Advices and comments on planned proxmox/ZFS config

[sebastien chanson]

Hi all,

I am on the process of setting a small proxmox virtualisation server (around 10 linux vms). I am new to this kind of setup I was working on vmware before.
I read throught the doc and forum which answered most of my questions there is however few shadowy points.

• Disk setups

Looking at the proxmox/ZFS doc I ordered an HP DL360-G9 (old but cheap) without raid hardware. I planned:

• 2 disks for the OS in first RAID1 ZFS volume (SSD HPE 240GB SATA 6G Read Intensive SFF)
• 4 disks for the data in second RAIDZ1 ZFS volume (SSD HPE 1.92TB SATA 6G Mixed Use SFF)

This is were I have few question:

1. Reading the documentation ZFS on Linux , should I play around with volblocksize or ashift parameters to improve data/parity ratio. Maybe I should reconsider and move the RAIDZ1 in 2 RAID1 but I will lose one disk worth of space....
2. I read few thing around ZFS loging and journal, my SSD read intensive for the OS is maybe not indicated, as the journal is write intensive. Should I look into moving the journal to the RAIDZ1 pool? Is that only possible?

As I am new to proxmox I might have understood things the wrong way and there is a better solution for my config, feel free to comment.

Thanks for your help.

Side note, references I have read but I do not feel that I have understood fully.
https://pthree.org/2012/12/06/zfs-administration-part-iii-the-zfs-intent-log/
https://www.proxmox.com/en/downloads/item/proxmox-ve-zfs-benchmark-2020

Edit:
I might have found partial answer there for RAIDZ1.

 

[sebastien chanson]

It turns out my server had an internal P440ar raid controler and it turns out ZFS with the card in HBA mode is not a good idea. https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/proxmox-zfs-hp-p440ar-on-hba-mode.60625/
I finally used the raid controler and XFS file systèmes.

I will probably try ZFS if I add a node and buy a dedicated HBA card for that node.