Updated 21 Aug 2026. Spec-and-street-price editorial. Not a hands-on burn-in lab yet.
Five lanes. One closet.
Labthrift is for people wiring a homelab that has to stay quiet, cheap, and on overnight. We pick the boring upgrade and say no to the rest.
2.5G switches
Eight copper ports. No fan. No VLAN tax unless you need it.
Mini PCs for Proxmox
N100 vs N150 vs a box with four NICs. 16 GB is the floor.
Used enterprise vs new
When a $40 switch is a gift, and when it is a 90W space heater.
First NAS
Two-bay Synology if you want sleep. UGREEN if you want 10G and Docker.
Cheap PoE + APs
Power two access points without buying a UniFi religion.
The rule
If a 0.4% bounce cannot pay a 0.8% fee, you should not take the trade. Same here: if the upgrade does not move a real bottleneck (NAS copies, VM backups, Wi-Fi dead zones), keep the money.