Raspberry Pi 5 home server parts I run and the case I bought next

Updated September 29, 2026

My home lab is two Raspberry Pi 5 boards. The 16 GB one runs the real work: a Docker stack with n8n for automations, Postgres, a vector database, and a small local AI model. The 4 GB one runs AdGuard Home so every device in the apartment gets ad blocking without installing anything. Both are wired, both sit on a shelf in a home office, and both have to survive weeks without me touching them. These are the parts that made that boring in the good way.

Case: stop treating the Pi like a bare board

The Pironman 5 case is the one I bought for the next rebuild, and honest status: it is still on the shelf, not on a running Pi yet. I picked it because it gives the Pi an M.2 slot for a real NVMe drive, an active cooler, and a little OLED that shows CPU load, temperature, and IP address without pulling up a terminal. The current Pis run in basic cases with fans, and the reason this one is next is that a Pi 5 under sustained load in a plastic case gets hot. It also looks like a small PC instead of a science project, which matters when it lives in the room where you work. I will update this section once it is running.

Storage: NVMe for the OS, spinning disks for the bulk

Booting a Pi from a microSD card is the thing everyone does first and regrets later. The Crucial P310 is the NVMe I reach for in small builds: Gen4, fast, and cheap enough at 500 GB that there is no reason to keep the card. For bulk storage the TerraMaster D4-320 is a four-bay USB enclosure, not a NAS. That is the point: it costs a fraction of a NAS, it plugs into a server I already own, and it holds the media and backups without adding another box that needs its own updates.

Network: wire everything

Wi-Fi on a server is a support ticket waiting to happen. The NETGEAR GS308 is an unmanaged eight-port gigabit switch that did exactly one thing for years: give every Pi, the desktop, and the workstation a wired port off one router uplink. No configuration, no app, no firmware to babysit. I gave it away after moving the whole network to UniFi, but if you are not ready for a managed setup, this is the switch I would point you at for a wired shelf like this.

The one odd item

The Anker Prime power bank is here because a Pi rebuild always takes longer than planned, and a 250 W bank keeps the laptop I am working from charged through the whole job. It travels with me the rest of the time.

Everything else on the tech side of this site lives on the tech and gaming page.

The picks

Pironman 5 NVMe M.2Photo coming

Pironman 5 NVMe M.2 SSD Case for Raspberry Pi 5Owned

Bought for the next Raspberry Pi 5 rebuild. Still on the shelf, so this is why I chose it, not a report from running it.

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NVMe M.2 SSD support plus an OLED status readout and RGB fans that are more useful than they sound for checking load at a glance.

Skip it if you run a Pi 5 headless in a rack already and do not need the OLED display or RGB.

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Crucial P310 500GB PCIePhoto coming

Crucial P310 500GB PCIe Gen4 NVMe M.2 SSDOwned

Bought this one for a small-form-factor build and the read speeds make a real difference booting and loading.

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PCIe Gen4 NVMe M.2, a clear step up over an older SATA drive for anything disk-bound.

Skip it if your motherboard only has PCIe Gen3 M.2 slots, since Gen4 speeds need a Gen4 slot to matter.

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TERRAMASTER D4-320 4-Bay External Hard Drive EnclosureOwned

Holds the drives for the home server and does exactly what it is supposed to do, which is the highest compliment an enclosure can get.

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Diskless 4-bay enclosure over USB 3.2 Gen 2, so transfers stay fast enough that it does not feel like a bottleneck; you supply your own drives.

Skip it if you want built-in NAS software and RAID management, since this is a bare enclosure, not a full NAS.

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NETGEAR 8-Port Gigabit EthernetPhoto coming

NETGEAR 8-Port Gigabit Ethernet Unmanaged Switch (GS308)Used for years

Ran one of these in the rack for years before I moved the whole network to UniFi and gave it away. Zero configuration, zero noise, and it never once needed a reboot.

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8 gigabit ports, fanless, so it just sits there quietly instead of adding noise to the room.

Skip it if you already run a managed setup like UniFi, or have fewer than two extra wired devices to add.

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Anker Prime Power Bank, 27,650mAh 3-Port 250WOwned

Bought this one for travel and it genuinely keeps a laptop and phone both charged through a long day out.

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27,650mAh across 3 ports at up to 250W, and a digital readout shows exactly how much charge is left instead of a vague row of dots.

Skip it if you only need to top off a phone occasionally, since a bank this size is overkill for that.

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