Homelab Build Planner
Pick a budget, get a real combo: node, RAM, boot drive, and storage
Pick a build type and a tier below and this pulls current, real listings straight from my live price trackers — not a written list that goes stale the week I publish it. General Proxmox builds get a node, RAM upgrade, boot/VM drive, and NAS enclosure; the AI/LLM build gets a GPU pick and a paired RAM kit.
More build types (NAS-focused, media server) are on the way.
This is the tier my own three-node cluster actually runs on. A refurbished Dell OptiPlex, HP EliteDesk, or Lenovo ThinkCentre from the 8th or 9th Intel Core generation is the cheapest real way into Proxmox, with a mature BIOS and real DDR4 SO-DIMM slots. Paired here with a small NVMe boot/VM drive and an entry-level 2-bay NAS for your actual data.
Boot / VM Drive
2TB AData Legend 710 PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 2280 SSD Solid State Disk
$219.99
View listing →This node already ships with its own RAM and a small boot drive. The RAM and boot/VM drive shown above are upgrade options, not something you have to buy again to get a working machine.
NAS enclosures are sold diskless — pair with the Disk Price Tracker to price out actual drives. Curious what this will cost to run? Try the Power Cost Calculator.
The ASUS NUC 13 Pro is the middle ground: new hardware with a current-generation Core CPU, sold as a barebone kit so RAM and storage are priced separately here rather than baked into one number. It still takes DDR4 SO-DIMMs, not DDR5. Paired with a 4-bay NAS that has real room to grow as your data does.
Boot / VM Drive
2TB AData Legend 710 PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 2280 SSD Solid State Disk
$219.99
View listing →This node is sold as a bare kit with no RAM or storage included, so the RAM and boot/VM drive above are real, required additions to the price, not optional upgrades.
NAS enclosures are sold diskless — pair with the Disk Price Tracker to price out actual drives. Curious what this will cost to run? Try the Power Cost Calculator.
The Minisforum MS-01 is the box that removes the networking ceiling the two tiers above eventually hit, with dual 10GbE built in. It takes DDR5 SO-DIMMs, unlike the two cheaper tiers. Paired here with a higher-bay-count NAS built for serious storage capacity.
Node
Minisforum MS-01 Barebone (i9-13900H, Dual 10GbE + 2.5GbE), RAM/storage sold separately
$599.00
View listing →Boot / VM Drive
2TB AData Legend 710 PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 2280 SSD Solid State Disk
$219.99
View listing →This node is sold as a bare kit with no RAM or storage included, so the RAM and boot/VM drive above are real, required additions to the price, not optional upgrades.
NAS enclosures are sold diskless — pair with the Disk Price Tracker to price out actual drives. Curious what this will cost to run? Try the Power Cost Calculator.
Used RTX 3090, 3090 Ti, and 4090 cards currently offer the best price-per-VRAM for running local LLMs and image generation, since that workload usually cares more about VRAM capacity than raw gaming clocks. No case or motherboard is recommended here on purpose: this build lives inside whatever host you're already running or planning around, so this only prices the GPU itself plus a reasonable 32GB of desktop DDR4 to pair with it.
No case, motherboard, or power supply is priced here — GPU length, slot height, and power draw vary too much across these tiers to recommend one enclosure that fits all of them. Pick your host separately to match this card's dimensions and power connector.
Check the GPU Price Tracker for the full current listing set. Curious what to actually run on this once it's built? See the OpenClaw Homelab guide.
The RTX A-series workstation cards trade gaming clocks for more VRAM per dollar and blower-style cooling that stacks better if you ever go multi-GPU. Same as the tier above, no case or motherboard pick here — just the GPU and 32GB of desktop DDR5 to pair with it.
No case, motherboard, or power supply is priced here — GPU length, slot height, and power draw vary too much across these tiers to recommend one enclosure that fits all of them. Pick your host separately to match this card's dimensions and power connector.
