Ben Davis's Home Server Setups: 10Gb Main Rack and 2.5Gb Secondary Rack

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YouTuber Ben Davis shares the detailed hardware breakdown and pricing of his two home server setups: a full 10Gb main rack costing roughly $19,410 and a smaller 2.5Gb secondary rack priced at $2,542.

Key points

  1. The main rack consists of 23 items totaling $19,410.99, specifically built around 10Gb networking requirements.
  2. Key hardware in the main rack includes a Firewalla Gold Pro, Synology DS1825+, two NVIDIA DGX Spark units, and a Framework Desktop with Ryzen AI Max+ 395.
  3. Compute and interconnect make up the majority of the main rack's budget at $12,792.96.
  4. The secondary rack, hosted at his parents' place, uses 2.5Gb networking, contains 9 items, and costs $2,542.06.
  5. The secondary setup includes a Firewalla Orange, Synology DS225+, and two Seagate Exos 26TB drives.
  6. Davis singles out Firewalla as the best component and strongly recommends it for home setups.

Why it matters

The inventory provides practical reference points and transparent pricing for creators and home-lab builders balancing high-throughput network demands (10Gb and 2.5Gb) with substantial local storage and compute.

Analysis

Davis acknowledges that his main build is overkill for average users, justifying the high cost through his professional needs as a full-time video creator. By providing two distinct tiers, he highlights the contrast between an enterprise-leaning home lab featuring specialized compute units (NVIDIA DGX Spark) and a pragmatic 2.5Gb backup setup. Both systems emphasize robust routing through Firewalla hardware and reliable NAS storage via Synology.

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Summary generated by AI (Gemini 3.8 Flash, 27 September 2026). It may contain errors – the original source is authoritative.

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