HOME LAB BOM

Generation 9 HOME LAB Bill of Materials

Last Updated 1/13/2026

My current Gen 9 Workstation BOM is based on Windows 11, with VMware Workstation 25H2 used to host nested ESXi environments. The primary purpose of this build is to run VMware Workstation, with general server and desktop applications as secondary use cases.

Below is the current draft BOM, along with an Archive section containing my previous physical home lab builds. Going forward, my primary home lab will be built around nested VMware Workstation virtual machines.

Why Generation 9? To track my home labs I call them Generations plus a number. The Gen Numbers aligns to the version of vSphere it was designed for.

VCF 9 Updates:

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

Updates:

  • 01/13/2026 – My current BOM based on the ASRock Rack motherboard worked well for installing VCF 9. However, VCF 9 is very memory-intensive—using about 310 GB out of 384 GB—and I haven’t even fully deployed the environment 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.
  • 01/12/2026 – I completed an install of a minimal VCF 9 on Workstation 25H2 using the BOM 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 BOM

Other Devices

Storage (NAS, Backups, and File Shares):

Network (Currently Unused):

Battery Backup UPS:

Check out my playlist on how to build a Nested vSAN ESA from start to finish.

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)