Building a Low Power, All-in-One, Silent Server

[@AndrewGalan]

Great video, I've been running a Protectli for a few years with no problems. The customisation options for software are excellent.

[@Danielo515]

This is the definitive small server I've been looking for. That is for bringing it up

[@3aiban]

You are the reason why I built my first home lab from router to selfhosted apps, Thank you so much for everything

[@woreibi]

Great video. Three distinctive things about device is power consumption,size and 2.5 Gbps comparing to do it your self type of a machine of a branded used computer.

[@empirelinux9800]

The only thing I wish they would change on the protectli, would be to make the power button recessed. It is so easy to accidently bump it and power cycle the system.

[@davidg5898]

I use mine as a router and have it with the eth ports facing forward, so that isn't a problem for me.

[@WebVid]

I find the barrel connecter isn’t very secure. A little bit of movement and it falls out.

[@AP0LL0420]

I made a rack with a tv dinner tray and haven't needed to touch it since

[@GeekBoyMN]

@@davidg5898 My 2 year old FW2B has a recessed power button but it faces away since it's just a PfSense router for me.

[@mbaltrusitis]

Try gluing some plastic washers around the power button?

[@PCMagikHomeLab]

Sorry for my absence, i was sick for almost 3 years, and now i can finally tell You im wining this battle, i'm 34 kg less but still alive... I love You Guy!! Keep on going!! Share your knowledge, people like You are needed in this world. Thank you for being with me during this time and thanks to you I could learn a lot. It has changed and is changing my world! Greeting from POLAND and I want You to invite You to my country :)

[@erishboiitv9718]

Get Well Soon dude

[@TechnoTim]

Thank you for the kind words and thank you for being here, not only on KZbin but also on Earth. Get well my friend.

[@prashanthb6521]

All the best in your recovery. Wish you good health.

[@bearcountrypublishing5303]

Excellent video. My truenas runs from proxmox. The pool is 6 spinning drives in a usb3 drive cage. I've had great results.

[@flyingmonkeys96]

What cage do you have? Been looking into getting one

[@kenniltv]

Same here looking for a cage. What speeds do you get over USB?

[@bearcountrypublishing5303]

@@kenniltv It's usb 3.0. Theoretical 5 GBs. It saturates 1 GbE network easy, even on writes. 1 gb (bits) = 125 MB (bytes).. if your going to cage ssd drives, maybe go with a usb 3.2 cage.

[@kenniltv]

@@bearcountrypublishing5303 thanks for the tip! Currently using a slow Synology 4 bay NAS with 1Gbit LAN. Any tip on USB cage?

[@bearcountrypublishing5303]

@@kenniltv the one i got was from syba. It was the cheapest i could find with usb3, 3 years ago. My zfs is like raid 10. 3 stripes mirrored. 6 disk total. I pass the drives straight to truenas from proxmox. No problems. If I was going use SSDs I would find something smaller and faster, like usb 3.1 or 3.2? I have recently seen single bay ones that were cheap and chainable. Just look around.

[@kljljlklljlkj8925]

Brilliant video! 👍😊

[@unkelsunk]

Always like your videos, Tim. As a teacher I appreciate them a lot and the steps are very easy to follow!

[@richardhoekstra3735]

I have this setup for more then 2 years now , perfect!

[@kenniltv]

What device do you have?

[@richardhoekstra3735]

@@kenniltv I have the FW6E - 6 Port Intel® i7

[@davidg5898]

I got a 4-port Protectli last year to run router and NetSec duty. I'm never going back to a standard router again. The only negative point I can give it -- and this is only true for the smaller 4-port chassis -- is that the 2.5" SATA power connector isn't right-angled. It's impossible to fit a 2.5" drive in the provided mount with a straight connector. I tried forcing it and broke the power connector on the drive (luckily just the plastic without pin damage, so a dab of superglue fixed it).

[@kylecurry6841]

I've been focused on home servers of this variety for a few years/few different builds up to current. I suppose you could say it's partly budget based, however I do run it in my garage, and while it doesn't get drastically hot, theirs less complexity that otherwise comes with standard CPU cooling which has worked out better than I imagined it would when I started with a small NUC-like AMD powered unit a few builds ago. Right on for doing a feature on this Tim! I've been edging towards running PFS on PVE on my current build. I've done so on a work related server while the hardware on that beast is a whole other animal, but it's nice to be able to restore vzdump's of PFS vs remembering to run config backups guestside in the event you need to revert something. My only hesitation is the added heat the system may see while playing center host to all network traffic, but I guess you never know until you get bored one weekend and try lol. As far as running multiple machines, even past a dozen or so, I'd say you're generally going to be fine so long as theirs sufficient memory, and if the bulk of your guests are comparable in makeup to your average Raspberry Pi, while a Window guest or a Mac VM amidst the bunch can function well off if you do your homework on a good hardware foundation, even if fanless and low power these days.

[@henrysowell]

I setup a proxmox machine on a Protectli Vault FW4B - 4 Port machine. It is pretty cool! Great video!

[@travisaugustine7264]

Interesting ideas. I was thinking because it is a 12v device I might turn my older 2 Port Protectli into a small server for my camper. Something to house a small media library for when it is raining and we want to watch TV, backup storage for the courses I am taking this summer (would hate to loose a dissertation or something), etc. Interesting ideas. Gave me something to think about for sure.

