Eliminating TrueNAS and achieving feature parity using Turnkey-FS and PBS

[vanity2761]

I will soon be building a new system (dead Synology box) and would prefer to have everything integrated into a single unit, rather than adhering to the best practice of separating the PVE and TrueNAS, mainly due to budget constraints. Despite the recommended approach, I aim to create a powerful latest and greatest machine capable of handling future CTs and VMs. Therefore, I am considering opting for a non-ECC DDR5 RAM motherboard (again budget constraints) with the latest i5-14500 and a consumer-grade B760M motherboard.

I have a blueprint of what I want to achieve before I make the purchase.

is it possible to eliminate truenas by:

1. making a ZFS pool on the Proxmox itself (using 4 WD Red drives connected to onboard SATA controllers)
2. make 3 basic datasets/directories vm-lxc-disks, common-sharables and backups
3. install turnkey-file server LXC on vm-lxc-disks to serve files and folders to via NFS/SMB from sharabales
4. install PBS VM on vm-lxc-disks
5. incrementally backup sharables and vm-lxc-disks using PBS in backups (I guess this will be the point-in-time snapshot equivalent in TrueNAS)

Some ancillary doubts that I have:

1. Can Proxmox scrub the ZFS pool drives to ensure data integrity?
2. what is the best way for replicating these incremental backup snapshots created by PBS to an external HDD and an off-site B2 bucket?
3. What possible features could I miss from TrueNAS if I go the trinity PVE+TurnKeyFS+PBS route?

Thank you in advance!

 

[alexskysilk]

1. making a ZFS pool on the Proxmox itself (using 4 WD Red drives connected to onboard SATA controllers)

yes

2. make 3 basic datasets/directories vm-lxc-disks, common-sharables and backups

yes

3. install turnkey-file server LXC on vm-lxc-disks to serve files and folders to via NFS/SMB from sharabales

yes. in your case, might not even be necessary- you can just run nfs-kernel-server and samba on the host.

install PBS VM on vm-lxc-disks

while this is possible, it serves almost no purpose... what utility do you expect to gain from hosting your backups on the same hardware as your production?

incrementally backup sharables and vm-lxc-disks using PBS in backups (I guess this will be the point-in-time snapshot equivalent in TrueNAS)

No reason to do that in backups (see above.) just have a snapshot schedule, which will have the added benefit of being accessible via "previous versions" on windows network guests.

 

[leesteken]

while this is possible, it serves almost no purpose... what utility do you expect to gain from hosting your backups on the same hardware as your production?

I installed PBS in a container for very quick hourly backups (in case I accidentally delete a file) and sync only daily (remotely over a slow network, in case the PVE system breaks down).

 

[alexskysilk]

Thats what snapshots are for.

 

[vanity2761]

I know I could have installed nfs-kernel-server and samba on the host, but I would the hypervisor to be as clean as possible, hence a turnkey-fs that will manage NFS exports and ACLs.

Apologies as, I'm not well versed with the PBS but PVE. Having said that, can I make use of an ext4 formatted external HDD connected via USB to install PBS and store snapshots on it? How can these snapshots be replicated to an offsite cloud?

For scrubbing the ZFS pool created by PVE, do I need to manually trigger a script using crontabs? Is there a native method in PVE for SMART monitoring of the physical devices?

 

[dMopp]

You can use an external HDD as backup target, yes. (Add as datastore. Directly or as mount point inside pbs)

 

[Dunuin]

For scrubbing the ZFS pool created by PVE, do I need to manually trigger a script using crontabs? Is there a native method in PVE for SMART monitoring of the physical devices?

PVE is using the OpenZFS defaults and will scrub the pools once per month. For smart have a look at "smartd" for notifications.