Got some old hard drives gathering dust? Don’t throw them away just yet!
In this video, I’m turning recycled SATA hard drives into useful Proxmox backup storage using a ZFS mirror. I’ll show you how to install the drives in a Dell workstation, check their health, create a mirrored ZFS pool, configure Proxmox VE and test everything with a real virtual machine backup and restore.
No new drives were needed — just some old hardware, spare SATA cables and a bit of tinkering!
The video handout is available here –
https://www.onporpoise.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/WrongWords-Proxmox-ZFS-Mirror-Practical-Guide.pdf
What you’ll learn
- How to reuse old hard drives in a Proxmox server
- How to check disk health using SMART
- What ZFS mirroring does and why it’s useful
- Why a ZFS mirror is NOT a backup
- How to prepare disks and create a ZFS mirror
- How to configure Proxmox backup storage
- How to back up and restore a virtual machine
- How to check your ZFS pool for problems
One man’s junk is another man’s homelab backup plan! 😄
⏱️ Chapters
00:00 Don’t throw away those old hard drives!
00:53 My Dell Proxmox server
01:38 Installing recycled SATA hard drives
03:32 Future plans for local AI
03:51 Proxmox server overview
04:43 Identifying the disks
05:59 Checking disk health with SMART
07:41 Reviewing existing storage
08:24 Preparing the old drives
09:40 What is a ZFS mirror?
10:37 Why a mirror isn’t a backup
11:17 Identifying and wiping the correct drives
14:18 Creating the ZFS mirror
15:36 Checking the ZFS pool
15:58 Creating the backup dataset
16:47 Adding backup storage to Proxmox
18:29 Testing a VM backup
18:47 Restoring a virtual machine
20:17 Checking the ZFS mirror
20:47 Final thoughts
📚 Resources
Proxmox VE: https://www.proxmox.com/en/products/proxmox-virtual-environment/overview
OpenZFS documentation: https://openzfs.github.io/openzfs-docs/
⚠️ Disk preparation commands can permanently erase data. Always check the disk identity before running destructive commands. Mirrored storage protects against a drive failure, but you still need separate backups.
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V I D E O S T O W A T C H N E X T :
Beginning Home Assistant – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_7NcEOw4T8&list=PLgFmYLxo1n9ugpGH2RIdfxEnvxAbrMV6w&index=1
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Inquiries: hello@onporpoise.co.uk
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