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Homelab recovery
The 333 GB I didn't know I was keeping
My main storage array is 839 GB of btrfs sitting on a mdadm RAID5. Last month it was reading half full and I couldn't tell you what half. That bothered me more than a full disk would have, because a full disk at least tells you where the space went.
Jul 20, 2026·Homelab recovery·4 min
The bond that negotiated with nobody
I planned a 2-gigabit bond for my Proxmox host and it quietly ran at 1 for weeks. The switch could not speak LACP, and nothing logged the failure. Here is the fix.
Jul 14, 2026·Homelab recovery·3 min
The recovery path I never had
During a network cutover I retired the bootstrap network that was my only management path to the DL380. The near-miss taught me what MGMT is for. Three VLANs today, each with a specific job.
Jul 7, 2026·Homelab recovery·5 min
I never ran ESXi in production
I never ran ESXi in production. I evaluated, picked Proxmox in 2024, and never went back to look. The three reasons it was an easy call, and the tradeoffs.
Jun 29, 2026·Homelab recovery·4 min
The DL380 had been off for fifteen months
I powered down an HP DL380 G7 in early 2025 and did not touch it for fifteen months. Would the PSUs hold. Would the disks spin clean. Would Proxmox boot.
Jun 22, 2026·Homelab recovery·4 min