This isn't always true. I got a 24-port Aruba 802.3at PoE switch with FOUR 10-gigabit ports, for a grand total of $120.
> loud, and power hungry
Again, not always true. Enterprises do care about power a lot of the time.
I highly recommend the Ubiquiti stuff for home lab use -- most of it is pretty quiet.
If you buy other rack-mount hardware, try to buy at least 2U hardware, the bigger fans are much quieter than the 40mm fans in 1U equipement.
If you must buy non-Ubiquiti 1U equipment, you can usually change the fans out for Noctua fans.
> A single ATX desktop
You can build an ATX desktop into a 4U case. I highly recommend the SilverStone RM42-502 for about $250 on Amazon. It takes standard components including standard ATX power supply, standard ATX, micro-ATX, or mini-ITX motherboard, standard fans (or even a CorsAir liquid cooler), it's basically a standard case. If you use quiet components it will be quiet. My ATX rack mount PC is not even noticeable unless I'm running up my GPU doing machine learning stuff.
There are much cheaper cases available as well, but the SilverStone case is quality, and will last you forever, you can just keep building new PCs into it for as long as ATX/ITX exist.
One of the advantages to building your PC in a rack mount configuration is that it's very easy to stack multiple PCs along with your network routers, switches, NAS, UPS, in one nice rack that's easy to move from apartment to apartment in one piece, and all your cables and connections stay nice and tidy.
It's also ideal if you play with a lot of smaller devices. For example if you want to have a cluster of 10 RPis, a rack mount solution is great for keeping the ethernet and power cables tidy, and it isn't going to be loud or any more power hungry than if you had them spread out across the table.
You can also 3D print rack mounts for non-rack equipment, just to keep them tidy.
This isn't always true. I got a 24-port Aruba 802.3at PoE switch with FOUR 10-gigabit ports, for a grand total of $120.
> loud, and power hungry
Again, not always true. Enterprises do care about power a lot of the time.
I highly recommend the Ubiquiti stuff for home lab use -- most of it is pretty quiet.
If you buy other rack-mount hardware, try to buy at least 2U hardware, the bigger fans are much quieter than the 40mm fans in 1U equipement.
If you must buy non-Ubiquiti 1U equipment, you can usually change the fans out for Noctua fans.
> A single ATX desktop
You can build an ATX desktop into a 4U case. I highly recommend the SilverStone RM42-502 for about $250 on Amazon. It takes standard components including standard ATX power supply, standard ATX, micro-ATX, or mini-ITX motherboard, standard fans (or even a CorsAir liquid cooler), it's basically a standard case. If you use quiet components it will be quiet. My ATX rack mount PC is not even noticeable unless I'm running up my GPU doing machine learning stuff.
There are much cheaper cases available as well, but the SilverStone case is quality, and will last you forever, you can just keep building new PCs into it for as long as ATX/ITX exist.
One of the advantages to building your PC in a rack mount configuration is that it's very easy to stack multiple PCs along with your network routers, switches, NAS, UPS, in one nice rack that's easy to move from apartment to apartment in one piece, and all your cables and connections stay nice and tidy.
It's also ideal if you play with a lot of smaller devices. For example if you want to have a cluster of 10 RPis, a rack mount solution is great for keeping the ethernet and power cables tidy, and it isn't going to be loud or any more power hungry than if you had them spread out across the table.
You can also 3D print rack mounts for non-rack equipment, just to keep them tidy.
My rack: https://i.redd.it/xcss9uassrg71.jpg