My $25 managed switch was only supposed to patch a hole, but it became the backbone of my network

Proxmox 9.2's load balancer solved a problem I didn't know my home lab had

Proxmox 9.2 bổ sung bộ cân bằng tải động trong Cluster Resource Scheduler (CRS), giúp tự động phân phối lại VMs và LXCs khi một node bị lỗi khởi động lại, khắc phục tình trạng node chính nhàn rỗi trong khi các node phụ quá tải. Tính năng này cho phép cấu hình ngưỡng mất cân bằng và phương thức cân bằng để tránh di chuyển quá mức.

Lập trình viên thiết kế hệ thống quản lý cloud hoặc infrastructure cần hiểu về Proxmox 9.2 để tối ưu hóa việc tự động hóa phân phối tải giữa các node, giảm thiểu rủi ro rối loạn khi node thất bại và tái khởi động.

I tried controlling my home lab through MCP servers and I'm not going back

A home lab enthusiast shares their experience using MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers to control Proxmox, Synology NAS, and Technitium DNS through Claude AI. Instead of juggling multiple web UIs, they use natural language queries to handle tasks like checking VM snapshots, monitoring container memory usage, and querying DNS logs. The setup acts as a complementary control layer for high-context, low-frequency tasks, with safety guardrails like blocking DNSSEC writes. The author now looks for MCP server support when adding new devices to their lab.

I opted for native ZFS in Proxmox over a TrueNAS VM, and it's the best decision I made

Running native ZFS directly on Proxmox instead of inside a TrueNAS VM avoids IOMMU/VFIO headaches with HBA passthrough on consumer hardware. With native ZFS, containers like Immich can access storage via direct bind mounts without NFS/SMB round trips or boot-order dependencies. TrueNAS still wins on GUI convenience and one-click app catalogs, but for this specific hardware setup (LSI 9207-8i on a Z170-E board with SAS drives), native ZFS was the simpler and more reliable choice.

I enable these 4 Proxmox settings on every fresh install, and most guides skip them entirely

Four often-overlooked Proxmox settings recommended for every fresh install: switching the CPU scaling governor from performance to powersave mode to reduce idle power consumption, installing the Node sensor readings view package to display hardware temperatures directly in the PVE web UI, setting up Pulse monitoring server for long-term stats and alerting, and connecting the PVE node to a dedicated Proxmox Backup Server for incremental deduplicated backups with live restore. Additional tips include installing GPU drivers early for LXC passthrough, and disabling HA daemon services on single-node setups to reduce SSD wear.

Proxmox VE 9 unlocked features I didn't know I needed for my home lab

Proxmox VE 9.x brings several notable improvements for home lab users. RAIDZ expansion via ZFS 2.3 now allows adding a single disk to an existing RAIDZ vdev without rebuilding the pool, using the new zfs rewrite command for a smoother reflow process. Proxmox 9.1 introduced native OCI/Docker image support for LXCs, letting users pull images from any registry and convert them to LXC containers on the fly, eliminating the need for a dedicated VM or separate container management dashboard. Additionally, Proxmox 9.2 adds virtual CPU profiles for mismatched hardware, stable software-defined networking with IPAM and WireGuard+BGP, and an nftables-based firewall replacing iptables.

I tried passing an NPU through Proxmox, and the software just isn't ready to catch up with the hardware

An attempt to pass an NPU from an ASUS NUC 14 Pro+ (Intel Core Ultra 7 155H) through Proxmox into an LXC container revealed that while the device appears under /dev/accel/, the software stack isn't ready. OpenVINO crashed with a memory error before enumerating available hardware, and the absence of /dev/dri/ made the environment lopsided. The conclusion: device visibility in Proxmox doesn't equal a usable accelerator. The kernel, firmware, drivers, and user-space libraries all need to align, and for NPUs in Proxmox containers, they currently don't. The recommendation is to wait for the ecosystem to mature and use CPU or GPU inference in the meantime.

TrueNAS 26 could replace Proxmox for me, but I'm still not switching

TrueNAS 26 introduces full container support, GPU passthrough for LXCs, and a polished ZFS-first experience that makes it a credible all-in-one home lab platform. Despite these improvements closing the gap with Proxmox, the author argues that migrating an existing Proxmox setup isn't worth it. Proxmox remains preferred for its hypervisor-first design, native ZFS on the host, and flexibility as a general-purpose Debian-based OS. The key insight: TrueNAS 26 would be a serious contender for a fresh build, but Proxmox can also run TrueNAS as a VM with HBA passthrough, giving the best of both worlds without committing the whole machine.