Proxmox VE is an impressive platform, and what the team is doing is genuinely valuable. I've been running it on one node and was about to deploy it more widely - a second and maybe third node, with plans to cluster. But the lack of built-in host backup is making me reconsider.
Part of what makes this gap stand out is that Proxmox VE presents itself as an appliance - installer, web UI, integrated VM/CT management, scheduled backups for guests, datacenter-level configuration. Users reasonably expect appliance-like behavior, including straightforward backup and restore of the appliance itself. When "backup" turns out to mean "guests only, figure out the host yourself," it's a jarring mismatch with the rest of the experience.
Cluster replication is sometimes offered as the answer, but clustering is not a backup any more than RAID is. The community workarounds (custom scripts, Clonezilla with its various gotchas, manual config.db dances) aren't trustworthy enough to depend on for disaster recovery. Documentation that implies "full backups" while only covering VMs compounds the problem. This has been raised consistently with no movement for years.
After spending considerable time trying to set up reliable host backup/restore on my existing node, I'm walking that back. I'm now evaluating plain Linux + KVM for my new machines instead, and won't be expanding Proxmox usage based on what I've found so far.
I want the Proxmox team to know this is what's driving at least one user away - from a multi-node deployment.
Part of what makes this gap stand out is that Proxmox VE presents itself as an appliance - installer, web UI, integrated VM/CT management, scheduled backups for guests, datacenter-level configuration. Users reasonably expect appliance-like behavior, including straightforward backup and restore of the appliance itself. When "backup" turns out to mean "guests only, figure out the host yourself," it's a jarring mismatch with the rest of the experience.
Cluster replication is sometimes offered as the answer, but clustering is not a backup any more than RAID is. The community workarounds (custom scripts, Clonezilla with its various gotchas, manual config.db dances) aren't trustworthy enough to depend on for disaster recovery. Documentation that implies "full backups" while only covering VMs compounds the problem. This has been raised consistently with no movement for years.
After spending considerable time trying to set up reliable host backup/restore on my existing node, I'm walking that back. I'm now evaluating plain Linux + KVM for my new machines instead, and won't be expanding Proxmox usage based on what I've found so far.
I want the Proxmox team to know this is what's driving at least one user away - from a multi-node deployment.