My home lab helped boost my career enormously. 5 old HP servers running Windows 2000 network introduced me to AD, Exchange, MS-SQL, etc. hooked up via Cisco ha

My home lab helped boost my career enormously. 5 old HP servers running Windows 2000 network introduced me to AD, Exchange, MS-SQL, etc. hooked up via Cisco hardware. (100% pirated I will admit) The cost of purchasing (eBay) and running the servers paid for itself in 6 months on my first "IT" salary. I sold on the whole lot to another guy trying to boost his skills too. It was fun and served its purpose.