Check the GPU Price Tracker for the full current listing set. Curious what to actually run on this once it's built? See the OpenClaw Homelab guide.
Tesla and Instinct-class cards go furthest per dollar on raw VRAM, but they're pulled from server chassis: most have no onboard fan and need forced rack airflow to stay cool, and a few use a proprietary SXM/SXM2 mezzanine connector instead of a standard PCIe slot — those are excluded here entirely since they can't go in a normal PC at all. Confirm a specific listing's cooling and slot requirements before buying; this is the tier where a mismatch is easiest to make. Paired with 64GB of desktop DDR5, since datacenter-class VRAM tends to get paired with larger models that want more system RAM alongside it.
No case, motherboard, or power supply is priced here — GPU length, slot height, and power draw vary too much across these tiers to recommend one enclosure that fits all of them. Pick your host separately to match this card's dimensions and power connector.
Check the GPU Price Tracker for the full current listing set. Curious what to actually run on this once it's built? See the OpenClaw Homelab guide.
Why Three Tiers, Not a Slider
These match the exact three tiers argued for on my Best Mini PC for Proxmox page: refurbished business desktops, the ASUS NUC 13 Pro, and the Minisforum MS-01. A dollar-amount slider would eventually recommend hardware that doesn't actually exist at that price, since real listings cluster around these categories, not a smooth curve.
Two Kinds of Storage, On Purpose
A small NVMe drive inside the node runs Proxmox and your VMs. A separate NAS handles the data you actually care about keeping: documents, media, backups. Sizing them separately means upgrading one later doesn't mean touching the other.
Barebone Kits, Priced Honestly
The ASUS NUC and Minisforum MS-01 both sell as barebone kits with RAM and storage extra. Listing them alone makes the box look cheaper than a real build actually costs. This tool adds the real RAM and drive prices back in so the total reflects what you'd actually spend.
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers on how these picks are put together.
How are these recommendations chosen?
Each tier picks the cheapest current listing that fits that tier's hardware, straight from the same live data behind the SFF Proxmox Nodes, RAM, Disk, and NAS Enclosure trackers. The three tiers themselves aren't arbitrary dollar cutoffs: they're the exact refurb-desktop / ASUS NUC / Minisforum MS-01 framework argued for on the Best Mini PC for Proxmox page, so this tool and that page always agree with each other.
Do the prices update automatically?
Yes. Every time this page loads, it re-reads the current data behind each tracker and re-picks the cheapest match. There's no separate list to keep in sync by hand, so it can't quietly go stale the way a written recommendation would.
Why is storage split into two separate recommendations?
They do different jobs. The small NVMe drive lives inside the node itself and holds Proxmox plus your VM/container disks. The NAS is separate bulk storage for your actual data and backups, sized and priced independently so a small boot drive doesn't get confused with real storage capacity.
Does the NAS price include hard drives?
No. Every NAS enclosure tracked here is sold diskless, so the price shown is for the box alone. Pair it with the Disk Price Tracker to price out actual drives once you know how much capacity and what RAID level you want.
What if I want a multi-node cluster instead of one box?
This tool currently sizes one node at a time. For a cluster like my own three-node setup, multiply the node-plus-RAM cost by however many nodes you want, and share a single NAS across all of them rather than buying separate storage per node. A dedicated multi-node mode may come later.
What about networking equipment?
Not included here. A single node's onboard NIC is usually enough to get started; clustering nodes with shared storage is where networking headroom starts to matter, covered in more depth on the Best Mini PC for Proxmox page. Current switch pricing lives on the Network Switch Tracker.
Why doesn't the AI/LLM build type recommend a case or host?
GPU cards vary hugely in length, slot height (single, double, or triple-slot), and cooling design (blower, open-air, or passive) even within one class, so one recommended case or motherboard would be wrong for many of the cards this tool might pick. This build type prices the GPU and a paired system RAM kit only; pick your host separately to match that specific card's dimensions and power needs.