Storage

Restic Automated Backups — Encrypted Offsite Docker Backup for Homelab

Complete guide to automating encrypted Docker volume backups with restic — local snapshots with deduplication, S3-compatible offsite storage, cron scheduling, retention policies, and disaster recovery for homelab containers.

Docker Volume Management — Persistent Data Strategies for the Homelab

Learn when to use Docker named volumes vs bind mounts for homelab containers. Covers volume drivers, NFS-backed storage, backup automation, and practical data persistence patterns for production-like Docker deployments.

Proxmox ZFS ARC Tuning — Optimize Cache for VM Performance

Set deterministic ZFS ARC limits, add L2ARC without wasting RAM on metadata, and tune recordsize and compression for your Proxmox homelab VMs.

Proxmox PCIe Passthrough — GPU, NVMe, and HBA Setup for Homelabs

Complete Proxmox VE PCIe passthrough guide — GPU for Jellyfin transcoding, NVMe direct access, SAS HBA for NAS VMs. Kernel configs, vfio-pci, IOMMU groups, and working Proxmox VM settings.

ZFS on Proxmox — Pool Layout, Snapshots, and Backup Strategies

ZFS is the default filesystem on Proxmox VE for good reason — checksumming, snapshots, compression, and built-in replication. But “default” doesn’t mean one-size-fits-all. Pool layout, recordsize, snapshot cadence, and backup strategy all depend on your workload. This post covers the ZFS setup on my Proxmox host (SRV1), the snapshot pipeline, and how ZFS send/receive + sanoid handle retention and offsite recovery. Pool Layout System: HP ProDesk 600 G4 DM (i5-8500T, 32 GB RAM) Disks: 1× NVMe (OS + VMs), 1× SATA SSD (bulk storage) Boot/OS Pool — rpool Standard Proxmox installation creates rpool on the boot disk. No RAID, no redundancy — just a single NVMe: ...

Proxmox Backup Server — Installation, Datastore Tuning, and Garbage Collection

Proxmox Backup Server (PBS) is purpose-built backup storage for Proxmox VE. It does one thing and does it well: store, deduplicate, verify, and garbage-collect VM and container backups. No more cramming vzdump archives onto a NFS share and hoping they survive. This guide covers installing PBS on Debian 12, creating a datastore with sane retention, connecting a PVE host, and avoiding the gotchas that’ll eat your disk space. Why PBS Instead of a Simple NFS Export Capability NFS vzdump PBS Deduplication None Chunk-level, across all backups Incremental backups Full dump each time Changed blocks only Integrity verification None Auto-verify after backup Garbage collection None Prunes orphaned chunks Restore granularity Full restore only File-level, single disk, or full VM For a homelab with multiple VMs and LXCs, the deduplication alone saves hours of transfer and disk space. Incremental backups mean daily backups take seconds, not minutes. ...