Just looking for fun stuff to do and learn while making my life easier at the same time haha.
Boom. Not ridiculous, just excited and giddy. Building a homelab is a hobby.
The router/modem thing will be up to you. if you don't have one for your specific use-case, then I wouldn't suggest you worry about it.
Some reasons people buy their own router:
not being subject to their automated maintenance schedule (eg ISP rebooting your modem arbitrarily - like comcast does weekly to reduce call volume- often at times that can be inconvient for some customers.)
not having to pay equipment rental fees
(which can - over time - add up to more than the cost of purchasing a modem outright)
some modems won't be able to make use of the max speeds your service provider offers.
not being subject to arbitrarily enforced policies on the hardware (Eg some ISPs disable event logging, which can be a useful troubleshooting aid when not disabled.)
not having to endure shit firmware (eg zyxel's aDSL modems)
also sometimes done to avoid/get around issues like routing table entry limits. (people with too many port forwarding/triggering rules)
As far as should you, ask yourself, do you need to for a specific reason? will it save you money in the long run? If the answer to both of those is no... then there's no real reason to do so.
If you want to run random stuff on a box like minecraft for the boys or some linux distro you've never heard of before, proxmox the laptop and go crazy. keep your current OS on an external drive for when you want it to be a PC again. If you wanna build a NAS and horde weeb shows, go for it. There is no right or wrong hardware. Same goes for sequence of events.
Think of it like a garden. You've got some dirt, put whatever you want in there and see what you can make out of it. You'll learn, have new ideas, and deep dive into the next thing that interests you. Don't let reddit convince you to fill 4 racks and install an new AC unit just yet.
Boom. Not ridiculous, just excited and giddy. Building a homelab is a hobby.
The router/modem thing will be up to you. if you don't have one for your specific use-case, then I wouldn't suggest you worry about it.
Some reasons people buy their own router:
not being subject to their automated maintenance schedule (eg ISP rebooting your modem arbitrarily - like comcast does weekly to reduce call volume- often at times that can be inconvient for some customers.)
not having to pay equipment rental fees
(which can - over time - add up to more than the cost of purchasing a modem outright)
some modems won't be able to make use of the max speeds your service provider offers.
not being subject to arbitrarily enforced policies on the hardware (Eg some ISPs disable event logging, which can be a useful troubleshooting aid when not disabled.)
not having to endure shit firmware (eg zyxel's aDSL modems)
also sometimes done to avoid/get around issues like routing table entry limits. (people with too many port forwarding/triggering rules)
As far as should you, ask yourself, do you need to for a specific reason? will it save you money in the long run? If the answer to both of those is no... then there's no real reason to do so.
If you want to run random stuff on a box like minecraft for the boys or some linux distro you've never heard of before, proxmox the laptop and go crazy. keep your current OS on an external drive for when you want it to be a PC again. If you wanna build a NAS and horde weeb shows, go for it. There is no right or wrong hardware. Same goes for sequence of events.
Think of it like a garden. You've got some dirt, put whatever you want in there and see what you can make out of it. You'll learn, have new ideas, and deep dive into the next thing that interests you. Don't let reddit convince you to fill 4 racks and install an new AC unit just yet.