Best practice for homelab storage

[-RYknow]

I'm hoping for some input and guidance on the best options for my situation. I have a dell r610, with an LSI 9200-8e, and a Lenovo SA120. I also have a dedicated freenas box with 6x 4tb drives. Ultimately my goal is to pull the drives from my current freenas box, move them into the DAS, and have proxmox (either at the host level, a VM or a container) handle the sharing of the pool I currently have setup. I'm a noob with proxmox and my research has left me feeling more confused.

For testing purposes I have a couple of WD 1tb Black drives that I'm using (want to figure out how/what I'm doing before I move all my data over). I initially setup a freenas VM and passed the drives through to the VM, My network transfer speeds (via cifs) was pretty crappy (~44 MB/sec). I did a bit of testing with hdparm to one of the drives in the DAS and was getting 108 MB/sec. The drives were configured in a mirror, so maybe that's why I had a hit in performance? But, none the less, it seemed a little slow for me. So I started researching.

I know that zfs is supported natively on Proxmox, but I'm just wondering what the best, most reliable way to add NAS like features is?

• Am I better off to create a zfs mirror from within proxmox, and share it directly over my network from there?
• Should I create the mirror, and then use a container to manage the sharing?
• Is a VM the better option, and if so, how do I get better performance?

Again, which ever is the best option will need to be something that works easily to import my raidz2 dataset currently sitting in my dedicated Freenas box. I'm hoping for some guidance on how to achieve which ever is the better option. Like I said before, I'm a noob with proxmox.

Thanks for your time.
-RYknow

 

[gosha]

Hi!

I would try ZFS (from freenas) over iSCSI.



https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Storage:_ZFS_over_iSCSI

 

[-RYknow]

Hi!

I would try ZFS (from freenas) over iSCSI.

View attachment 5628

https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Storage:_ZFS_over_iSCSI

So, is that to say I should be using a freenas VM? I see people suggesting using the native zfs support and running a container for the sharing portion. Just confused as to what is the best method.

Thanks,
-RYknow

 

[gosha]

So, is that to say I should be using a freenas VM? I see people suggesting using the native zfs support and running a container for the sharing portion. Just confused as to what is the best method.

Thanks,
-RYknow

Using freenas VM? No!
Here are two reasonable choices. IMHO.
1-st - install Proxmox (via iso-installer) on ZFS and use ZFS direct for VMs and CTs.
2-nd - connect created on freenas ZFS-storage via iSCSI or via ZFS_over_iSCSI (if this possible for freenas - via "iSCSI target implementation plugin" for ZFS) and use it for VMs and CTs.

Or maybe I just misunderstand set goal?

 

[-RYknow]

Using freenas VM? No!
Here are two reasonable choices. IMHO.
1-st - install Proxmox (via iso-installer) on ZFS and use ZFS direct for VMs and CTs.
2-nd - connect created on freenas ZFS-storage via iSCSI or via ZFS_over_iSCSI (if this possible for freenas - via "iSCSI target implementation plugin" for ZFS) and use it for VMs and CTs.

Or maybe I just misunderstand set goal?

I have Proxmox installed on the server currently, so that part is all set. I'm just wondering what the best way to incorporate a direct attached storage unit is. I need to be able to add my current raidz2 setup to the das, and then share that over my network. Somewhere someone had mentioned importing my current raidz2 directly to the host, and then using the filesystem turnkey CT? Does that make sense?

Sorry if I'm sounding confused... I am confused as to what the best way to do this is. haha.

-RYknow

 

[gosha]

Hi!

What network connections this DAS supports? I did't find any information...
Maybe I'm bad looking?

I need to be able to add my current raidz2 setup to the das.

What does it mean? Direct connection this DAS to server with Proxmox VE or network connection?

 

[-RYknow]

Hi!

What network connections this DAS supports? I did't find any information...
Maybe I'm bad looking?

The DAS doesn't connect directly to the network. It's connected directly to my proxmox server via the LSI 9200-8e (and a cable).

What does it mean? Direct connection this DAS to server with Proxmox VE or network connection?

When I say I'm trying to share the DAS drives over the network, I mean through proxmox. Is my best option to use a VM for sharing, or a CT? Whats the easiest, more reliable way?

Thanks,
-RYknow

 

[udo]

Hi,
it's depends how your setup looks like (and looks like in some month!).
An free-nas box with iscsi, like gosha suggested, is very good to provide shared storage.
If you have more than one proxmox-ve host you want to have shared/distributed storage to use live-migration between the nodes.
shared/distributed storage mean, storage, which can be used on different nodes (nfs, iSCSI/FC-SAN, SAS, drbd, ceph, sheepdog).

If you stay for an long time with an single pve-host you can simply use the storage as local-storage (hw-raid, or zfs).

Udo

 

[-RYknow]

Hi,
it's depends how your setup looks like (and looks like in some month!).
An free-nas box with iscsi, like gosha suggested, is very good to provide shared storage.
If you have more than one proxmox-ve host you want to have shared/distributed storage to use live-migration between the nodes.
shared/distributed storage mean, storage, which can be used on different nodes (nfs, iSCSI/FC-SAN, SAS, drbd, ceph, sheepdog).

If you stay for an long time with an single pve-host you can simply use the storage as local-storage (hw-raid, or zfs).

Udo

Thanks for the response! I only have one proxmox-ve host, and I plan to stick with just the one for the foreseeable future. If I simply use local storage, whats the best way to share over the network. I'm currently using two drives for testing, as I found performance to be less than I was expecting. The drive that are currently in my freenas box are 6x 4tb drives, and they are configured in a raidz2. Whats the easiest way to export my pool, move the drives over to the DAS, and then configure all my shares again? I'm hoping to not have to wipe the drives and build it from the ground up if I can avoid it.

-RYknow

 

[gosha]

When I say I'm trying to share the DAS drives over the network, I mean through proxmox. Is my best option to use a VM for sharing, or a CT? Whats the easiest, more reliable way?

The easiest and more reliable way sharing DAS direct connected to PVE-server (for 1-node PVE) - share via NFS server
started directly on PVE-server (apt-get install nfs-kernel-server). Without VM or CT.
Slightly more difficult - create iSCSI-target directly on PVE-server.
In standard installed CT - will be no possibility start NFS-server (for security reasons) - needs to edit the CT-config.
VM with NFS-server - easy way but why is it necessary for single-node PVE?

Best regards,
Gosha