Recent Articles About Proxmox

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jul 20, 2025

• XDA ☛ Here's how I run Docker in an LXC on Proxmox, and why it's a solid alternative to a VM

  A few weeks ago, I switched from Docker to Podman, as the latter provides some extra features for my containerization needs. That said, Docker is still a neat container runtime despite all its faults, and I’d recommend it to anyone looking to familiarize themselves with the nitty-gritty of containerization.

  In fact, I even have a Proxmox-based virtual machine dedicated entirely to Docker just so I can tinker with it in my spare time. But now that I’ve started converting old laptops into PVE nodes, I’ve armed each of them with a Docker LXC. Before you come at me with pitchforks for the preposterous idea of running Docker inside a container instead of a VM, I must confess that this weird setup has its advantages.

• XDA ☛ Proxmox is reporting high memory usage for your VMs, but here's what's actually happening

  Let’s say you’ve built a home server with your dream components and armed it with everybody's favorite virtualization platform, Proxmox. The next course of action is to deploy a multitude of LXCs and virtual machines on your PVE node. If you’ve allocated your resources wisely, you’re unlikely to encounter performance issues from overcommitting the CPU cores and memory.

  However, keen-eyed Proxmox users might notice excessively high memory utilization on their virtual machines inside the web UI – RAM usage percentages that would seem downright preposterous on certain lightweight VMs. Well, chances are, your Proxmox node or VMs aren’t lacking in memory; it’s just Linux’s weird way of managing memory combined with Proxmox’s simplistic RAM consumption visualization utility.

• XDA ☛ If you boot Proxmox from an SSD, disable these two services to prevent wearing out your drive

  Although data hoarders tend to shy away from SSDs due to their limited write cycles and terrible long-term storage feasibility, these ultra-fast drives serve as amazing boot drives for consumer PCs and home servers alike. As such, I favor SSDs over HDDs when installing bare-metal containerization environments, virtualization platforms, and server/NAS operating systems.

  But unfortunately for me and my SSDs, certain services can end up degrading the drive health, especially in the case of hardcore server workloads. Since I rely on Proxmox for all my self-hosting tasks and computing experiments, I’ve taken a couple of precautions to ensure my boot drive remains in tip-top shape.

• XDA ☛ I'm addicted to installing Proxmox on old devices

  Over the course of my computing journey, I’ve built, upgraded, and replaced several PCs. But rather than labeling my older systems as e-waste and sending them to the scrapyard for pocket change, I try to come up with cool ways to leverage them in my home lab. For example, any mid-tier PC or laptop released in the last five years can be reborn as a solid general-purpose machine with a Linux distribution.

  Older rigs with spare drive bays double as incredible Network-Attached Storage systems, and if they're armed with a decent processor and memory, they can even run some VMs and containers. While we’re on the subject, outdated machines can become formidable self-hosting and experimentation rigs with the right virtualization platform.

  In fact, I’ve spent the last couple of weeks testing Proxmox on ancient hardware. Contrary to what you may believe, it works surprisingly well on cheap systems from a bygone era.

• XDA ☛ 6 of my favorite TurnKey templates for Proxmox

  At first glance, Proxmox may seem like a dainty FOSS virtualization platform designed for casual home labbers. But hidden underneath its maze of menus, options, and toggles lies a formidable collection of features. For starters, Proxmox supports Ceph distributed storage and Cluster Manager, which let you deploy high-availability PVE setups. There's also ZFS support for folks looking to leverage this high-end file system in their home labs.