Guide
Stop buying one box for everything
The sales page will call it a “homelab powerhouse.” What you usually get is a loud PSU, a CPU that is warm at idle, and a storage layout you cannot expand without a forklift.
Run apps on a mini-PC. Put spinning disks in a NAS. If you need a second NIC for IoT, get dual LAN on the HA box — do not invent a custom PCIe saga on day one.
Fit Score’s storage job and Proxmox job are separate on purpose. If a machine ranks high on both, cool — still ask whether you want them coupled.
Hardware in this write-up
- Beelink EQ12 — Low-power Intel N100 box suited to quiet Home Assistant and light Proxmox nodes with dual 2.5GbE.
- Aoostar R1 — Compact NAS-adjacent mini PC with multiple drive bays popular for Jellyfin libraries plus light VMs.
- UGREEN DXP4800 — 4-bay NAS alternative often paired with a mini-PC compute node for media libraries and backups.
- UGREEN DXP6800 Pro — 6-bay UGREEN NAS for larger Jellyfin/Plex libraries without building a full DIY chassis.
- TerraMaster F4-424 — Intel N-series 4-bay NAS with 2.5GbE aimed at media libraries and hybrid backup roles.
FAQ
When is one box fine?
Tiny labs: HA + a few containers, library under a terabyte, one stream. The moment you care about 24/7 disks or many VMs, split.