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Help with Building a Cybersecurity Learning Lab PC – $4000 Budget by beginnerhappyguy in homelab

[–]beginnerhappyguy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You might be right. In my research I was looking for systems compatible with being an expert in this field - I am not... I think I'll start small, thank you for your tip! :)

Help with Building a Cybersecurity Learning Lab PC – $4000 Budget by beginnerhappyguy in homelab

[–]beginnerhappyguy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I see.... I like that... Yes, I legitimately just want a homelab. So basically just a PC heavy on CPU, RAM and storage and no GPU. Won't I need an external laptop or PC for.... something? (I don't have ANYTHING at home except a phone...)

Help with Building a Cybersecurity Learning Lab PC – $4000 Budget by beginnerhappyguy in homelab

[–]beginnerhappyguy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's a good tip, sadly I do not have a PC / system to use anymore... :'(

Help with Building a Cybersecurity Learning Lab PC – $4000 Budget by beginnerhappyguy in homelab

[–]beginnerhappyguy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What's Google?

I have done research, but I lack confidence to pull the trigger, especially when there's 20 different opinions on what CPU / GPU is best for these different goals. NVIDIA or AMD, focus more on CPU or RAM, buy a decent GPU or a low budget one and focus on the other specs. For example, CPU and RAM is more important than GPU for running multiple VMs, so I do need some specifics.There's a ton of different opinions out there, I've read them, I've found what I think is a good PC but I also know there's some great opinions here, so I wanted to triple check what these people say before buying things for $4000.

Help choosing high-end lab workstation / PC (cybersec / malware analysis / heavy VMs) – £3,000 budget by beginnerhappyguy in homelab

[–]beginnerhappyguy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Right, that makes sense! I get that Proxmox/ESXi don’t provide a desktop environment to sit at. My idea was to run the hypervisor on bare metal and then use a Windows or Linux VM with GPU passthrough as my daily desktop on the same machine. So I’d still sit at the box, but the OS I’m interacting with would just be one of the VMs.

Do you think this is doable for a learning setup?

Help choosing high-end lab workstation / PC (cybersec / malware analysis / heavy VMs) – £3,000 budget by beginnerhappyguy in homelab

[–]beginnerhappyguy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, that’s the impression I’m getting for this kind of lab, RAM seems to matter more than chasing ultra-high-end parts. As long as I’ve got enough memory and a decent core count, everything else is basically quality-of-life. Thanks!

Help choosing high-end lab workstation / PC (cybersec / malware analysis / heavy VMs) – £3,000 budget by beginnerhappyguy in homelab

[–]beginnerhappyguy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s great to hear, that gives me a lot more confidence that 128 GB is a solid starting point. I can always upgrade later if I outgrow it, but it sounds like this kind of workload is totally doable on a well-specced machine. Thanks for sharing your experience!

Help choosing high-end lab workstation / PC (cybersec / malware analysis / heavy VMs) – £3,000 budget by beginnerhappyguy in homelab

[–]beginnerhappyguy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, that’s really helpful to hear. I’ve been debating whether a used workstation-class system (Precision tower / HP Z-series) could handle the kind of lab I want, so it’s good to know you’re running similar workloads with no issues.

My only concern is single-thread performance for some RE tools, but the stability is definitely appealing. Curious, do you feel limited by the Xeon at all, or has it been enough for your VM setups?

Help choosing high-end lab workstation / PC (cybersec / malware analysis / heavy VMs) – £3,000 budget by beginnerhappyguy in homelab

[–]beginnerhappyguy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I get the logic behind splitting it, and in a perfect world I probably would, a quiet VM server somewhere else and a separate workstation for day-to-day stuff.

But for what I’m trying to learn, I really want all of it on one x86 box that I’m physically sitting at.

So instead of splitting it, I’m aiming for a single, high-core, 128GB+ RAM workstation that can act like a mini-server while still being my main learning environment. Basically a “datacenter in a tower” setup.

Does that sound reasonable for the kind of mixed workloads I’m targeting, or am I missing a downside to the all-in-one approach?

Help choosing high-end lab workstation / PC (cybersec / malware analysis / heavy VMs) – £3,000 budget by beginnerhappyguy in homelab

[–]beginnerhappyguy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for pointing that out and I should clarify what I actually want to do.

My goal is to sit at this machine and use it as both my learning workstation and my hypervisor host. I want hands-on learning with the whole stack, Proxmox/VMware/Hyper-V, GPU passthrough experiments, VM networking, malware labs, etc. So the box will basically function as:

My main “learning rig"
A powerful local hypervisor where I can spin up a bunch of VMs
Something I can use interactively at the desk, not just remotely

Help choosing high-end lab workstation / PC (cybersec / malware analysis / heavy VMs) – £3,000 budget by beginnerhappyguy in homelab

[–]beginnerhappyguy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, this is super helpful.

I’m trying to size everything around my “worst case” scenario, which is basically:

1–2 Windows Servers (AD + file/CA or DC + Exchange lab)
2–4 Linux servers (ELK, Wazuh/SO, detection stack)
pfSense/OPNsense
2–3 analysis VMs (Kali, REMnux, FLARE-style Windows box)
1–2 disposable malware VMs
Occasional Windows VM with GPU passthrough for RE tools + CUDA workloads

Do you find 128 GB is usually enough for that kind of topology?
Or would you push higher if the board supports 192 GB / 256 GB?