HOME LAB BOM

Generation 9 HOME LAB Bill of Materials

Last Updated 02/10/2026

My current Gen 9 Workstation BOMs are based on Windows 11, with VMware Workstation 25H2 used to host nested VCF 9 environments. The primary purpose of these BOMs is to run VMware Workstation, with general Windows desktop applications as secondary use cases.

Below are the current BOMs, along with an Archive section containing my previous physical home lab builds. Going forward, my primary home lab will be based on VMware Workstation virtual machines.

Have questions? Check out the FAQs about the Gen 9 BOM.

VCF 9 Testing Updates

Status — Currently I’m testing my VCF 9 deployment and there are BOM changes in progress.

Updates:

  • In-Progress 02/10/2026 (BOM2) – Power supply (Antec NeoECO Gold ZEN 700W) appears to be a bit underpowered for the Gigabyte mobo, working on a replacement unit. BOM2 update soon.
  • Resolved 02/03/2026 (BOM2) – BOM2 Hardware list below and OS deployment are completed, now working on setting up Workstation for the VCF VMs.
  • Resolved 01/29/2026 (BOM2) – Working on enabling bifurcation to support multiple NVMe disks.
  • Resolved 01/28/2026 (BOM2) – BOM2 is based on the Gigabyte MD71-HB0 is underway. Just starting to get the mobo installed and burned it. I’ll be posting about it soon.
  • Resolved 01/15/2026 (BOM1) – BOM1 is based on the ASRock Rack motherboard worked well for installing VCF 9. See the blog Parts 1 thru 9. However, VCF 9 is very memory-intensive—using about 310 GB out of 384 GB—and I haven’t even fully deployed the VCF stack yet. While I do have additional RAM modules available, the ASRock Rack board is already fully populated. Rather than replacing all the existing DIMMs with higher-capacity modules, it was more cost-effective to move to a motherboard with additional memory slots. I’m now testing a new motherboard, the Gigabyte MD71-HB0, which doubles the CPU count and provides significantly more headroom for RAM expansion.
  • Resolved 01/12/2026 (BOM1) – I completed an install of a minimal VCF 9 on Workstation 25H2 using the BOM1 below. I’m still in the testing phase but its looking pretty good. A multi-part blog post coming out soon.

Gen 9 – VMware Workstation BOMs

Differences between BOMs:

Common items to both BOMs:

Other Devices

Storage (NAS, Backups, and File Shares):

Network (Currently Unused):

Battery Backup UPS:

ARCHIVE: Gen 8 Workstation Posts

VMware Workstation Generation 8 : Nested vSphere 8 Home Lab (2023-2025 Archived)

ARCHIVE: Previous Home Lab Information

Home Lab Gen 8: (01/2023 – 12/2024)

Home Lab Gen 7: (09/2020-02/2023)

Home Lab Gen 5: (01/2020 – 09/2020)

Home Lab Gen 4: (10/2016 – 2019)