Proxmox is overkill for a single mini PC, and that's exactly why I put it on mine

The mini PC was always lumped in with netbooks and NUCs. They were great for getting basic work done, but as soon as you'd command one to do anything slightly more demanding, they would choke under their own weight. That's no longer the case, as modern mini PCs, even more affordable ones, come rocking more powerful Intel and AMD processors, allowing you to easily work and game on a device more compact than a box of tissues. This is how I can run Proxmox on a few mini PCs to create the ultimate low-power home lab cluster.

A single mini PC is still bare-bones

It's no AMD Ryzen Threadripper...

There's no escaping the law of physics. A compact mini PC just isn't going to be as powerful as a full-blown mid-tower server PC, nor will it destroy rack systems in benchmark tests. But what a mini PC will do is silently keep out of your way. It'll hum along, sipping power from the outlet like the most British of Brits holding a cup of tea on a hot sunny day. Even a small system with an N100 CPU can easily run Proxmox and a few containers. It's all about how you position the home lab and take advantage of all available system resources.

Proxmox being completely overkill for a mini PC isn't a knock on the form factor. It's actually why I love using Proxmox. It's intentionally overengineered, so much so that just about anyone can go from not knowing what network-attached storage (NAS) is to having a full self-hosted stack and compelling smart home in no time. For many, using a mini PC would warrant Debian, Ubuntu Server, or some other lightweight Linux distro to better make use of the less capable hardware, but there's also another route that includes Proxmox.

Instead of settling with a small single system running a few containers, such as Pi-hole, Jellyfin, Home Assistant, and maybe Immich if you're feeling even just slightly adventurous, I decided to throw Proxmox onto an old mini PC I had lying around collecting dust. This was whilst I had a beefy AMD Threadripper system running with 64 cores and just about everything the household required. Frigate, Mealie, Immich, Nextcloud, and much more were all happily running on the same Proxmox node. But as soon as Proxmox went on this Minisforum U850, I knew I was onto something.

Sure, the U850 isn't packing a low-power N100, nor was it the most affordable system available at the time, but it's getting on a little bit now, and the Core i5-10210U is a moderately capable chip. Joining 16GB of DDR4 RAM, Intel UHD 630 graphics, a 250GB NVMe SSD, and a single 2.5GbE port, it was primed for running a few containers.

What makes Proxmox ultimately overkill

It's all under the hood

Instead of installing Debian and calling it a day, Proxmox gives you so much more. It's a hypervisor at the core, offering the means for me to launch a virtual machine (VM) running Home Assistant OS and lightweight LXCs for Pi-hole, Homepage, and other self-hosted apps. But what Proxmox really allowed me to do was get creative and try something new. Experimenting with a Proxmox node or cluster is incredibly straightforward. It's as simple as creating a virtual instance, messing around, and either destroying it when done or launching it on the LAN.

Another great use for Proxmox and self-hosting is the snapshots. These backups are amazingly powerful, making migration and recovery seamless. With a few clicks, I can have even more complex self-hosted apps back up and running in no time. Bare metal starts to feel sticky once you've tested Proxmox. Gone are the days when I'd need to add packages to the underlying host system and ensure everything had the right prerequisites already installed. I recall fixing one thing and breaking another with a separate app. That's no longer the case.

Proxmox lets me keep even the less capable systems running smoothly with clear dashboard metrics and other telemetry to know just how much is being directed to running instances. If I'm no longer requiring a specific VM, I can safely delete it. If a container ceases to work and I'm done trying, I can roll it back to an earlier snapshot, and all the different apps I'm running are all happy with specific packages that don't interfere with anything else live on the same box. Honestly, it makes running a home lab easier than it ought to be, all things considered.

The web UI is something else

I honestly can't count the times I've relied on snapshots to get me out of a sticky situation, and this is something I may have struggled with using a "normal" bare-metal Linux distro. But the Proxmox web UI is really something else. Sure, SSH exists and is more than convenient for those with the know-how to get in, complete a task, and drop the connection in record time, but not everyone can achieve this, which is where the Proxmox web interface comes into play. It makes the entire system visible—actually, it makes the entire home lab visible.

Have a few mini PCs? Run them as Proxmox nodes within the same cluster, and a single web UI can be used to manage the entire stack. It's stupidly powerful and makes managing everything a breeze. But all that power and capability does come at a cost. Proxmox isn't free to run. You don't have to pay for the license, but it'll suck up valuable system resources, especially when running on a more baseline mini PC. It's overkill for running a single VM and LXC, for instance.

But this is a tradeoff worth making, at least for my home lab needs. I get to rely on less power-hungry hardware such as mini PCs and compact business desktop systems. VMs can be dedicated to more powerful applications with LXCs at the ready for more basic apps. Storage paths can be separated and snapshots taken for the ultimate local recovery strategy. Remote storage, namely my TrueNAS network storage, can be added with a few clicks and you're good to go.

Proxmox is overkill, but that's what makes it so good

Proxmox really is something else. It takes what is essentially a single mini PC and transforms it from running Windows to managing an entire home. It's capable, powerful, and completely free, making Proxmox not only my go-to for running various systems and the like, but also one I would always recommend to those looking to create a home lab. Bare-metal installs are great for a single app or two, but once you're ready to leap, Proxmox will run well so long as you have a decent enough CPU and RAM.