I mean, I just bought two used systems for under $500 CAD combined, both capable of being used as servers, if I wanted to. I’m more worried about HDD prices, nevermind flash storage. I have no idea when I will be able to afford a 10+ TB HDD in the next couple years, at least.

Cisco’s CCNA exam, I think, covers a lot of ground. Although, homelab specific knowlegde, is best gained by building stuff and getting your hands dirty, so to speak, in my opinion.

I mean, there’s literal full step by step guides on youtube on how to start hosting and exposing services locally on a home server to the world, just look for “how to self host” or “home server guide” and you can learn alot of the basics that way. You don’t really need to learn all of networking, unless you want to.