[@CaptZenPetabyte]

This may be the solution for my off-grid camper van travelling office 🎉

[@Bandicoot803]

I have a similar software build, except that I'm running two VM's containing OPNsense tied as Master Backup team, and two containers running PiHole. The containers are listed in the bulletin the DHCP server hands out to any clinet connencting up. Works pretty well so far.

[@SandwichMitGurke]

wow so much valuable info in one video Thank you

[@d1gg3r]

Would love these sorts of devices to be available with rackmount options - multiple in a 1U or 2U space would be awesome. I'm currently 10Gig backbone but my prox hosts would be fine with 2.5GbE. Might need to look into these further. Thanks Tim! EDIT: would love to see how these handle failover in a FT/HA situation on prox with plex and the video passed through...if you're looking at something a bit more to add to what you've already done ;)

[@nicolaslopeza2251]

I think protectli sells a rack mount shelf for this device (but not for all of them)

[@maximilianworner1288]

Do you already have an ETA for the "Ultimate Router" video? I am considering buying an VP2420 for exactly that purpose but would love to see your video on it first 😛

[@Doggisbag95]

Hi Tim, great video that you are delivering to us! Regarding to the QSV issue of using HW transcoding, i've recently stumbled upon with similar scenario using an 12th gen Alder Lake intel N100 on Ubuntu 22.04 trying to perform some transcoding with Jellyfin. While i don't know if it's the absolute true, but after reading some forums i've found that there are some incompatibilities with QSV and VAAPI for intel graphics in kernel versions between 5.15 up to 6.1. Maybe you might consider to try with 6.2 kernel for this, as i suceeded using transcoding for AV1 and HVEC and which btw, gpu engine can be monitored with intel_gpu_top command (similar to Windows gpu resource monitor). Best of luck and keep doing great work!

[@d1gg3r]

So it's (plex on linux) working with prox running 6.2 kernel now? I'm considering getting one of these (a topton i5 1235U unit) but the lack of QSV would be the dealbreaker (it would replace what I need but I want the ability to migrate and retain plex hw capability).

[@TheMrDrMs]

All I want is protectli to either have two intel 10gb sfp+ ports or a pci-e x8 slot (sure optional fan as 10gb nics run hot) and I would be thrilled. That's why I've never bought one. Maybe I should get one for the *arr stack tho.... Cool video, thanks.

[@alienJIZ1990]

In my experience, iGPUs are a lot more challenging than a dedicated GPU or even a Discrete GPU for that matter. But if you wanna keep it compact and low power, not really a better option unless you go for the really niche and non standard eGPUs for when you want to use it as a desktop

[@ls-nj8kw]

Nice demo! There is one thing I was missing: How much power does the system consume without the extra periphery (and maybe without any VMs) when idling? That would be an important metric for a low-power server to me. Leaving out the extra hardware and VMs make the numbers more comparable. Regarding the VGA passthrough: Did you make sure that no driver on the VM host accesses the VGA? In my setup for example, I ensure that by mapping (dummy) drivers to the PCI device via kernel parameters at boot. Passing the only available GPU is little more complicated compared to a secondary GPU afaik (as, for example, the BIOS accesses it when the VM host boots).

[@TexasAggieRC]

I'm showing around 11W idle and 25W with the CPU pegged at 100% using the stress tool in Linux. It comes with a 90W power adapter, which seems like massive overkill, but maybe they did that on purpose to keep it more efficient.

[@ls-nj8kw]

@@TexasAggieRC Thanks for the response! 11W doesn't sound too bad depending on the CPU. :) The 90W sound more like a reserve to cover for some power hungry configurations to me.

[@Roguedotexe]

Heya Tim, any way you can get 2 SSDs on there? Would be great for Mirroring!

[@i_Kruti]

3:11 THAT PART.....😂🤣

[@i_Kruti]

I believe if we cool "core i9" like that , we can definitely cook something.....!!! 😂🤣

[@GustavoMsTrashCan]

That is pretty much the dream setup for all home labs, right there. Nicely done. *looks at my casual rpi 4 "all in one" serving docker with pihole + two dns providers, router, firewall while also playing a live stream 24/7 Oh well... I'll get there someday.

[@DrDingus]

I wonder how people do this. My pi4B 4GB struggles just to run apache guacamole with one session of RDP...

[@GustavoMsTrashCan]

@@DrDingus Eh, theres nothing really fancy behind it other than masking certain services (journald, plymouth, tmpfiles), disabling both wifi and bluetooth and giving equal values to both arm_freq and arm_freq_min (1500, in my case.)

[@rodrimora]

What livestream do you play?

[@DrDingus]

@@GustavoMsTrashCan You are able to disable all of those services without repercussions?

