Intro

Setting up my first server was a milestone I won’t forget—enter the Dell PowerEdge T330, a reliable beast perfect for home lab experiments and virtualization. With a bit of planning (and trial-and-error), I configured a mixed RAID setup to balance redundancy and storage, then deployed Proxmox VE as my hypervisor. Here’s how I got everything running smoothly, including spinning up my first Ubuntu VM.

Hardware Overview

  • Server: Dell PowerEdge T330
  • Drives:
    • 2 × 2TB HDDs (RAID 1 for OS and critical data)
    • 3 × 26TB HDDs (RAID 5 for bulk storage and VMs)

This setup gives me redundancy for the boot and system drives while providing a huge, fault-tolerant RAID 5 array for everything else.

Step 1: RAID Configuration

Accessing the RAID Controller

The T330 uses the PERC H330 or H730 controller depending on your configuration. During boot, I pressed Ctrl + R to enter the RAID configuration utility.

Creating RAID Arrays

  • RAID 1 (2 x 2TB):

    • Purpose: Store Proxmox OS, system logs, backups
    • Benefits: Mirrored protection in case of single drive failure

  • RAID 5 (3 x 26TB):

    • Purpose: Bulk VM storage, ISOs, large files
    • Benefits: Fault tolerance with good storage efficiency

After creating the virtual disks, I saved and exited the RAID controller utility.

Step 2: Installing Proxmox VE

  1. Downloaded the Proxmox VE ISO from the official site.
  2. Used Rufus to flash it onto a USB stick.
  3. Booted from USB on the T330 and installed Proxmox to the RAID 1 array.
  4. Configured networking, hostname, and login credentials.

Once installed, I accessed the Proxmox Web UI at https://<server-ip>:8006.

Step 3: Creating Storage Pools

  • The RAID 1 array was mounted as the default local storage.
  • The RAID 5 array was added manually:
    • Formatted with ext4.
    • Mounted to /mnt/pve/storage.
    • Added to Proxmox via the web UI:
      • Navigate to Datacenter → Storage → Add → Directory
      • Set the path to /mnt/pve/storage and give it a name (e.g., RAID5-Storage)

Step 4: Spinning Up the Ubuntu VM

  1. Downloaded the Ubuntu ISO and uploaded it to Proxmox.
  2. Created a new VM:
    • 8 vCPUs, 30GB RAM, 100GB disk on the RAID 1 array
    • Mounted the ISO as a CD-ROM
  3. Installed Ubuntu Server with OpenSSH.
  4. Set a static IP, installed essential packages, and created a base snapshot for future use.
  5. Installed the docker engine
  6. Installed the portainer agent

Step 5: VirtioFS Passthrough

  1. Created a directory mapping under Datacenter->Directory Mappings
    • Named it storage
    • Set the path to /mnt/pve/storage
    • Set datacenter as my node
  2. Under Datacenter->node->ubuntu vm->Hardware-Add->VirtioFS
    • Selected the storage Directory ID (it was the only one available)

Step 6: Configuring docker containers

  1. Set up a new stack containing docker compose of the container I would like to spin up
  2. Reference the new VirtioFS device in the docker compose for host mappings

Final Thoughts

This build gave me a ton of flexibility for running virtualized services, media servers, dev environments, and backups—all in one tidy, Proxmox-managed setup. The Dell PowerEdge T330 may be older, but it’s more than capable for home lab duties.

If you’re setting up your first server, don’t be afraid to mix RAID levels based on your needs. Proxmox is a fantastic entry point into virtualization and offers powerful features for free.