As part of my series exploring backup options, I’d like to see if I can use Proxmox Backup Server to archive both datasets and zvols of a TrueNAS SCALE server. Why would you want to do this? In my case, I’m trying to choose the best starting point for my new backup server, and one potential option is to use Proxmox Backup Server (PBS), but I’d like to store data outside of the Proxmox Virtual Environment (PVE) ecosystem.

I’m working on the next revision of my homelab backend. Currently I rely on an Ubuntu server with ZFS on Linux for file storage over Samba, and a separate Proxmox Virtualization Environment (PVE) server (the Minilab) with local LVM storage for virtualization. Ideally, I’d like to add a backup server to the mix, with its own storage, that can handle both the Proxmox server and Samba shares. However, the big choice ahead is what software to use for backups - TrueNAS (CORE or SCALE), or the newer Proxmox Backup Server (PBS)?

As you might recall from my last blog post, I’ve been playing with workshop organization using fiducial markers to locate storage boxes. I’ve started to move past the proof of concept code phase into the slightly functional open-source project phase, and I created a repository and developed some working code. The project is just barely functional at this phase, but it has the ability to connect to cameras over RTSP, skip images to reduce the detection framerate, decode them using one of the AprilTag types, and publish the resulting detection data to MQTT.

Previously, I saw (and can no longer find the source) a vlog about a maker who stored all of his projects and stock of parts in bins over his long work bench. All of the bins were labeled with some sort of code, and a security camera in his office would periodically scan for codes in the image and keep track of the location of each bin. With this system, he could put any bin in any empty spot on the shelf and easily find it later, or find that it was not on the shelf, from the comfort of his desk computer.

Recently, I have been organizing all of the parts and pieces of my partially finished projects so I can go back to projects more easily. This started as a simple goal - keep all of my work in boxes, keep the boxes labeled, and keep the boxes in a place where they are easy to get to. I have mountains of leftover parts I’ve accumulated over the years, and I really need a better solution.

I’ve been working up to a better virtualization and storage setup for my homelab for awhile now. One part of this is cataloguing my media and expanding the virtual side of the media library. I have a legacy collection of DVDs and BDs which I’d like to import, and that means I need to rip them from disk. The decryption and transcoding process requires a decent CPU. The demand for high performance leads me to want to run this in a virtual machine (where it can get low priority access to a wealth of compute resources), but the need for a physical disk drive also makes me not want to walk down to the basement every time a disk is done to change disks.

Inspired by recent a recent video on the basics of PXE booting by ‘Tall Paul Tech’ (formerly known as CWNE88), as well as a comment by Linus of Linus Tech Tips that his new home server could ’network boot everything in his house’, I wondered how easy it would be to network boot everything in my house. In an ideal world, this would solve a lot of problems regarding managing backups of the drives - by simply not having drives at any client, they can all be managed and backed up centrally by the server.