[@MICKYLEAKSMGR-PRESIDENTCJWORLD]

Any Links to Videos What OS Apps Server DNS Host Providers Costs Monthly/Yearly or How to Achieve Low Power Single Device PfSense Firewall DDoS Virus Ransomware Protection, Email and Website TrueNAS File Server Secure Access and Storage On a Pi4 2GB possible? I Don't Need Nor Trust the BT WiFi either, has a Case with Fan and tall fin Heat Sinks, Hate BT WiFi onboard Hence Laptops too Transmitting Caught, Because That's the Easy Hack and Illegal Criminal Access to So Called Intel Cybercriminals India World! To Keep System Running and One Point Access to Various Evidence Files, I Would Attach a 5TB+2TB/1TB(Backup possibly?) External Hard Disk/s to Manage the Files and Logs not Jamming the System Due to Hacks DDoS Attacks! Or Better to Go With a Server Host that Provides Security Service Giving Lesser Hassle to Worry About! AWS based Not going To be Trustworthy! If Know of Any Services That Won't SELL Their SOULS within A Minute/Overnight, Given Very High Profile Cases My son's and Mine is, Please Do Let Me Know Will That Be Safe and Secure without Causing Breaks in Uptime Because Need To Dump Entire Chronological History Evidence Events Files Audios Videos Cases Documents News etc for Public Disclosure and Use as Citations By World Citizens UDHR? And Even if I'm Offed I would Prefer the Files Be Available Indefinitely for the Good of Humanity and Children and Babies! I'm Injured from a Murder Attempt Accident Limited Hardware on Hand No Broadband Connection By Illegal Nonprovision of my Fundamental Human Civil Constitutional Rights By Baby Rapists Terrorists Like Modi Shah PedoElite Global Gang CEOs etc, So Won't Be able to Learn or Do Much overnight as 3 Decades of data Needs to Be segregated Moved around and Published! I'm the Leader Whistle Blower they Locked Down India and World For! MICKYLEAKS_MGR Michael Jude Emmanuel. You won't Find Any of My Public Disclosure of Crimes Articles Blogs Nothing On Search Engines highly Illegal Ghosting Shadow Banning because I've Literally Caught the Global Modus Operandi of Human Child Trafficking Genocide by DNA and Targeted Murders by Illegitimate Governments Courts MedicoMilitary Complex Financial Institutions etc! With The Last Strength Left in Me, I'm Working on the Final ReUploads and Public Disclosure Don't Want Any Cloud Hosting BS Self Hosted Physically Secure Probably Maybe Backups by Trustworthy if any Citizens Themselves with the Resources to hold the Data the Ones from Twitter KZbin Facebook WhatsApp Telegram Discord etc just openly sold out seeing easy money and Fame fake Subs Preference on platforms! Them and their Gangs group Sabotage Gaslighting hacking Evidence Theft Destruction corruption tactics all caught so CEOs Who Aided and Abetted Them Bouncing in a Hurry Including Susan Wojcicki Jack Dorsey Jeff Bezos Adani Ambani Plenty Claimed Dead Presidents of India FM MEA EC CEO etc Huge List of Them! I've Created History First and Last of Its Kind World Records of Multiple Records in Entire Legal Judicial Political Public and Press History so They don't Want Any of the Information Out Because They're Embarassed and Disgraced by Their Crimes and That Global Criminals Terrorists Joint Together could Not Kill My Son or Me to Cover Up the Crimes So They Have Him Hostage for Blackmail Since Birth and It's Been 8 Years 5 Months+with the Battle Continuing Against All Odds and For Criminal Instigation Death Penalty Convict Terrorist of Gujarat Genocide 2002 willfully Coming into Chennai Tamilnadu India with Courts Not Arresting and Hanging Him Because They're Slaves of the Satanic Cults Caught and Exposed By Me Completely With Their Entire Histories and the Modus Operandi of Crimes in their Corrupt Infiltrated Systems Worldwide Filed and Prosecuted in the Courts of Law India UN ICC ICJ UNICEF etc All Corrupt Perverted Institutions Under the Crown and Templar Origins Not just Ilegal Tech Chemical Biological Weather Manipulation Cyberwarfare Crimes And Attacks on Individuals All over the World and India! Entire RSS HSS Nazistasi KGB Mossad Presstitutes Lapdogs Fake News Media Propaganda and Agenda Agents Connections, Failures of Duties Obstruction of Justice Passage of Truthful Information Backed by Solid Evidence and Proof, Targeted Harassment, Murders, Not just Witnesses Alone Including Pets, Gaslighting Gangstalking Fake Secret Laws, Illegal GAG orders to Hide Crimes Murders Gangrape Babies Physical Mental Sexual Abuse and Torture Isolated Grooming Breeding Torturing then Tutoring for Coverup, Deliberate Employment Financial Sabotage Intellectual Property Private Property Equipment Theft Destruction, etc Online and Offline in the