Warning.. ramblings follow, read at own risk.
The first upgrade
Switched from Pi4 + Docker to HP EliteDesk 800 G6 Mini PC (i5 10500, 32GB DDR4, 1 x SSD 512GB for proxmox, 2 x NVMe 1TB SSDs for VMs and Data).Very capable little machine, but I ran into some issues:
- Adding a second NVMe SSD made the BIOS complain about a missing chassis fan. Had to buy one (which is some laptop model, about 4mm high, fits under the SATA 2.5" tray) gets plugged into the MB into an 5pin header. My fan had only 4 wires, so had to reposition the pins (solution: 1-GND, 2-5v, 3-12V, 4-Sense (Tach),5-Control (PWM)
- no optimal solution to add faster networking to it: there is a FlexIO 2.5Gbit ethernet card, hard to find. Using a Thunderbolt to xxGbit adapter won't work without a Thunderbolt FlexIO card - also hard to find, and expensive. There is a FlexIO 10Gbit ethernet card - not officially supported on this platform. There are 2 versions, only one fits. Also expensive and hard to find. Using a m.2 e-key 2.5gbit network card instead of the wifi board - probably won't fit with the 2 x NVMe's, 1 x Sata Drive and Chassis fan
Install as follows:
- Proxmox 9.1.x installed on the Sata SSD
- Added one VM running HAOS
- Added another VM running debian 13 for dockers
- Portainer for docker administration / portainer/portainer-ee:latest
- Homepage for overview / install from here
- Iobroker / buanet/iobroker - had a bit of issue of mounting the folder for SMB backups on my ancient NAS. Ended up mounting the folder via NFS in proxmox, and passing the folder as a volume to the iobroker docker. Prevents using privileged containers like this
- Pihole / pihole/pihole:latest - selfexplanatory
- Immich / Install instructions
The next upgrade
2 weeks later ran out of space, after installing immich, and migrating fotos from google photos using immich-go.Next thought was to add an NAS for storage, as the current one was getting old. That presented an issue finding one (newer ones are more powerfull, but require expensive (at dec. 2025 prices) DDR5 ram), had an dell 3630 with 8th gen i7, 64GB ram laying around, with space for 3 HDDs that would make a great NAS.
after more thought, the new "server" can actually take over all the functions of the MiniPC, and include the additional storage, and get a 10Gbit Mellanox card.
Migrating Proxmox to the new machine
Was actually the easiest: move the SSD over, move the 2 x NVMe over, add the new 3 HDDs (12TB Ironwolf Red), and boot.The Mellanox 10Gbit card was the biggest issue: when inserted in the motherboard, the Dell wouldn't boot, and bring a 2-7 blinking error on the power led: Memory issues.
Memory was fine, the issue comes from the Mellanox card interfering with the SMBUS communication to the memory controller. The fix (as presented by Mark Furneaux on youtube) is quite simple: mask PCIe pins 5 & 6 with nonconductive tape.
Proxmox booted fine, had to change /etc/network/interfaces as the new motherboard presented the nic with a new name.
PS: don't change the vmbr0 interface name, as that one will be used by VMs, change the bridge-ports to the new interface name (for me it was eno1)
minor nags/fixes
- Had applied PVE-mods to display individual CPU core temperatures (with lm-sensors), which also displayed System Information like Manufacturer, Model and serial number in the Node Summary. This information was easiest to update by re-running the PVE-mods install script.
- After updating proxmox, had to reinstall the PVE-mods anyway.
Extensions / new stuff
Adding samba:
- Giving zamba-lxc-toolkit a spin. Configuration at: reddit.
- Alternative for samba - manual with cockpit for web config - youtube video / Alpard