Do i need a NAS-grade NVME for PBS?

[Iacov]

hey

for PVE, as i understand, NAS-grade (sata and nvme) ssd's are recommended - but how about PBS?
i plan to get a cheap and small pc that handles the PBS and writes the backups to my fileserver (synology nas)

can i use a consumer-grade nvme and be relatively save?
or does pbs chew through ssds?

how do you recover your backups if pbs fails?
could i set up a new PBS instance and just hook up the nfs-share and be good?
or do i loose the integrity of the backups if the pbs fails?

 

[talos]

PBS maintanance does lots of reorganization and disk writes, that is the reason for SSDs in PBS. Cheap / non enterprise SSDs will wear out quiete fast.

 

[Iacov]

thank you - but is this writing happening on the back-up storage or on the system drive?
beucase the nvme would be the system drive and the backups are being written to my nas (with ironwolf hdds)

 

[sb-jw]

The actions take place where the data is located. It doesn't make sense to separate them, as you can no longer use the datastore if the OS fails.

You won't have any fun with PBS over the network and then on HDDs, then it's better to use it as a VM on the NAS directly or, ideally local SSDs (datacenter grade).

 

[Iacov]

i can't recover the backups if the pbs os fails? is there not way to reinstall the os and simply "hook up" the backups again and use them?
how do you backup PBS then to recover if needed?

 

[sb-jw]

You asked where all the magic happens, I explained to you that everything happens on the datastore and is also stored there. I also tried to explain to you that the separation makes no sense because otherwise the backups would be lost.

And because the magic happens on the datastore, you can reinstall PBS and simply integrate the old datastore again.

 

[Iacov]

as you can no longer use the datastore if the OS fails.

that'S what i'm refering to
as i understood, you meant the pbs os - or are you referring to the nas os?

in the theoretical case of a failing pbs OS, why could i simply integrate the old datastore, if its on the same system/drive (as you mentioned above) whilst it would be lost if os and datastore are on separate devices?

maybe important to give context: i'm talking about a homelab setup - my vms hardly amass 250gb in total (multiple vms, weekly backups, retention over several weeks). i assume that the data transfered with incremental backups is very low
i would like to store the backups on my nas, as the nas itself backs up regularely
i want a separate appliance to run PBS on, because a) i want to offload tasks from my aging nas and b) i don't know if an eventual new nas will have a hypervisor to run pbs on

 

[sukerman]

You can recover the backups. You create the datastores in PBS on ZFS on your hard drives, ideally in some sort of redundant layout. You can re-install proxmox if you like on a new NVME you will still be able to import the ZFS pools. Just keep a copy of /etc/pve/ config files to restore. You also need the copy of /etc/pve/priv on the proxmox server if you have enabled encryption.

 

[Dunuin]

for PVE, as i understand, NAS-grade (sata and nvme) ssd's are recommended - but how about PBS?

Not NAS grade but enterprise/datacenter grade would be recommended. There is a big difference between enterprise/datacenter grade SSD and prosumer(this is NAS grade)/consumer grade. Not a big differnece between NAS grade and consumer grade. Both lack the PLP for sync writes.

For a Homelab some TLC consumer SSDs should be fine for your PBS unless you want to use ZFS or other Copy-on-Write filesystems.

 

[_gabriel]

+1 Consumer SSD i
are ok for PBS Datastore without ZFS AND if daily new data are not too big of course.
PBS will write only new data so wear level will be slow.