Imagine transforming your virtual machine experience from sluggish to lightning-fast with a single upgrade. That’s exactly what happened when I switched my VMs from traditional spinning drives to NVMe storage—and let me tell you, it’s a game-changer. But here’s where it gets controversial: despite the initial cost, I’m convinced this is the future of home labs, and I’ll never go back to hard drives for VMs again. Let me explain why.
As a self-proclaimed tech enthusiast and data hoarder, my setup includes a sprawling collection of hard drives in NAS units, storing everything from documents to media files and virtual machines. These VMs power my smart home, media servers, and countless experiments. For years, I’d been held back by the high cost of SSD storage, but when NVMe prices dipped earlier this year, I took the plunge. I built a mini PC with all-flash storage, and the results were nothing short of transformative.
And this is the part most people miss: it’s not just about speed. While NVMe drives deliver jaw-dropping performance—think ultra-low latency, up to 10x faster OS disk performance, and 400K remote disk IOPS—they also bring power efficiency to the table. My home lab can now run 24/7 without my electricity bill skyrocketing, which is a win for both my wallet and the planet.
Let’s rewind a bit. My journey with VMs began on a sluggish Intel Core 2 Duo laptop with a 2.5-inch hard drive. Back then, SSDs were a rarity, and I learned patience as tasks crawled along. Over time, I upgraded to SATA SSDs and eventually NAS setups with HDDs in RAID, but performance remained a bottleneck. NAS devices, while great for storage, aren’t built for the demands of VMs. Their CPUs and hardware often struggle under the load, and I constantly battled slowdowns—until I realized the real culprit was the RAID array’s IOPS limitations.
Switching to NVMe and a Level 1 hypervisor like Proxmox was the turning point. Even with Gen 3 x1 speeds, the NVMe drives outperformed everything I’d used before. Backup times dropped from hours to minutes, and the responsiveness of my VMs became unparalleled. Microsoft’s Azure Virtual Desktop deployments echo this: NVMe isn’t just fast—it’s a necessity for modern workloads.
But here’s the bold claim: if datacenters trust NVMe for their VMs, why shouldn’t we? Sure, my home lab is tiny compared to enterprise setups, but the benefits are undeniable. Spinning drives can handle long-term storage, but for VMs and containers, NVMe is the only way forward. The cost has been a barrier, but as prices stabilize, it’s an investment worth making.
Now, I’m curious: do you think NVMe is overkill for home labs, or is it the next logical step? Let’s debate it in the comments—I’m eager to hear your thoughts!