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I use mine simply as a hobby. For a while, I tried to justify it to myself that it was "for work". But it wasn't.

I play model datacenter the way my grandfather played model railroad. Good news is that I spend way less than he did. The future is awesome.

Not my lab but it varies from homelab to homelab. A lot of it is using it as a safe place to understand/experiment with new tech without breaking anything in a production/work environment.

Some people also use them to run Plex/Pihole/Pfsense and the like as well.

I think this is a pretty good summation. I'm fairly active at the r/homelab subreddit and this is pretty on point. Usually there is some combination of upgraded home media/routing and then on top of that a learning and experimenting section based on your specific goals.

For others though it really is a hobby in the sense of building to build.

Certification prep mostly, some concepts are best not tested out at work.

linux isos

With that amount of storage, the most likely reason for all the gear is hosting media.