merox

Your infrastructure, run like my own.

I build, monitor and document servers, networks and backups, and I’m selective about the work I take on. What I deliver is built to last; AI helps, but I check every change myself.

in production
8 years
servers in my care
250+
GPU clusters
A100, H100

Work with me Read the notes

Portrait of me in glasses and a dark shirt against a dark wall
Robert Melcher, Linux and infrastructure engineer in Timișoara. Working remotely across the EU.

Career

Hundreds of servers set up and run in eight years. Today, GPU clusters of A100s and H100s on InfiniBand and the Linux and Windows servers around them; before that, firewalls and privileged access at Atos, and Linux with Puppet at Netex.

8 years

  1. Computer ScienceWest University of Timișoara
  2. Systems AdministratorNetex Romania
  3. CCNA — the journey
  4. Cyber Security EngineerAtos IT Solutions
  5. FounderDolphost
  6. HPC Systems AdministratorForvia
  7. Industrial SCADA platformClient project

The full CV, as a PDF

The rack at home

Drawn from the front: three small Proxmox hosts, one Kubernetes cluster, and a backup server that is off most of the day. It all comes back from a git repository in about 35 minutes. Take the homelab tour

The rack at home, drawn from the front: a Dell R730xd on top with a printer on it; under it, a Synology NAS beside three small Proxmox hosts stacked on a shelf; below, a UPS, a plant with glasses, and spares: a power supply and disks for the R730xd, SAS disks and a cable tester.65 W482 mm

Latest notes

  1. Spinning Down SAS Disks

    SAS drives ignore ATA standby and the usual tools quietly stop working on them. What actually parks them, and a script that keeps them parked.

  2. Offsite Backup to Oracle Cloud with restic

    An encrypted offsite backup on an Oracle Cloud Always Free instance, no dependencies — in place of a HyperBackup setup that needed a working DSM to restore.

  3. How AI Fed My Anxiety Without Asking

    How AI quietly consumed my focus, patience, and mental space — and what I did about it.

All 24 notesCommands I keep looking up

Write to me.

About a post, the homelab, or infrastructure of your own.

hello@merox.dev or see how I work