LK Wood IV — Author Archive

About the author

Lowell K. Wood IV (byline: LK Wood IV) writes the homelab, PC build, GPU, networking, and self-hosting guides on TechFuel HQ from St. Louis County, Missouri. About thirteen years of homelab and PC tinkering experience, with a focus on cost-of-ownership, power consumption, and the configurations that hold up after the first weekend.

Every article on this archive was bench-tested or reference-verified by LK Wood IV before publishing. Research uses ChatGPT Deep Research, drafting uses Claude Opus, but every measurement, every recommendation, and every byline is reviewed and signed off by a human. The full publishing methodology is on the colophon page.

Contact: hello@techfuelhq.com Location: St. Louis County, Missouri, United States More about the author: About TechFuel HQ

All articles by LK Wood IV

Articles below sorted by publish date, newest first. Each entry shows date, category, and a one-line summary.

Networking

• The 2026 Homelab Firewall & Router Stack: pfSense vs OPNsense vs MikroTik vs UniFi — 2026-05-08, Networking — pfSense Plus, OPNsense 25.10, MikroTik RouterOS 7, and UniFi 4.1 compared on a real homelab bench: throughput, IDS, multi-WAN, and where each one falls down.
• 10Gbps Home Networking on a Budget: A 2026 Guide for Homelabbers — 2026-05-06, Networking — Real 2026 prices, watts, and driver gotchas. Three 10GbE tiers, four switches compared, plus a verdict on who should skip 10G.
• 10GbE Homelab Networking 2026: Budget Build Guide — 2026-05-01, Networking — Build a 10GbE homelab link for $50 with used Mellanox ConnectX-3 cards and DACs. Plus why 2.5GbE is enough for most builds.

Homelab

• Proxmox vs TrueNAS vs Unraid Storage Backends 2026: ZFS, btrfs, and the IOPS That Matter — 2026-05-07, Homelab — ZFS vs btrfs vs ZFS-on-Unraid: RAIDZ vs mirrors, NVMe SLOG, ARC and L2ARC tuning, and real homelab IOPS.
• 2026 Homelab Gear That Beats 2025’s Picks: Pricing, Power, Benchmarks — 2026-05-04, Homelab — Mini PCs, NAS boards, switches, and SFF servers that outperform 2025’s favorites. Real prices, real watt draw, real benchmarks.
• Best Mini PC for a Homelab 2026: MS-01, NUC, SFF — 2026-05-01, Homelab — The best mini PC for a homelab in 2026 by budget: MS-01 for 10GbE, ASUS NUC 14 for low idle, used OptiPlex under $200.
• Turn an Old Gaming PC Into a Server (2026 Guide) — 2026-05-01, Homelab — Step-by-step turning a 2018-era gaming PC into a Proxmox VE 8 homelab server. BIOS, install, GPU passthrough, idle wattage.
• Proxmox vs TrueNAS vs Unraid 2026: Which to Run — 2026-03-30, Homelab — Proxmox VE 8, TrueNAS Community Edition 25.10, and Unraid 7 compared — license, ZFS, Docker, clustering, and a clear pick per use case.

PC Builds

• The $1,500 RTX 5060 Ti Mid-Range 1440p Build for 2026 — 2026-05-06, PC Builds — A real $1,500 build with RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, Ryzen 7 7700, 32GB DDR5-6000, 2TB Gen4. May 2026 prices, parts list, and 1440p benchmarks.

GPU Reviews

• RTX 5060 Ti vs RX 9060 XT: The Honest 1440p Showdown for 2026 — 2026-05-06, GPU Reviews — 16GB vs 16GB. DLSS 4 vs FSR 4. RT vs raster. Real 2026 prices, 1440p FPS in eight games, and a verdict by use case.
• RTX 5060 vs RX 9060 XT: The Budget GPU Showdown — 2026-03-30, GPU Reviews — Real benchmarks, real prices, and an honest verdict on RTX 5060 (8GB) vs RX 9060 XT (16GB). Which to buy in 2026.

Tutorials

• How to Self-Host a Local LLM on a Single RTX 5060 in 2026 — 2026-05-06, Tutorials — Run a private LLM on a $300 RTX 5060. VRAM tradeoffs, software picks, setup, real tokens/sec, and an honest verdict.

Self-Hosted

• Best Self-Hosted Apps 2026: 12 That Replace SaaS — 2026-05-01, Self-Hosted — The 12 best self-hosted apps in 2026: Immich, Nextcloud, Vaultwarden, Jellyfin, and 8 more. Compose files, hardware needs.

Tools

• Homelab + PC Build Budget Builder — 2026-05-04, Tool — Sort GPUs, NAS, and networking gear by budget and what you actually need. Real 2026 prices, real watt draw, honest verdicts.

Verification

This archive page exists so that anyone — readers, search engines, AdSense reviewers — can verify that articles signed LK Wood IV are written by a real, named person who is responsible for what they say. The same verification trail is in the public colophon and the /ops/ canonical state directory.

Last verified: 2026-05-08 by LK Wood IV.