One Year with the Proxinator: Does it live up to the promise?

It’s been one full year since I swapped out my VMware cluster and moved everything—my production environment, 2GT media, homelab, and self-hosted services—to a single @45Drives #Proxinator #VM16 running Proxmox. So… was it worth it? In this follow-up, I go deep into what the last 12 months have been like running the Proxinator as my singular virtualization server. We’ll revisit the hardware (a single-socket AMD EPYC beast with 256GB of DDR5 RAM and 16 SSDs), how it compares to my old dual-node vCenter cluster, and whether the Proxmox experience truly delivered as a VMware alternative. ▶️ Watch my original deep-dive on the Proxinator VM16 here: https://youtu.be/dbJckXKrbqU 💬 Got questions about Proxmox or the VM16? Drop them in the comments! 📦 45Drives Proxinator Info: https://www.45drives.com/products/proxinator/ **GET SOCIAL AND MORE WITH US HERE!** Get help with your Homelab, ask questions, and chat with us! 🎮 https://discord.gg/5TcfBWBB7S **Check out HomeLab Gear for all your homelab needs!** 💿 https://homelabgear.shop/ Subscribe and follow us on all the socials, would ya? 📸 https://instagram.com/2guystek 💻 https://facebook.com/2guystek Find all things 2GT on our website! 🌍 https://2guystek.tv/ More of a podcast kinda person? Check out our Podcast here: 🎙️ https://www.buzzsprout.com/1852562 Support us through the YouTube Membership program! Becoming a member gets you priority comments, special emojis, and helps us make videos! 😁 https://www.youtube.com/@2GuysTek/membership **Chapters** 0:00 Introduction 1:01 Background on the 45Drives Proxinator VM16 2:44 Recap of the other 45Drives Proxinator models 3:01 Let's talk about power consumption 3:32 Thermal tolerance of the VM16 3:57 Swapping around fan connectors for quieter operation 5:12 Addressing the power button comments 5:44 Addressing the GPU mounting location comments 6:23 My experiences with 45Drives support 7:25 My one gripe about the 45Drives Proxinator VM16 8:03 Is the 45Drives Proxinator worth it? 8:41 Closing!