My Home Lab Server Cluster Hardware Configuration List

Overview

A reader previously asked about the hardware configuration of my home lab server cluster, so here’s the full list.

│ 📝Disclaimer:
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│ This is not an ad, not a promotion, not a sponsored post.

Here are 2 photos first:

│ 📝Disclaimer:
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│ I really don’t have a talent for cable management — this is the best I can do, please go easy on me. 😂

Hardware includes:

• Networking
  • Bottom-left in photo 1, the one with green lights: Radxa E20C
  • Bottom-center in photo 1: Hasivo SKS3200M-8GPY1XF
• Compute: 4x N100 mini PCs (I also bought a bunch of RK ARM dev boards — they’re power-efficient but a hassle to use, maybe I’ll tinker with them later.)
  • Bottom-right / center-top / top-right in photo 1: 3x Jumper N100 Pro II
  • Top-left in photo 1: Generic brand Cheshi N100 Standard / 020 chassis / 2.5G NIC / 32GB RAM / 48W PSU
• Storage
  • Right side in photo 2: QNAP TS-453Bmini
  • 3x Western Digital 12TB HDDs + 1x 1TB SSD as cache
  • 1x Western Digital 8TB HDD + enclosure for local backup
• UPS
  • Left side in photo 2: APC Back-UPS 650

Networking

Radxa E20C

• Purchased from: Xianyu (second-hand marketplace, from the seller shown in the watermark above)
• Price paid: ¥139
• Why I chose it:
  • Dual Gigabit Ethernet ports
  • Cheap
  • Low power consumption
  • Can browse the internet “smoothly”
• OS: iStoreOS
• Purpose: Soft router

Hasivo SKS3200M-8GPY1XF

• Purchased from: JD.com (as shown in the watermark above)
• Price paid: ¥274
• Why I chose it:
  • 8x 2.5G copper ports
  • Light management — managed via web UI
  • Link aggregation (used by the NAS)
  • VLAN (haven’t used yet)
  • Jumbo frames (tried it, but the actual improvement was minimal, so I disabled it)
• Software: Built-in OS
• Purpose: Switch, connecting the soft router / N100 mini PCs / NAS.

Compute

Jumper N100 Pro II

• Purchased from: JD.com
• Configuration: Barebones (separately purchased 16GB DDR4 3200 SO-DIMM and 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD)
• Price paid: ¥500 for barebones (JD.com price ¥625, ¥500 after government subsidy)
• Why I chose it:
  • Government subsidy
  • After comprehensive analysis and planning, I decided on: N100, dual NICs, at least one 2.5G
  • Cheap
  • Low power consumption
  • Strong hardware decoding capability
  • Supports PXE network boot (NetBoot)
• OS: Ubuntu 24.04
• Drawbacks:
  • Realtek NIC — poor performance, poor drivers, occasional connection drops (worse than my generic brand machine, but doesn’t affect usability)
• Purpose: K3s master node. Also serves as a worker node. All applications are deployed across these 4 N100 machines.

Generic Brand Cheshi N100 Standard / 020 Chassis / 2.5G NIC / 32GB RAM / 128GB SSD / 48W PSU

• Purchased from: Pinduoduo
• Price paid: ¥1099
• Why I chose it:
  • N100
  • Dual NICs
  • 32GB RAM (surprisingly supports 32GB, exceeding the N100 whitepaper specs)
• OS: Ubuntu 24.04
• Drawbacks:
  • BIOS does not support PXE network boot (NetBoot)
• Purpose: K3s worker node.

Storage

QNAP TS-453Bmini

• Purchased from: JD.com
• Purchase date: June 2020
• Price paid: ¥1849
• Why I chose it:
  • Well-known brand
  • Less tinkering required
  • Stable
  • Relatively affordable among major brands
  • Expandable RAM (I expanded it to 16GB)
• OS: QTS 5
• Drawbacks:
  • Terrible thermal dissipation
• Purpose: Personal photos / media / files; system PV backups; Jellyfin media storage.

NAS HDDs — Western Digital Mechanical Hard Drives

I won’t go into detail about the SSD in the NAS.

3 mechanical hard drives, 12TB each.

Specific model: Western Digital 12TB Elements, WDBWLG0120HBK-ESSN

• Purchased from: Amazon Global Store
• Price paid: ¥1592
• Why I chose it:
  • Relatively affordable
  • Stable
  • Large capacity
• Drawbacks: Purchased from overseas, shucked the enclosure to use only the bare drive — no warranty. (Fortunately, I haven’t had any issues so far.)
• Purpose: Installed in the NAS as data drives. (Running RAID 6, but I regret it now — I shouldn’t have gone with RAID 6.)

External Backup — Western Digital My Book 8TB Enclosure

Looks similar, so I won’t post a photo.

• Purchased from: Amazon Global Store
• Price paid: ¥1072
• Why I chose it: Same as above
• Drawbacks: Same as above
• Purpose: Connected to the NAS as a local external backup.

UPS

APC Schneider BK650-CH 400W/650VA

• Purchased from: Suning
• Price paid: ¥485
• Why I chose it:
  • Frequent power outages when I first moved in
  • Compatible with the NAS
  • Well-known brand, good reputation
• OS: N/A
• Purpose: The NAS is plugged into this UPS for automatic switchover during power outages; the 4 N100 mini PCs are also plugged into it; a USB data cable connects to the NAS, which acts as a UPS server. This enables the NAS and N100 mini PCs to automatically shut down after a period following a power outage.

Summary

That’s the complete hardware configuration list for my home lab server cluster. Hopefully it serves as a useful reference.

What I consider essential:

• Soft router
• Switch
• Compute nodes

Everything else is optional.

I hope this helps anyone building their own home lab server cluster. Feel free to reach out via DM or leave a comment. Thanks~