--- title: My Very Tiny Virtualization Lab | daily.dev description: A personal account of building a compact virtualization lab using an Asrock Deskmini A300 with an AMD Ryzen 2400G APU. The setup started with XCP-NG and Xen... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/my-very-tiny-virtualization-lab-hysk66fo3 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: My Very Tiny Virtualization Lab | daily.dev og:description: A personal account of building a compact virtualization lab using an Asrock Deskmini A300 with an AMD Ryzen 2400G APU. The setup started with XCP-NG and Xen... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/my-very-tiny-virtualization-lab-hysk66fo3 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/hYsk66FO3.png og:image:alt: My Very Tiny Virtualization Lab og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # My Very Tiny Virtualization Lab **[apalrd's adventures](https://daily.dev/sources/apalrd)** · 7 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A personal account of building a compact virtualization lab using an Asrock Deskmini A300 with an AMD Ryzen 2400G APU. The setup started with XCP-NG and Xen Orchestra but switched to Proxmox after struggling to get PCIe passthrough working for Coral AI accelerators. The lab runs Home Assistant and Frigate NVR, with VM storage offloaded to a separate ZFS server. Key takeaways include Proxmox's superior hardware support via KVM/IOMMU and the practical benefits of separating compute from storage in a home environment. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Why switch from XCP-NG to Proxmox for a homelab hypervisor? Proxmox offers better hardware passthrough support than XCP-NG because it runs on Debian Linux with the KVM hypervisor, giving it access to Linux's broad hardware support. Enabling AMD IOMMU in Linux boot options is straightforward, whereas XCP-NG failed to expose IOMMU even on supported CPUs, making PCIe passthrough for devices like Coral AI accelerators impossible through the GUI. _Homelab builders weighing hypervisor choices track real-world comparisons like this on daily.dev._ ### How do I pass through a Coral AI M.2 accelerator to a VM in Proxmox? Enable AMD IOMMU in the Linux boot options on the Proxmox host. The host OS may claim the Coral drivers itself, so blacklist those drivers on the host. The devices may not appear in the Proxmox GUI passthrough menu but can still be assigned via the command line. Once passed through, the VM can use the accelerators for inference workloads like Frigate NVR. _Developers running AI inference on edge hardware find PCIe passthrough tips like these on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [I turned a pile of old hardware into a home lab that saves me money every month](https://daily.dev/posts/i-turned-a-pile-of-old-hardware-into-a-home-lab-that-saves-me-money-every-month-dpvhh0dq6) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Running Proxmox on my ASUS NUC 14 Pro Plus taught me where mini PCs still fall short](https://daily.dev/posts/running-proxmox-on-my-asus-nuc-14-pro-plus-taught-me-where-mini-pcs-still-fall-short-z58jkhpvq) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [My home server was already useful, but here's how adding a used GPU turned it into something entirely different](https://daily.dev/posts/my-home-server-was-already-useful-but-here-s-how-adding-a-used-gpu-turned-it-into-something-entirel-ozm783a24) · XDA Developers · 3 upvotes · 1 comments - [My Coding Agents: Off My Laptop and Onto a Remote Server](https://daily.dev/posts/my-coding-agents-off-my-laptop-and-onto-a-remote-server-zxlgjxw5k) · Atomic Spin · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#infrastructure](https://daily.dev/tags/infrastructure), [#homelab](https://daily.dev/tags/homelab), [#proxmox](https://daily.dev/tags/proxmox) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/my-very-tiny-virtualization-lab-hysk66fo3) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"My Very Tiny Virtualization Lab","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/my-very-tiny-virtualization-lab-hysk66fo3","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/my-very-tiny-virtualization-lab-hysk66fo3"},"datePublished":"2026-08-11T08:55:31.495Z","dateModified":"2026-08-11T09:23:51.574Z","description":"A personal account of building a compact virtualization lab using an Asrock Deskmini A300 with an AMD Ryzen 2400G APU. The setup started with XCP-NG and Xen...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--0_ODbtD2--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2008","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--0_ODbtD2--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2008","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"apalrd's adventures","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"apalrd's adventures","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--4zkx8dRj--/f_auto,q_auto/v1786438309/logos/apalrd?_a=BAMAMicg0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/apalrd"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/my-very-tiny-virtualization-lab-hysk66fo3","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"infrastructure,homelab,proxmox","timeRequired":"PT7M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"apalrd's adventures","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/apalrd"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"My Very Tiny Virtualization Lab"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/my-very-tiny-virtualization-lab-hysk66fo3#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"Why switch from XCP-NG to Proxmox for a homelab hypervisor?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Proxmox offers better hardware passthrough support than XCP-NG because it runs on Debian Linux with the KVM hypervisor, giving it access to Linux's broad hardware support. Enabling AMD IOMMU in Linux boot options is straightforward, whereas XCP-NG failed to expose IOMMU even on supported CPUs, making PCIe passthrough for devices like Coral AI accelerators impossible through the GUI. Homelab builders weighing hypervisor choices track real-world comparisons like this on daily.dev."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"How do I pass through a Coral AI M.2 accelerator to a VM in Proxmox?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Enable AMD IOMMU in the Linux boot options on the Proxmox host. The host OS may claim the Coral drivers itself, so blacklist those drivers on the host. The devices may not appear in the Proxmox GUI passthrough menu but can still be assigned via the command line. Once passed through, the VM can use the accelerators for inference workloads like Frigate NVR. Developers running AI inference on edge hardware find PCIe passthrough tips like these on daily.dev."}}]} ```