Migrating Homelab

Hello everyone. I wanted to ask you all for some advice/recommendations. I am moving into a new home and will be tearing down my current homelab and migrating it to the new house. There’re a few things I am looking to see if I can change/modify, and I also must buy a new 24 port full poe switch as well as new Access points.

· For the access points, I was going to get 2 Unifi Wi-Fi 7 Pro Max AP’s. Is the 4x4 5ghz MIMO worth it or should I save the $100 for the regular pros? I also will need a new cloud key to manage them as well.

· I will need a 24-port switch that supports full poe and has some multigig (10G down to 1G) ports as well. I was looking at Unifi here too, but their 24/48 port switch models are expensive so not sure if there are other options out there that people like. Maybe Mikrotik?

· My current core switch is a Cisco Nexus C3064PQ. It has been great, and I have had no issues, but I am trying to see if there are any other options for a multi SFP+ (like 24+) switch that can do vlan routing that’s not as bulky/loud. Anything out there that supports stacking that doesn’t cost a ridiculous amount? Stacking is not required I am just curious if there are options.

· I am currently running Sophos XG Home on a Supermicro Appliance/Server (Intel E3 Quad Core, 16gb ram). This has worked well for me on a Gigabit connection. My ISP in this home will be Verizon FIOS Business Internet. I did this because they gave me 5 Static Public IP’s. It is a Gigabit connection but will probably upgrade to 2 Gig in a couple months when available. I don’t think Sophos XG will be able to do this since it has hardware restrictions. Any other Next Gen options for Homelab? I know people love pfSense and I have used it and liked it as well but for next gen it was just too cumbersome dealing with all the plugins. I was considering OPNSense with Zenarmor as I have a couple friends who use that and like it. Also, does anyone have hardware they like for Firewall appliance that is 1U and options for higher than gigabit.

I am starting to research this all now, so I am ready when I must migrate everything. I may not do all of this at once. In fact, the only required things I must do are the AP’s, cloudkey (if needed), and access switch. I appreciate any recommendations/advice. Thank you.

I’d suggest transplanting your current, known working environment to the new place and only after you got that to run as expected, start swapping in new parts. Nothing more frustrating then diagnosing an error not knowing which device introduced it :roll_eyes:

4 Likes

Mikrotik is the best bang for the buck by far

Serve The Home has plenty of videos covering their product offerings

2 Likes

Thank you Dutch. Yea for the core switch/firewall I am probably going to wait and do that a little later after getting settled but unfortunately the AP’s and that Switch I have to add now as I am leaving the AP’s at my old place with my parents and I never had a high port density PoE switch there because I was just runninng smaller switches in different rooms. This time I ran CAT6 everywhere so i can just operate off one switch in my rack.

Thank you TryTwiceMedia. Yea I have seen in the past many people say good things about Mikrotik. I will look at their options to see if I can find something.

1 Like