Brandon Lee

Brandon Lee is the Senior Writer, Engineer and owner at Virtualizationhowto.com, and a 7-time VMware vExpert, with over two decades of experience in Information Technology. Having worked for numerous Fortune 500 companies as well as in various industries, He has extensive experience in various IT segments and is a strong advocate for open source technologies. Brandon holds many industry certifications, loves the outdoors and spending time with family. Also, he goes through the effort of testing and troubleshooting issues, so you don't have to.

Storage

Brandon LeeSeptember 29, 2023
2 1,657

RAID 5 vs RAID 6: Which one is the best for SSDs?

Two RAID levels that get compared quite a lot are RAID 5 vs RAID 6. What are the differences between these two RAID levels, and which one should you use for SSDs? Table of contentsParity Data – What is it?XOR…
home lab

Brandon LeeSeptember 28, 2023
4 7,810

Mikrotik CRS310-8G+2S+IN Review: 2.5 Gigabit Switch For Home Lab

The 2.5-gigabit switch market is set to really heat up in late 2023 and 2024 with so many cheap switches and network adapters now running at 2.5 gig in micro PCs, access points, and other devices. The MikroTik CRS310-8G+2S+IN is…
Networking

Brandon LeeSeptember 27, 2023
4 2,965

Netmaker: Automated Wireguard VPN You Can Self-host

With the hybrid workforce and hybrid networks spread across on-premises and cloud environments, network connectivity between devices and server resources is important no matter where these are located. A traditional VPN server and VPN connection between clients and resources is…
home lab

Brandon LeeSeptember 26, 2023
1 9,814

TrueNAS Scale Setup: First 5 Steps

When you go from TrueNAS Core to the more capable TrueNAS Scale, there’s a world of difference in functionality. TrueNAS Scale offers many additional capabilities, including enhanced virtual machine software and extended support for multiple operating systems. Let’s look at…
Self hosted

Brandon LeeSeptember 25, 2023
5 26,113

Graylog Docker Compose Setup: An Open Source Syslog Server for Home Labs

A really great open-source log management platform for both production and home lab environments is Graylog. Using Docker Compose, you can quickly launch and configure Graylog for a production or home lab Syslog. Using Docker Compose, you can create and…
Mini PC & Server

Brandon LeeSeptember 22, 2023
2 11,127

Intel NUC Alternative: GMK Nucbox K10 Ryzen 7 Home Server

The GMKtek Nucbox K10 is a worthy Intel NUC replacement, especially if you want a home virtualization server, AND it is compatible with VMware vSphere 8, Proxmox, and other Linux hypervisors. Let’s look at the GMKtek Nucbox series mini PCs…
Self hosted

Brandon LeeSeptember 21, 2023
21 78,281

Top 5 Home Server OS distros for self-hosting

Home servers and home server labs have exploded in popularity because users want to self-host and learn self-hosted services, keep control over their data, and just geek out overall. There is much interest in “home server OS” solutions that make…
Self hosted

Brandon LeeSeptember 20, 2023
1 24,702

SigNoz: Free and Open Source Syslog server with OpenTelemetry

Synology DSM
Windows Server 2025

Brandon LeeSeptember 19, 2023
2 29,137

Windows Server 2025: Initial Glimpse with New Domain Functional Level

With the release of the latest vNext Preview, which are previews of new server operating systems and even new features of current versions, we get a glimpse at things to come in Windows Server 2025. Though the branding still includes…
home lab

Brandon LeeSeptember 18, 2023
2 14,397

XCP-ng: Home Server Build with Citrix Hypervisor

Many are familiar with VMware vSphere and open-source hypervisor Proxmox for home labs. However, more are learning about and want to experiment with XCP-ng. I want to take you guys through a few of the basics with XCP-ng and how…