Proxmox Series – Part 1: Hunting for a Server
Published: August 13, 2025
I have many ideas (automation tools, home media or even file storage) and many of these ideas need machines. I had the idea of getting an old pc to set up as my server and came across the Optiplex 7060 on Australia Computer Traders.
OptiPlex 7060 Specs
- CPU: Intel i7 8700 3.20GHz
- RAM: 16GB RAM DDR4
- Storage: 512GB M2 SSD
- Form Factor: Tower
- Cost: $358 AUD
As you can tell this was a very good choice for my first homelab and very budget friendly.
For the OS, I was gonna go with Linux Ubuntu Server distro but then I found out about Proxmox through a work colleague. This was game changing, instead of running every service on one machine or even running Ubuntu with headless Virtual Box the foot print would be much larger then Proxmox itself. Another cool thing was it had a GUI! Don’t get me wrong, I still love the CLI.
The next part I’ll deal with the hardware upgrades and running the setup of proxmox.