PVE Resize Disk
Extending the local-lvm disk size on a proxmox server
proxmox
local-lvm
homelab
proxmox
homelab
Recent Posts
Archives
Browse every post on James Rhoat's blog by year — engineering essays, runbooks, and notes on Kubernetes, databases, and infrastructure.
Building this site
How I spun up this Hugo site — picking a theme, wiring deploys, and the bits I'd skip if I started over.
hugo
blog
github
cloudflare
hugo
Links
Curated list of James Rhoat's links — GitHub repositories, YouTube channel, podcast appearances, and other places to find him on the internet.
Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS)
How VSS and the SQL Writer Service interact with SQL Server backups, including supported operations, limitations around point-in-time recovery, and common troubleshooting steps.
sql-server
Volume Shadow Copy Service SQL Server
VSS backup limitations and pitfalls
SQL Writer Service troubleshooting
SQL Server backup with third-party tools
VSS vs native SQL Server backup
Vertical Partitioning
How vertical partitioning (row splitting) reduces page waste and improves query performance in SQL Server, with a one-million-row demo.
sql-server
SQL Server vertical partitioning
row splitting optimization
database storage efficiency
SQL Server query performance
table design best practices
Understanding Storage in SQL Server
How SQL Server organizes data at the page and extent level, and why LOB, in-row, and row-overflow storage matter for performance and design.
sql-server
SQL Server pages and extents explained
database storage internals
IN_ROW_DATA vs ROW_OVERFLOW_DATA
LOB data storage in SQL Server
mixed vs uniform extent allocation
Transaction Log Management
A practical Q&A on SQL Server transaction log internals: how transactions work, crash recovery, why logs grow, and the correct way to shrink and resize the log file.
sql-server
SQL Server transaction log management
why transaction log keeps growing
virtual log files VLF fragmentation
shrinking transaction log safely
ACID transactions in SQL Server
SSMS Productivity Tips
Eight practical tips for working faster in SQL Server Management Studio, from block selection and split windows to color-coded connections.
sql-server
SSMS productivity tips and shortcuts
SQL Server Management Studio tricks
ALT Shift block selection in SSMS
color coded server connections
split query window in SSMS
SQL Server Corruption Post Mortem
A post-mortem guide for SQL Server database corruption: likely causes from I/O subsystem errors to firmware, early detection strategies, and recovery steps.
sql-server
SQL Server database corruption recovery
DBCC CHECKDB integrity checking
I/O subsystem error diagnosis
SQL Server error 823 824 825
corruption post-mortem investigation