Real World Evidence Submitted With Cases Filed Everywhere! All TOOK TRILLIONS IN BRIBES and False Flags and Fake Whyrus BS Lockdowns Hoax Plandemic Scamdemic Going on! Timed to Perfection as All Time Frames for Remedy and Public Disclosure Over! I and the People Can Share the Complete Info and Evidence That's Why Terrorist Modi Bitch Fake ILLEGAL BLOCKING PEOPLE REMOVING GODHRA GENOCIDE MURDERS CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY FROM HISTORY BOOKS BECAUSE BALL-LESS COCKLESS UN ICC ICJ NATO WON'T TAKE ACTION ON THEM BRIBED BY ADANI AMBANI SCAMS LAUNDERING BY INDUSTRIALISTS AND THEY BOSTON BRAHMIN PUPPETS EVERYWHERE CLAIMED LEADERS CEOs EVER SINCE I BEGAN EXPOSING THEM AND FILED CASES AND WON DESPITE 13+ FALSE ALLEGATIONS FALSE COMPLAINTS CASE AGAINST ME TRIED WITH A SURROGATE TERRORIST MENTAL IMMORAL CROOK CAUGHT EXPOSED IN COURTS AND DEPTS IN BED WITH THEM! TO DATE EVERYTHING BEING ILLEGALLY AND CRIMINALLY SILENTLY REMOVED ACCOUNTS FAKE DISABLED SUSPENDED ETC WHEN CONTAINS ABSOLUTE TRUTH FACTS EVIDENCE PROOF WITH THE NEWS ARTICLES MY CERTIFICATES CREDENTIALS AND CASES COMPLAINTS COPIES PRESS ID ELON MUSK ACTING LIKE HE'S DISCOVERING THE CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY AND CHILDREN AND MEMBERS @MICKYLEAKS_MGR HIDDEN FROM PEOPLE 111.1K TWEETS OF EVIDENCE FROM JANUARY 2017 FACEBOOK JUNE 2016 WHY NOT REINSTATED AS PER LAWS LEGAL JUDICIAL NOTICES SENT TO THEM ALL INCLUDING KZbin MY CHANNEL VIDEOS AS WELL HIDDEN ILLEGALLY REMOVED THE MOST CRUCIAL CRITICAL EVIDENCE VIDEOS OF MURDER ATTEMPTS FAKE BROTHEL RUNNING LAWYERS POLICE JUDGES CHIEF JUSTICES HECK TAMILNADU STATE HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION AND STATE LEGAL SERVICES AUTHORITY CAUGHT TNCPCR Supreme Court To Eyewash Congressional DOJ hearings on Fake Hitlists Created By Crown and Alphabet Agencies Especially on Those who LIVE BY EXAMPLE OF CHRISTIANS NOT ACTING IN CHILD MOLESTING SACRIFICING VATICAN MAFIA POPE HIMSELF NEVER STEPPED INTO MADRAS HIGH COURT WITH BISHOPS TO PRIESTS CAUGHT NO CSA SRA INVESTIGATION COMMITTEE OR COURTS APPEARANCE ORDERS NEWS BECAUSE IT'S A HUGE GANGBANG BETWEEN GOVERNMENTS THAT'S WHY TO BRIBE THE COURTS THEY CONTROL REFER TO THE NEWS THE DUDE WITH 4 SEXUAL MOLESTATION CASES UNDER HIS ORIGINAL NAME PRIOR TO POPE ACT ALL CHURCHES TO QUICKLY SEND IN ALL THEIR MONEY FROM WORLDWIDE TO VATICAN CITY WHICH LIKE D.C. AND DELHI ARE WHAT? EXACTLY NON CONSTITUTIONAL ENTITITES OF ANY COUNTRY! SO WHEN CASES FILED AND WON 12/06/2016 TO 13/12/2017 ITSELF CONVICTION PROSECUTION DONE BY ME PRESIDENT CHIEF JUDICIAL CANDIDATE WORLD SPIRALLED INTO FAKE ORDER OUT OF CHAOS MODE AND I'M THE LIVING PROOF OF THAT FACT! AGAIN STILL LIVING NOT DEAD AS OTHER WORTHLESS ONES TRY TO CLAIM I'LL BE JUST BECAUSE THEY'RE ILLITERATE IGNORANT OF LAWS RIGHTS AND WHAT STRAWMAN AUTHORITY WIPED OUT UNION OF INDIA REST OF THE WORLD AND FULL IMMUNITY FREE UNIVERSAL CITIZENS STATUS WITH FIREARMS PROVISION MEANS WHICH IS WHAT I'VE BASICALLY WON FOR ONE AND ALL! EVERY SINGLE TECH CRIMES AND SURVEILLANCE ESPIONAGE SATELLITE FREQUENCY EMP DEW MMWAVE WEAPONS ATTACKS DONE I'M THE ONE AWARE OF WITH PROOF ON MY CHANNEL ITSELF FAKE POLICE STATION CYBERHUB IMMEDIATELY DEMOLISHED FOR COVERUP WITHOUT ANY INVESTIGATION BY UN ICC ICJ SUPREME COURT MADRAS HIGH COURT TNSHRC NHRC SAIDAPET CHIEF JURISDICTION JUDICIAL MAGISTRATE OR EGMORE CHIEF METROPOLITAN MAGISTRATE CAUGHT ON RECORD REFUSING LEGAL JUDICIAL DUTIES AND ORDERS IMMEDIATELY BECAUSE PRE-PLANNED PROLONGED POLITICAL COUP CONSPIRACY PEDOGATE CRIMES CAUGHT! THE PINNED TWEET THREAD IN TWITTER @MICKYLEAKS_MGR HAS ARCHIVE OF ALL OF THIS WHICH I'VE SAID FEEL FREE TO INVESTIGATE ELON MUSK ON THESE FACTS! I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT TO ASK HIM EVEN WHY 11/12/2018 $100000 ACLU 10/12/2018 11:00 P.M. 23:00 HRS IST, MURDER ATTEMPT ACCIDENT ON ME WHEN 11/12/2018 WAS ALSO NOT JUST JD AH CASE BS BUT SUNDAR JACK MARK EYEWASH CONGRESSIONAL HEARING! THERE'S YOUR ABSOLUTE TRUTH FACTS WHY T.N. SESHAN'S HOUSE MURDER ATTEMPT ON ME TSE 1563 MY MOTORCYCLE STOLEN BY POLICE PRE-PLANNED STANDING OPPOSITE HIS HOUSE THAT TIME HIDDEN IN DARKNESS RAINTREE HOTEL TREE WHAT TRIED TO SMASH INTO AND RUN OVER BY ONE KAUSHIK HYUNDAI I20 WHITE! WITHIN THE YEAR COMPLETED FROM INCIDENT CRIME T.N. SESHAN 10/11/2019 CLAIMED DEAD NEWS! YEP THAT'S WHO I AM AND THE LEVEL OF MY BABY'S AND MY CASES! CITIZENS TIME TO DO THEIR DUTIES NOW BECAUSE I'VE DONE MY PART LAID THE FOUNDATION BY LAW! UDHR COMMON NATURAL LAWS! ALL ARE FREE TO TAKE ACTION ON THESE DEATH PENALTY CONVICTS ILLEGALLY AND CRIMINALLY TRYING TO EVADE DEATH PENALTY EXECUTION AS PER LAW POCSO ACT 2012 MY BABY STILL HOSTAGE!

