Homelab Suggestions: Proxmox vs. Windows Server 2025
Hey everyone,
I’m looking for some advice on which direction I should take with my homelab: Proxmox, Windows Server 2025, or some combination of both.
Right now, I’m running a small Windows 11 Pro box that hosts Jellyfin and a few network attached drives for a simple internal NAS setup. I also plan to run a few 24/7 game servers whenever my friends and I decide to play something.
My new hardware is a huge upgrade:
Main Server
- Ryzen 5900XT
- ROG Crosshair VIII Hero motherboard
- 128GB RAM
- RTX 4060 for Jellyfin encoding
- 2TB Gen 4 NVMe for boot
- 4TB Gen 3 NVMe for VMs/data
- Various HDDs: 16TB, 12TB, 12TB, 6TB
- Jonsbo N5 NAS case
- LSI 9300-8i for drives
Secondary Server, ITX build
- Ryzen 5750G
- Gigabyte X570 I AORUS PRO WIFI
- 32GB RAM, possibly upgrading to 64GB
- Jonsbo N10 ITX case
- 4x 1TB SATA SSDs
- 2x 1TB Gen 3 NVMe SSDs
(For the secondary server, I’m thinking of using the two NVMes in RAID 1 for boot, then the four SATA SSDs in RAID 10 for VMs._
I’m more familiar with Windows, so running Windows Server on the main server is appealing. Then I could use the secondary server as a Proxmox learning/testing environment. I also want to play around with Docker and get more comfortable with Linux again. I took a Linux course in college a few years ago, but I’ve forgotten most of it.
That said, I’ve also considered running Proxmox on the main server and just spinning up VMs for everything I need. That seems like it would make future hardware migrations easier when I eventually upgrade again, probably in 5–7 years. Another option is to run Proxmox on both machines and virtualize everything.
I have so many ideas and possible routes in my head that I’m stuck worrying about locking myself into the wrong environment.
What would you do with this hardware? Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated.
Thanks!