HOME / 01PLEX & MEDIA
Mini PC / Beelink Mini M
Intel-based Plex host with Quick Sync hardware transcoding.
- Processor
- Intel N150 · 4 cores
- Memory
- ~16 GB
- Platform
- Proxmox VE
01 / THE ENVIRONMENTSTWO LOCATIONS · FIVE PROXMOX HOSTS
MORE THAN ONE SYSTEM
One lab. Different places.
The Lab isn't a single rack. It's a collection of systems, each with different jobs. A look at the hardware, storage and the projects that keep everything changing.
02 / THE MAIN CLUSTERCOMPUTE · STORAGE · NETWORKING
NUKEM CLUSTER / MAIN SYSTEM
Three nodes.
One ongoing project.
Built around three Dell PowerEdge R730xd servers, a Cisco Nexus 40 GbE network and distributed Ceph storage. The setup evolves as hardware and ideas change.
SYSTEM / NUKEM CLUSTER CLUSTER OVERVIEW
Dell PowerEdge
R730xd × 3
Matching compute nodes running Proxmox VE with Ceph distributed storage.
Processors2 × Xeon E5-2670 v3 / node
Memory128 GB RAM / node
Networking40 GbE · Cisco Nexus
Fast storage4 × 1.6 TB NVMe / node
03Dell R730xd nodes
72physical CPU cores
384GBcluster memory
40GbEhigh-speed network
03 / NUKEM HOMEHARDWARE INVENTORY · AUG 2026
THE OTHER HALF OF THE LAB
Smaller machines.
Different jobs.
Nukem Home is its own two-node Proxmox setup, separate from the three Dell rack servers. Both machines serve different roles, and the NAS hardware is a useful place to experiment.
HOME / 02NAS & EXPERIMENTS
NAS host / Minisforum N5 Pro
Compact Ryzen-based machine providing fast local storage and an AI experimentation platform.
- Processor
- Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 370
- Memory
- 64 GB installed
- Drive hardware
- 3 × 1 TB NVMe + 5 × 1 TB SATA SSD
04 / STORAGESTORAGE ARCHITECTURE
WHERE THE DATA LIVES
Different layers.
Different purposes.
Fast storage, shared storage and backups are distributed across the lab. From fast local drives to distributed storage and backups, each part has its own purpose.
Ceph storage
The main three-node cluster uses Ceph with NVMe, SSD and SAS storage hardware. Storage layouts have changed as the lab has grown.
NUKEM CLUSTER / DISTRIBUTEDHome Proxmox
Local ZFS and shared backup/NAS storage support the two Nukem Home hosts. The NAS host has three NVMe and five SATA SSDs.
NUKEM HOME / ZFS + BACKUPSSynology RS2416+
A separate rackmount NAS with eight 6 TB hard drives in a RAID 5 configuration.
8 × 6 TB / RAID 505 / HARDWARE INVENTORYCLICK ANY ITEM FOR SPECS
THE COMPONENTS
What's in the rack.
The hardware behind both Proxmox environments, the storage systems and the projects that run on them.
06 / HOW IT GOT HEREACQUISITIONS & UPGRADES
BUILD LOG
Always evolving.
From earlier HP servers to the current Dell cluster, the hardware has kept evolving.
AN ONGOING EXPERIMENTThere's always
Read Lab updates ↗There's always
something to change.
New hardware, small improvements and occasional mistakes all end up in the updates archive.