.

 

Hardware wise, I'd probably get a 7950x/7900x here. Igpu for the host os(nice to have for trouble shooting and makes gpu passtrhough easier).

 

Then get a higher end board that lets you split the x16 to 2 x8 links and has enough sata ports for the drives you work. Shoudl also have enough m.2 slots for boot and vm storage. 

 

Something like a define 7 is a good case for a desktop and quiet system that can fit a lot of drives.