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Building a PC to help with the Existential Dread (w/ PZ MSI Mobo and Fractal North XL Momentum Case)

Posted by wendell on Thu, 02/05/2026 - 10:54

Wendell builds PCs in the same way some might perform yoga or meditation. It just helps.

MSI Motherboard: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FVQ3NN4C/level1techs-20
Fractal North XL Momentum: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FGQDM8ZF/level1techs-20

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Mini PCs Need Some New Rules! Ft: Minisforum BD895i SE Motherboard

Posted by wendell on Mon, 02/02/2026 - 14:41

Wendell recently bought a lot of kit from Minisfourm to use around the office, and its led to some ideas for Wendell.

Want one? Here the link to the Minisforum Website: https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-bd895i-se-motherboard

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Supermicro's Intermediate Server Rack System the B300

Posted by wendell on Fri, 01/30/2026 - 18:07

Wendell was out at SC25 thanks to Supermicro. There, he got all the good details about the future in server rack deployment.

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Ultimate Proxmox Guide: Set Up a Production Cluster ft. OpenMetal.io Dedicated Servers!

Posted by wendell on Thu, 01/29/2026 - 13:28

Thank you to Openmetal.io for sponsoring this video!

Check out Openmetal.io here! https://openmetal.io/promos/l1t-proxmox-on-bare-metal/

Level1Forum Thread: https://forum.level1techs.com/t/proxmox-full-production-in-the-cloud-wi…

This isn’t a homelab Proxmox install. This is how you run Proxmox in production on real hardware.
We build a proper 3-node cluster on OpenMetal bare metal with VLANs, bonding, ZFS, HA routing, and tie it into Proxmox Datacenter Manager and Proxmox Backup Server so VMs can move between local infrastructure and the cloud.

If you’re coming from VMware, this is the part people miss: Proxmox VE by itself isn’t the whole story. VE + Datacenter Manager + Backup Server is what gives you real HA, replication, migration, and backup.
We’re doing this on OpenMetal bare metal because they make it easy to deploy enterprise bare metal dedicated servers with multiple VLANs, bonded 10G networking, and IPMI access so you can build an actual cluster the way it should be built.

This setup lets you run workloads in the cloud, keep local restores, and move VMs back and forth with confidence that the cluster is actually redundant.

If you are seriously considering moving your Proxmox onto hosted bare metal, OpenMetal offers Proof of Concept (PoC) clouds and also has a viewer promo: 👉 50% off the first 3 months when you commit to a 1-year term on bare metal servers.

You can find us...
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#Proxmox #BareMetal #DedicatedServers #OpenSource #Datacenter #Virtualization #OpenMetal #HA #pfSense #SysAdmin #Networking #SelfHosted #Linux

9850X3D - Launching today. More clocks.. more performance? Review and Benchmarks!

Posted by wendell on Wed, 01/28/2026 - 09:49

Bottom Line! If you have been wanting to upgrade for a while, then now might be a good time. No need to upgrade if you have the 9800X3D, though. The tech economy is WACK!

You can find us...
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Thunderbolt 5 and the Minisforum's Deg 2 eGPU OCulink Dock

Posted by wendell on Tue, 01/27/2026 - 14:33

Taking a look at OCulink and Thunderbolt 5 on this eGPU Dock from Minisforum!

Check it out here if you are interested: https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-deg2-oculink-egpu-dock
(^Not an affiliate link ^)

0:00 Intro
0:30 Unboxing and breakdown
1:45 Salty about Thunderbolt 5
3:44 Who Needs that much Bandwidth?
5:39 Oculink
6:54 Overdue for a Highspeed Optical Standard
9:52 And so we come back to the DEG2
11:25 DEG2 Set Up, Benchmarks and Performance
18:39 Networking
21:03 The Itch that only the Forum Could Scratch
21:14 Final Performances
24:35 Conclusion

You can find us...
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The Beelink ME Pro is the Tiniest Storage Server I've Ever Seen! I used it as a Proxmox Backup Host

Posted by wendell on Sat, 01/24/2026 - 13:59

You can find us...
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4x Radeon AI Pro R9700 in a single system! And HAProxy: Owning the Means of Production

Posted by wendell on Thu, 01/22/2026 - 15:44

We've got a fire breathing 4 GPU system here, but how can we make sure everything works in concert? Enter HAProxy!

Forum thread here: https://forum.level1techs.com/t/4x-r9700-pro-setup-with-ha-proxy-for-fa…

Giveaway thread here: https://forum.level1techs.com/t/the-4x-amd-radeon-ai-pro-r9700-128gb-gi…

You can find us...
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Fractal Pop 2 Air Quick Build

Posted by wendell on Wed, 01/21/2026 - 11:05

Fractal has a new case for those who just want something simple!
You can find us...
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Adam/EposVox and Wendell's Storinator Storage Upgrade Adventure! Level1Diagnostic

Posted by wendell on Mon, 01/19/2026 - 15:06

Friend of the channel EposVox aka Adam has been having issues with his storage solution. Thankfully he knows the best computer janitor in the biz! Wendell sets him up with a 45Drives Storinator

Adam's channel: https://www.youtube.com/eposvox

You can find us...
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