[@devans83]

Any of these minis have mounting options to install into vehicles?

[@NehuyStealer]

Hey! are you using a specific gobernor on proxmox? I can only get stable temps below 70°C with the conservative one :C

[@karimsukkar7398]

Great video, just a thought but there's the m.2 slot for the wifi card, without looking at the spec's of the slot, could you not repurose the slot with an msata disk for booting proxmox off of?

[@brettknoss486]

What do the green and yellow lights on the Ethernet ports mean?

[@Bytional]

I've used these mini X86 routers for last 5 years, I must advise anyone would try these: The cooling solution isn't perfect, when you run a few VM or add NVME drive into this, it gets hot, it should be OK if you leave it on some well ventilation environment, if not, it will hit 90° very quick.

[@Kludgedean]

I think my mini PC is suffering this! Going to have to plug in a usb fan to cook (nope COOL 😅) it. Got it really loaded up hardware wise, very impressed with it, and can power down my main server and disks whilst this lil powerhouse sips power (not over 500w idle!)

[@scottcopus]

@TechnoTim If you figure out the HDMI / quicksync passthru for Windows & Linux/Ubuntu, please make a follow-up video, or update your docs page? I'm hoping to achieve the same! I've not attempted different Proxmox kernels yet. Also, did your Ubuntu pass audio thru and that work?

[@kenniltv]

I think it's a limitation of the virtualization layer, you can't pass through the igpu or Quicksync to more than one VM.

[@scottcopus]

@@kenniltv I don’t mean both at the same time. I mean getting HDMI for Windows & quick sync for Linux working separately. I’ve got similar unworking outcomes with my i7-8700T. ;(

[@horizon42q]

Excellent review

[@cort]

That's awesome and something I've been looking myself to create - similar build. However, can you please share how did you share/passthrough hardware-to-VM? I cannot see it here nor on your website and is crucial for me in order to create similar VMs, especially GPU and Network Ports (sensors like temperature sensor would also be appreciated).

[@TechnoTim]

See my video on GPU passthrough for proxmox! Same idea!

[@malexejev]

Are there any links to original chinese barebones they make it from? Would be nice to compare prices. 6x2.5 is actually interesting.

[@miles267]

How hot does this VP4650 run at low CPU utilization or idle? I'm currently upgrading from an older Qotom Q355G4 to this VP4650 with 16GB RAM to migrate my Untangle NGFW 16.6. I wasn't planning to do any further virtualization for the time being. Just need a home router that will support my 1 Gbps symetrical fiber with room for expansion up to 2.5 Gbps in future.

[@AdHdEntertainmentLLC]

This look good for a investment into a small but productive homelab. The price maybe worth it depending on use case.

[@SurfSailKayak]

What if I told you you can also pass through a Coral TPU plugged into the pci-e or nvme slot?

[@kenniltv]

What would be the use cases for Coral TPU in this Protecli setup?

[@wstrater]

I am in the process of building out a new router using a similar device with Proxmox, pfSense, PiHole and CloudKey and having some issues. I bought my own memory and M.2 with heat sync to ensure quality but not sure about the power supply. Looks budget and could be the weak point of my set up. Not sure who makes a quality 12VDC power brick with a barrel connector. The other issue I am having is that the pfSense and OPNSense ISO and USB images are not bootable in Proxmox. Took quite a bit of work to get a bootable image for pfSense using Etcher and dd but have not gotten a bootable OPNSense. I think I have tried so many times that my thumb drive is fried. The other thing I am doing is that I created an Alpine LXC container for my LAN and all of my VLANs so I can quickly test network rules. I even created a simple NodeJS web server that I can run on any port to help.

[@Ex_impius]

Did you try adding a parameter on the docker container for plex like “runtime=NVIDIA”?

[@Ex_impius]

Its -runtime=nvidia

[@Ex_impius]

My bad… your would be -runtime=intel maybe?? Ive only HW passthrough to plex with nvidia so far

[@DearNoobs]

You mentioned that you wish it had more storage expansion and i was curious, so i looked into it and the two other m.2 looking slots both say "Connector uses USB protocol over an mPCI connector. Designed for Protectli WiFI and LTE modems, but is not limited in its capabilities" directly in the manual .... Soo I'm curious, could those two extra slots be used for storage too???

