Beginner questions to install Proxmox VE for the first time

[sidoni]

Hi,

I'm asking for your help to have another small company using Proxmox VE!

The plot:
Small company of 20 users, a new hardware server (config details here: https://framabin.org/p/?8b8f955f03bcd141#qbZKhJAeb3nH1uw5aNPHAapgOY57XdIj2nWCDdSkFLI=) and therefore a new hypervisor and VMs to install.
You wouldn't be surprised to read that usually most people recommend vmware or hyper-v in such situations, because they know them.
But I'm a free software lover since decades, so I would like to take this opportunity to install the outsider Proxmox instead of the major leaders.

The thing is that even if I am a very satisfied linux user (debian sid), have installed a lot of debian-based distros, I still know nothing about Proxmox. And in order to convince the company to choose Proxmox, I need to show them it works before next Friday (yes I know it sounds like "Mission: Impossible"!). At least by installing a working VM with 4vCPU, 16Gb RAM, 200Gb of storage for Friday.

So I have a ton of still unanswered questions like:
- should I install a debian first and then the Proxmox repository or directly a Proxmox iso? I've read the first option was recommended to have software raid (I'd like a raid 5).

- file-system: since I've a lot of ram (64Gb and can add more), should I install ZFS or just ext4 as usual? I've read that "ZFS on top of any hardware RAID is not supported and can result in data loss". And the new server has an hardware RAID card: PERC H730P+ Adapter RAID Controller, 2GB.
Besides snapshot and deduplication, what interests me with ZFS on Proxmox is this functionality: "If you have two Proxmox servers, they can use ZFS to mirror each other".

- high-availability: in case you don't recommend ZFS mirroring, it would be nice to promote the high-availability feature of Proxmox. I'll have a spare server (the old but stil working one) soon, and can reach the quorum with a Raspberry Pi or another small server. Can I add this HA feature later without having to reinstall everything?

That's all for the moment, thanks in advance for your advice to make this Mission impossible… possible! : )

 

[tim]

Great to hear that you consider Proxmox Virtual Environment.

So I have a ton of still unanswered questions like:
- should I install a debian first and then the Proxmox repository or directly a Proxmox iso? I've read the first option was recommended to have software raid (I'd like a raid 5).

Use our ISO and don't use mdraid.

- file-system: since I've a lot of ram (64Gb and can add more), should I install ZFS or just ext4 as usual? I've read that "ZFS on top of any hardware RAID is not supported and can result in data loss". And the new server has an hardware RAID card: PERC H730P+ Adapter RAID Controller, 2GB.
Besides snapshot and deduplication, what interests me with ZFS on Proxmox is this functionality: "If you have two Proxmox servers, they can use ZFS to mirror each other".

I don't know your use case and even though ZFS is most of the time a superb choice it can be a bit tricky if you never worked with it before. I would suggest to use the default installation, which will create a lvm based storage, this should as well play nice with your raid controller.

- high-availability: in case you don't recommend ZFS mirroring, it would be nice to promote the high-availability feature of Proxmox. I'll have a spare server (the old but stil working one) soon, and can reach the quorum with a Raspberry Pi or another small server. Can I add this HA feature later without having to reinstall everything?

One requirement for HA is that you use a shared storage and both options (ZFS, lvm) aren't really suitable in this context.

Spinning up a working VM shouldn't be a problem, but I would suggest that you take your time after it to really think about what this environment should be capable of e.g. minimal downtime, workload etc. and then take this into consideration when planning the production setup e.g. is a cluster needed in the near future, shared storage for easier migration...

Good luck!

Edit: take a look @ our admin guide as well: https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/pve-admin-guide.html