Learn how a used HP Z440 workstation was transformed into a powerful, budget-friendly hyperconverged homelab running Proxmox, VyOS, and ZFS.
From Humble Desktop to All-in-One Server
It all started with a simple idea: what if I could build a powerful, flexible lab for my networking projects without filling a room with equipment? I’m fascinated by what’s happening in data centers with hyperconvergence—this idea of collapsing the network, compute, and storage into a single, efficient solution.
So, I decided to try it myself. My goal was to combine everything into one chassis. The foundation for this project? A used HP Z440 workstation. It turns out, these machines are an amazing platform for building out massive compute power on a budget.
The Hardware Foundation
The Z440 was pretty barebones when I got it. It was a solid starting point, but I knew it needed some serious upgrades to handle what I had in mind.
First up was memory. I wanted to run multiple virtual machines without breaking a sweat, so I went big. By combining the existing RAM with four new 16GB sticks, I brought the total up to a whopping 96GB of DDR4 ECC memory. For a homelab of this scale, that’s a fantastic amount of headroom.
Next was networking, which is my main area of interest. The onboard 1-gigabit ethernet port is fine for management or as a backup, but I needed more speed. I installed an HPE FLR-560 SFP+ card, which gives me a 10-gigabit connection. This card is based on the solid Intel 82599 controller, which is great for virtualization. It connects to a Mikrotik CRS210 switch, which acts as the core of my entire network.
For storage, I needed a way to connect multiple drives and manage them efficiently. I chose a Dell PERC H310 SAS controller. These are popular because you can “cross-flash” them with firmware from LSI, turning them into a very reliable Host Bus Adapter (HBA). This allows my virtualized storage operating system to talk directly to the drives.
Here’s the final hardware breakdown:
* Chassis: HP Z440 Workstation
* RAM: 96GB DDR4 ECC
* Networking: 10G SFP+ via HPE FLR-560, plus onboard 1G
* Storage HBA: Dell PERC H310 (flashed to LSI firmware)
* Drives: A mix of drives for different purposes—an M.2 NVMe for fast VM booting, a 2TB HDD and 4TB HDD for bulk storage, and a couple of SSDs for other tasks.
* Cooling: An extra fan pointed directly at the expansion cards. Enterprise gear can run hot, and this simple addition keeps temperatures under 40°C even under heavy load.
The Z440 has a surprising number of expansion slots, which gave me the flexibility to put all of this together in one box.
The Software: Making It All Work Together
Hardware is only half the story. The real magic is in the software architecture that brings it all to life. I chose Proxmox VE as my hypervisor—it’s a powerful and free platform for managing virtual machines.
A Virtualized Network and Router
Since I’m a networking person, this is where things get fun. All the network traffic flows through a single VLAN-aware bridge in Proxmox. I have about 20 different VLANs to segment traffic based on trust, purpose, and tenants.
For routing, I’m running VyOS in a virtual machine. I used to run OPNsense on a separate mini-PC, but I found that managing many networks and VPN tunnels through a web UI became counterproductive. With VyOS, I can manage everything through a command-line interface, which is much faster and more powerful for my needs. I even use BGP to connect my homelab routes with some of my cloud deployments.
A Virtualized Approach to Storage
This is one of the parts I’m most proud of. Instead of just installing a NAS operating system like TrueNAS directly on the hardware, I virtualized my storage. I passed the HBA controller directly through to a FreeBSD virtual machine.
Why? Two main reasons.
- Future-Proofing: This design separates my applications from my storage. In the future, if I want to scale up, I can build a dedicated storage server and disk shelf, and my VMs won’t even know the difference. They access the storage over the network (NFS or iSCSI) and are completely blind to the underlying hardware.
- Flexibility: I was already using ZFS pools from an old FreeBSD setup. This approach allowed me to import them without any of the conflicts I ran into when trying TrueNAS SCALE. It just works.
What Am I Actually Running?
With all this setup, you might be wondering what I’m doing with it. To be honest, it’s more of a lab for networking experiments than a server running a hundred different apps.
My main workloads are:
* CDN projects I contribute to.
* Personal chat relays and Syncthing for file synchronization.
* A Jellyfin media server (still a work in progress!).
To keep track of it all, I use Netbox to document all my network prefixes, VLANs, and VMs. At this scale, good documentation isn’t optional; it’s a necessity.
This project has been a blast. It’s proof that you don’t need a full server rack to explore advanced data center concepts. A well-chosen desktop workstation can be the perfect, budget-friendly heart of a seriously powerful all-in-one homelab.