[@kenniltv]

Yes I think so. There is mPCI you can use for slow SSD's (mSATA in a NvME looking connector, but pinout is different. Or use bad WiFi chips that pfsense or opnsense dont support. Regular connector in these devices. (Have only seen 2.4ghz WiFi chips in mPCI connector for example)

[@Dante-420]

On the vp4630 (and I believe vp46xx models in general), there is an E-key m.2 slot (PCIE x1 for wifi) and a B-key m.2 slot (USB for 4G LTE). The E-key wifi slot is as versatile as any other - you can find 2230 E-key to 2280 M+B key modules so you can pop in another SSD, or even PCIe adapters if you want. You're limited to one gen 3 PCIe lane but that's enough to saturate 5GbE. On the other hand, the USB b-key slot is hard to repurpose because its USB wiring is quite rare. You'd probably have to design your own PCB if you want to do something besides LTE.

[@alienJIZ1990]

Imo, better to have your edge firewall/router as a dedicated physical appliance. I get the appeal and I know a lot of people do this but having it all in one unit, if that VM fails or if you need to reboot the host, you just killed internet for your entire household. Yeah you can run a redundant VM/host for high availability blah blah but a lot of people go this route without thinking it through how they're going to be fucking with this thing all the time, which you don't wanna do with your edge device. Best to keep all the cool fun stuff on Layer 2 where it belongs, and put Opnsense in front on the edge where it belongs, but other than that great video!

[@timura4319]

That's why you segment your network and add your "protected area" behind the Soho router. This way if you mess up some config etc. The wife never notices anything. I've put all the mobile clients and the public server and her devices, as well as the guest net on the Soho. Everything behind the opnsense is my area 😁

[@araa5184]

Idk about you but my router/firewall reboots whenever I update it. Leading to downtime anyways, so I don't really think a hypervisor going down makes any difference in not having an internet connection. Unless it's HA ... Especially if it's a hardware issue, then neither bare-metal or hypervisors would make a difference...

[@alienJIZ1990]

@@araa5184 yeah but updating it is different than rebooting the host. I had a friend try to build it that way and I tried to warn them like "bro you're gonna be rebooting this host more often than you think you will, not just the VMs" and sure enough he didn't listen and switched away from that config cuz he started knocking his wife offline when his server was rebooting and one day it crashed and she was definitely offline haha. Lots of ways to go about it but it's just something to keep in mind - extra dependencies are no good

[@araa5184]

@@alienJIZ1990 why would you reboot the host? Like for my setup one host is specifically for any network or infra related stuff like WoL, so it doesn't really reboot

[@alienJIZ1990]

@@araa5184 not so much rebooting as it is if it goes down for any reason whatsoever, it's going to knock people off. Network troubleshooting or trying out new configs (like switching to SDN) and screwing it up, are other examples. Imo you want as many "maintenance windows" as possible, and if that host also responsible for giving your family Internet, it's not practical. I guess if you're a set it and forget it type or live alone then it's whatever, but typically people who deploy stuff like this tinker often, and sooner or later, you'll probably do something that brings down the host or some bug will, and then you will have people mad at you lol

[@MrZiemwit]

looks like aliexpres mini pc

[@gaetanb6296]

Yes and old Aliexpress ! From 3years ago! Now with Topton you can have N5105 with 40% more power less power consumption thanks to the newer intel 10nm against 14nm... With 2 SSD NVMe, true 2.5gbps and not 2.35gbps, etc etc for 180€ barebone !

[@dfense1980]

​@@gaetanb6296There is even a newer model with the brand new N100 processor. Significantly faster than the N5105, with a TDP of 6W. There is hardly any difference in price.

[@henkyrumbo]

lol

[@AnomalousURL]

The one most people cant afford with corporate greed going on bc too many idiots think its inflation but then why do companies report giving their board partners more money? If its inflation that money goes to bills.

[@pinguin3084]

@@gaetanb6296i bought one with 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, an N100 and 6x2.5Gbit for 167€

[@dextorjpw]

Timestamp 08:44 - the UBNT Unifi app you move on screen - what app is that? it looks like a dedicated UBNT app?

[@cxl520]

I wanted to get one of these to upgrade my router system in my home. 😃

[@yiipower]

Hi Tim, thank you for your good video. Could you tell me which model you use for this video? Thank you for your advance information.

[@gamethecupdog]

9:45 I know on arch based linux distros I had to have specific packages to get gpu acceleration working

[@anderswilliams7069]

Building something similar (though a cluster with various node configs), however , as for the eMMC storage, while you are 100% correct that ProxMox does not allow you to install on it by default, the "hack" is pretty simple and requires only a simple edit in debug mode. That said, you can still mount the eMMC storage in ProxMox (Debian) and add it to PVE storage and use it for ISO/template/backup storage without wearing and tearing on it (as ProxMox says it is not really built for the rapid data changes required by a hypervisor OS).

[@bytes86]

Looks amazing! But how you built a TrueNas server with that? and another Hard Disks? Thanks!

[@KunouJS]

One question! Since it has two video outputs, can Proxmox output Proxmox's terminal on a monitor from one, and another for a VM's passthrough...??

