Tech Tips: October 2025

12 October 2025

Changing Proxmox Boot Devices

I wanted to use the Intel SSDs as the boot devices in my replacement server. This meant I needed to migrate back to the 2.5" HDDs.

Prep Work

Ensure that autoexpand is off

zpool get autoexpand rpool

NAME PROPERTY VALUE SOURCE
rpool autoexpand off default

Adding the 2.5" HDDs

For all the below examples /dev/sda is one of the existing boot drives and /dev/sde and /dev/sdf are the new drives.

Install the hard drives

Power-off the system first if you don't have hot swap

Copy the partition tables

sfdisk -d /dev/sda | grep -v last-lba > ssd_part_table
sed -e '/^label-id:/d' -e 's/,\s*uuid=[-0-9A-F]*//g' ssd_part_table | sfdisk /dev/sde
sed -e '/^label-id:/d' -e 's/,\s*uuid=[-0-9A-F]*//g' ssd_part_table | sfdisk /dev/sdf

Copy the BIOS data

dd if=/dev/sda1 of=/dev/sde1
dd if=/dev/sda1 of=/dev/sdf1

Copy the Boot

proxmox-boot-tool format /dev/sde2
proxmox-boot-tool format /dev/sdf2
proxmox-boot-tool init /dev/sde2
proxmox-boot-tool init /dev/sdf2

Add to the ZFS pool

zpool attach rpool ata-INTEL_SSDSC2BX800G4_XXXXXX-part3 /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-XXXXX1-part3
zpool attach rpool ata-INTEL_SSDSC2BX800G4_XXXXXX-part3 /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-XXXXX2-part3

Hardware Changes

turn off the server
remove the drives
ensure server still boots

Remove old drives from zpool

zpool status rpool
zpool detach rpool <new id>
zpool detach rpool <new id>

Remove old drives from boot

proxmox-boot-tool status
proxmox-bool-tool clean
proxmox-boot-tool status

Lenovo TS140 Hardware Upgrades

I decided to use my old server (Lenovo TS140) to replace my present one (Dell R730XD), There were two factors in my decision (1) it was more stable (2) it consumed less power at ~50W vs ~99W. However, before I could do that I wanted to make two key upgrades: (1) more than 4 cores/4 threads and (2) faster than gigabit networking.

Hardware Options

Processor:

E3-1225 v3 (Current Processor)

Links: Intel / Tech Power Up
4 core 4 thread
Base: 3.2 GHz
Max Turbo: 3.6 GHz
IGP: Intel HD P4600
TDP: 84W
Single/Multi: 2014/5322

E3-1245 v3

Links: Intel / Tech Power Up
4 core 8 thread
Base: 3.4 GHz
Mz Turbo: 3.8 GHz
IGP: Intel HD P4600
TDP: 84W
Single/Multi: 2150/7044

E3-1275 v3

Links: Intel / Tech Power Up
4 core 8 thread
Base: 3.5 GHz
Max Turbo: 3.9 GHz
IGP: Intel HD P4600
TDP: 84W (listed as 95W at places)
Single/Multi: 2198/7203

NIC:

Used Intel X710-DA2

roughly $30 from eBay
10 Gbps SFP+
Requires a PCIe x8 slot

Realtek RTL8125B NIC

roughly $17-20 from Amazon
2.5 Gbps
Requires a PCIe x1 slot (PCIe 2.0 x1 provides up to 5 Gbps of bandwidth)

Decision

I went with the E3-1275 v3 as it was roughly the same price as the E3-1245 v3 and was slightly faster.

I chose the Realtek RTL8125B from GiGaPlus as it would keep the x16 slot free in my TS140 for future expandability. I also only had a single free SFP+ port on my switch,

Appendix

Sources

04 October 2025

Clean-Up filenames created by Handbrake

I wanted a script to help me rename files that Handbrake creates.

Issues

There are mainly 2 issues that I come across:

Spaces that I want to replace with underscores
Remove Unprintable characters

I determined that these were ASCII characters 001-037 (in octal)
ls -b directory_with_octal_chars_in_filename

Solution

Script (rename.sh)

#!/usr/bin/bash
directory=${1}
if [ -z ${directory} ] ; then
echo "Requires a path"
exit 1
fi

# replace spaces with underscore
find ${directory} -type f -name "* *" |
while read file; do
mv "${file}" "${file// /_}"
done

# remove unprintable ASCII chars
find ${directory} -type f -name "*"[$'\001'-$'\037']"*" |
while read file; do
new_file=$(echo "$file" | sed -e 's/[\o001-\o037]//g')
mv "$file" "$new_file"
done

Permissions

chmod +x rename.sh

Usage

./rename.sh Directory_To_Rename_Files_In

Appendix

Sources