The scariest part of running RAIDZ2 is not the drive failure itself. It is the resilver that follows, when every surviving drive gets read edge to edge under sustained load while ZFS rebuilds parity onto the replacement. Pick the wrong drive tier and that rebuild stretches from hours into days while your pool runs degraded. … Read more
Finding the best microSD card for Orange Pi 5 Plus builds is more important than most people realize, because this board reads its entire operating system from that little card on every single boot. The Orange Pi 5 Plus is an ARM-based single-board computer that boots Linux or Android from a microSD (TF) card, and … Read more
I ran the Beelink SER8 vs Minisforum MS-01 for virtualization side by side for three months, one as a quiet single Proxmox node under my desk and the other as the network core of a three-node cluster. Both are excellent home lab mini PCs, but they solve completely different problems. Picking the wrong one either … Read more
I switched from a Raspberry Pi 4 to a mini PC for Home Assistant three years ago, and I’ve never looked back. The difference in stability, SSD-backed database performance, and headroom for add-ons like Frigate was night and day. If you’re hunting for the best mini PC for running Home Assistant, you don’t need a … Read more
I have spent the last several years running my own home lab on a mix of full-size towers and small form factor machines, and one thing stands out from that experience: a well-chosen mini PC can replace a traditional home server for almost every common workload while drawing a fraction of the power. The shift … Read more
Starting your first homelab does not need a rack, a server, or a big budget. A off-lease business mini PC plugged into a wall outlet can run Proxmox, Docker containers, Pi-hole, and Home Assistant around the clock while drawing less power than a light bulb. After comparing eight machines and digging through hundreds of buyer … Read more
Choosing between the Minisforum MS-A2 vs Beelink SER8 for a home lab comes down to what you value more: raw virtualization power or budget-friendly completeness. I have spent months testing mini PCs for Proxmox, Docker, and everything in between, and these two represent opposite ends of the spectrum. One is a 16-core beast built for … Read more
I built my first home lab with a Raspberry Pi 4 and a second-hand tower PC that sounded like a jet engine. Both did the job, but my electric bill kept creeping up and the Pi hit a wall every time I tried to run more than three Docker containers. After three months of testing, … Read more
Yes, a mini PC can run Proxmox, and three of them make a fantastic cluster. After spending six weeks running two separate multi-node setups in my home lab, I can tell you that compact, low-power boxes handle real Proxmox workloads surprisingly well. Idle power drops to 10-15W per node (versus 100W+ for traditional servers), you … Read more
Every developer knows the struggle. You have your laptop, two monitors, a mechanical keyboard, mouse, ethernet cable, and a tangle of USB devices. Plugging and unplugging everything every time you move between home and office wastes precious time. I’ve spent the last three months testing docking stations specifically for developer workflows, and the right dock … Read more