[@h4X0r99221]

Forbidden Router, there be dragons, Tim! :D

[@carlos_mann]

To do something like this would it be easy enough to make an instruction video on how to use one of these as a Server, thats connected to a NAS. Or is doing something like this pretty difficult?

[@Ellwood420]

Honest question here, why use trueNAS vs just sharing out the partition from proxmox itself? Is it just easier to configure any shares through trueNAS?

[@Guybrushgg]

How do you split cores between your vms in proxmox?

[@TheBrilliantShadow]

2:30 "...a 1TB EVO Drive!" Proceeds to show a QVO Drive 😮

[@vickknox]

I've got one of these in play @ home and have it running Pfsense barebone. I found the heatsink/casing gets quite hot so much so that I've got a USB fan blowing over the casing which has helped. But before I put the USB fan, the heatsink was quite hot to touch. With everything you have running, which is a lot more than I do, are you experiencing similar issue?

[@rajjongray9481]

Hey great video! Just curious what you assigned to the ubuntu server as resources. I want to get into Docker and containers in general but I don't know how much CPU and RAM I should give to the Ubuntu VM.

[@spesterwecial]

I also wish the resource and storage allocations were detailed, perhaps on the linked web page.

[@Clarence-Homelab]

Rather buy a thin client on the second hand market like an hp t740 for 250€. It even has PCIE expansion. The 6 port protectli costs around 700. 😮😮😮

[@radiowolf80211]

Very cool. The protectli looks smaller than I thought. How was the throughput with PFSense with everything running? I would do something similar but with PFSense passed through, Proxmox, and a few services like Pihole, Netdata, Uptime Kuma, Tailscale, etc. Mostly backups for other Proxmox hosts that have way more power but aren't dedicated firewall devices.

[@TanKianW79]

Somehow when I use XCP-ng+XOA as the hypervisor, PLEX can see my Nvidia GPU (GTX1660S) using Ubuntu Desktop but not Windows 10. However, I do prefer Ubuntu as a PLEX transcoder instead of a Win10. I am using a AMD Zen 3 5900X as one of the hypervisor nodes and the other using 5950X, where I can shift from the VMs from one node to another.

[@medazizchagour6750]

Hey techno tim , pls can you create a video on how to setup duckdns with traefik and plain old docker?

[@steel1583]

Is it an overkill to use it as a silent HTPC/everyday PC (no gaming) running Linux Mint? what would you advise instead?

[@Dante-420]

If you're using all of that then the CPU on a 6 port model will definitely do the trick. The issues I would see is that you probably won't need more than one Ethernet port for a machine like that, so if you can find a similarly spec'd machine with less networking at a lower price point, that would probably be a better use of money!

[@UniPer85]

Great video Tim! Can this also run ESXi? And would this be a better choice that an Intel NUC 13 Pro?

[@kenniltv]

Should work with ESXi but can't guarantee. This device is only better if you need the 2.5Gb NICs. I would go for the NUC if you only need 1-2 NICs.

[@UniPer85]

@@kenniltv What makes the NUC better? I mean..the NUC guarantees working with ESXi so from that point of view it's better but..has it also better hardware/support/cooling?

[@kenniltv]

@@UniPer85 depends on what you want it for. NUC is more desktop and PC friendly. Protecli is more router server. You have to compare the CPU between the systems and max wattage draw. Other than that they are similar except the 6x i226 NICs.

[@gowinfanless]

Such a great video review,I want to try this with my Mini PC, the question is can I use an Alder Lakes-N solution to handle this?

[@ford1546]

Hello. Remember to install the latest firmware for the Samsung M2 ssd before you start using them. Samsung has had big problems with some of the latest ones

[@whitexeno]

For the price, the only thing I would like to see different is a pair of 10gig sfp ports.

[@corsontucker]

but what about out of band management?! i've been digging into Intel's AMT and using meshcommander via homebrew and have had great results. small form factor, low cost, DIY, and not breaking the bank like I would with something like Dell's iDRAC. I'd love to see what you think

[@KristianKirilov]

Valid point 👌

[@MarkWoodhall]

Would one of these machines running either pfsense or opnsense be able to work with an existing mesh network? I have a netgear mesh system but would like to implement something like this behind it for better security.

[@Oliver391]

I saw Plex was part of your Ubuntu-Server in docker. And you forwarded the GPU to the Ubuntu-Desktop VM. Did the Plex in docker not has HW encoding? And if yes how? Did you then migrate Plex to the desktop to get HW encode?

[@iteasy1208]

really interesting. Can you actually tell the feedback on temp effects after using for some days?

[@curtish3481]

Techno Tim Sir, I have a Protectli FW4B-0-8-120 and was wondering if I could do the same with it or should I just simply upgrade to the Protectli Vault Pro VP4630-6 Port, which you mentioned. Or use them in some sort of combination as you'd suggested i.e. using my current model as a desktop or some other device of sorts. I eagerly await your response.

[@lassesamenstrm1190]

Questions about the failed W11 Desktop using: Did you test both Machine types (q35, especially vers 5.1)? Did you try bios and uefi?

[@wardax]

Great video, Would love to hear how to pass though the igpu, didn't think that was possible 🙂

[@davocc2405]

That thing's borderline pornography... So many advantages that you didn't mention such as low power draw allowing extended operation on battery or even a beefy UPS. I would be most worried about theft, I hope you can bolt it in. Is there a Ryzen version on the cards given the hit Intel chips are taking with some of these CPU security mitigations?

