Been there, done that.
Discussion
Brutal, but this is how we (I) learn.
Yes, and it all starts with a single node. 😂 Soon thereafter you go down that rabbithole and buy a rack...
Yep. I started with a humble Raspberry Pi 4. Next was a Lenovo Thinkcentre. I can see more coming.
Dedicated NAS and Opensense Router/Firewall is next. Annnnd a battery backup. 😂
M920q/M720q tiny with a PCIe riser (10-15$) and you have a very capable opnsense/openwrt box which can fit 4x1Gbit/s or 2x5/10 Gbit/s port network cards.
I run it virtualized (easier for backups/rollbacks) on mine with PCIe passthrough of the network card, sips power and is rock solid.