Personally, I've really enjoyed using a 1U 16 core Atom server as a single node Kubernetes cluster. I started on raspberry PIs and Synology NASs too but consolidated them earlier this year and didn't look back. It runs a whole bunch of stuff now and I blogged about the setup at https://bensblog.meierhost.com/20230705-home-lab-infrastruct....
Totally understand that it's a bit more expensive than second hand hardware and smaller elements so I'd only suggest going down that path once you know you'll get the utility out of it.
I've used it to replace my reliance on Google photos/docs and lean more on self hosting, though that means that backups, disk mirrors, and run books for restoring everything is double important!
Totally understand that it's a bit more expensive than second hand hardware and smaller elements so I'd only suggest going down that path once you know you'll get the utility out of it.
I've used it to replace my reliance on Google photos/docs and lean more on self hosting, though that means that backups, disk mirrors, and run books for restoring everything is double important!