[@xybersurfer]

that's really cool to see. it's not super expensive but still, the price and everything not working perfectly gives me some doubts

[@ElementX32]

Hello everyone, I'm a noob and I just bought a Protectli Vault, and I would love to set it up the way Techno Tim is talking about; however, would anyone happen to have a step-by-step guide on how to do this?

[@TechnoTim]

Hey! Check out my guide on proxmox! I also have most of these guides on my website technotim.live !

[@ElementX32]

Thank you sir, I really appreciate it. I will go through all your content and get it done. I love learning something new and it's really just for myvown self-satisfaction.

[@wolfpoker]

Aren't those the ones that stop working after a while?

[@GodAtum]

do you have a video on making a portainer cluster?

[@majorgear1021]

there is such a thing? Or do you mean docker swarm cluster?

[@twinssword]

@@majorgear1021 probably means creating a docker swarm from portainer ui

[@blablablaqwd]

It didn't pass through the GPU because Proxmox already had control over the GPU because of the console. You probably need to boot up Proxmox in the way that it uses tty/a serial device as "the" console. I would try that

[@milk4chillout]

Hey man, interesting tiny thing. Thanks for that. Other qestion, how can you hide that windows is virtualized. Some apps wont run under a virtualization and it would be nice, to hide that fact in Windows. Is it possible?

[@jasper5945]

I wonder if you can build something similar to this, with almost similar power, efficiency, ports, and size

[@TheMrDrMs]

It would be tricky as its using what amounts to a laptop CPU, so off the shelf parts for desktop, nah we couldn't do it. Convert a laptop, sure, there's a chance.

[@martindavid9145]

Thank you for this video. Do you have any advice for a cheaper fanless machine with 64G RAM? My fanless pc is about 6 years old and heats up a lot now...

[@TechnoTim]

Unfortunately I don’t. Small, fan-less, performant, at least 64GB RAM is pretty specific and this is about all there is 😀

[@yokall23]

A real noob question but what does Tim mean "give the NAS it's own NIC" I get the router scenario where WAN comes in and LAN out but how does giving the NAS it's own NIC work? What does that NIC connect to and why?

[@TechnoTim]

You could dedicated it to the NAS so that it's not a shared connection with all of you other virtual devices. You would need a switch and devices that needed to connect to it externally.

[@yokall23]

Thanks for the reply. By not sharing with other devices network traffic it can use more bandwidth and get a performance gain?

[@pbrigham]

A POE+ nic or two would be perfect even if had to have a more powerful power supply.

[@Zerointerrupt]

Hows the reliability? it seems that Lawrence Systems had a some that randomly died.

[@knuxyl]

Is it using intel i225 or i226 for 2.5gbe? i have 4 port celeron n5105 where im running debian and then openwrt in a virtual machine, but the cpu just tooo slow for some stuff i want to do.

[@venkatr825]

Quick question i want to build a cloud storage on my own and locate in a different country with 24/7 supply will these product supports for that

[@HardwareHaven]

Uh oh, TrueNAS in a VM?? Get ready for the barage of comments. Looks like a sweet setup though! Excited to watch!

[@majorgear1021]

That’s how I run TrueNAS currently . Also how I run my k3s cluster. all in VM’s.

[@HardwareHaven]

@@majorgear1021 Sweet! I wasn't complaining, I just know what people like to say haha I've run TN Scale in a VM with no issues, although not for a long time.

[@FireBean8504]

Yo Tim. Video request for you! I want to know more about using Redis. The only app I have that it uses in its stack right now is next cloud. But I'm not even sure if I got it set up right for optimal performance. I understand that it cache stuff in RAM... But that's about it! I want to make my apps as responsive as I possibly can. Can you make a video of how we start implementing redis into our stacks?

[@vinitodeibiza]

so we cannot use Protectli to make a Windows VM on proxmox and connect via RDP using GPU passthrough?

[@quorn23]

3:26 *micro USB, not SD I would bet ;)

[@ViralPoost1]

Do they have Network Management Card build in?

[@yuriw777]

That’s all great, but I’d be paranoid to run all of those servers on a single machine. It begs a question - what do you do if this box failed?!

[@Dante-420]

Spin up your backup proxmox box?

[@yuriw777]

@@Dante-420 I think this may help, but imho it’s crazy to run a router as a VM from reliability standpoint. I pass

[@G-3-A-R-Z]

Core boot is the best. Even on laptops. So this may be a good starter server, huh?

[@blakagemadhis7387]

Wait how do you get acces to Ubuntu on the same computer ?

[@chronometer9931]

"You can't cook on it" Tim, what if I overclock it, can I cook my eggs then?

[@TechnoTim]

Yes, at least eggs

[@BlueMethEdits]

Next video should be affordable low power server. When I’m not wrong the cheapest offer for a basic model is 600$

[@Ghost-pt5eu]

i5-10210U only has 4 cores which will severely limit the number of VMs you can run at the same time.

[@dougsellner9353]

I have one, not super impressed with it's VPN throughput, I wouldn't have pushed it as far as you did...

[@IcyTone1]

8:48 how can i passthrough thermal subsystem?

[@kenniltv]

Looking for that answer as well. Proxmox is terrible at showing server temps...