My macOS Monterey / Proxmox setup

I thought it might be helpful for people following my guide for installing macOS 12 Monterey on Proxmox if I described my setup and how I’m using macOS.

Proxmox hardware specs

  • Motherboard: Asrock EP2C602
  • RAM: 64GB
  • CPU: 2 x Intel E5-2687W v2 for a total of 16 cores / 32 threads
  • Storage
    • ASUS Hyper M.2 X16 PCIe 4.0 X4 Expansion Card
      • Samsung 970 Evo 1TB NVMe SSD for macOS
      • Samsung 950 Pro 512GB NVMe SSD
    • 38TB of spinning disks in various ZFS configurations
    • 1TB SATA SSD for Proxmox’s root device
  • Graphics
    • EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB
    • AMD Radeon R9 280X (HD 7970 / Tahiti XTL) (not currently installed)
    • AMD Sapphire Radeon RX 580 Pulse 8GB (11265-05-20G)
  • IO
    • 2x onboard Intel C600 USB 2 controllers
    • Inateck USB 3 PCIe card (Fresco Logic FL1100 chipset)
    • 2x onboard Intel 82574L gigabit network ports
  • Case
    • Lian Li PC-X2000F full tower (sadly, long discontinued!)
    • Lian Li EX-H35 HDD Hot Swap Module (to add 3 x 3.5″ drive bays into 3 of the 4 x 5.25″ drive mounts), with Lian Li BZ-503B filter door, and Lian Li BP3SATA hot swap backplane. Note that because of the sideways-mounted 5.25″ design on this case, the door will fit flush with the left side of the case, while the unfiltered exhaust fan sits some 5-10mm proud of the right side of the case.
  • CPU cooler
    • 2 x Noctua NH-U14S coolers
  • Power
    • EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G2 750W

My Proxmox machine is my desktop computer, so I pass most of this hardware straight through to the macOS Monterey VM that I use as my daily-driver machine. I pass through both USB 2 controllers, the USB 3 controller, an NVMe SSD, and one of the gigabit network ports, plus the RX 580 graphics card.

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