First installation requirements / must haves

[hlab]

Hi,
I'm building very first home server and planning to install proxmox.
What are some of the things I must set correctly from/at the start?
For e.g. (2 scenarios)
I think one of the must have is:
Use redundant NVMe for OS (with ZFS, because only that allows redundancy?)

I'm assuming VMs can be re-spun if I don't like anything.

Are these understandings correct and what are other cases?

 

[Dunuin]

Use redundant NVMe for OS (with ZFS, because only that allows redundancy?)

If you care about your data and downtime, yes. But I wouldn't use NVMe for that. The PVE system disk would even run fine using two old HDDs. So that is just wasting PCIe lanes and money. Two small SATA SSDs would be totally sufficient. Also, keep in mind that ZFS is quite demanding. SSDs will wear faster and be slower so Enterprise SSDs are recommended, more RAM is needed, CPU is hit harder, ...
But in case you also plan to store the virtual disks on the system disks, then NVMe might be a good choice. Just keep in mind that you are quite limited in storage capacity when using M.2 as you should avoid QLC NAND and the capacitors of the power-loss protection of enterprise SSDs also got a big footprint.

Also make sure to have some RAM expandability. RAM is usually what runs out first, as you can't overprovision it. And I would buy a machine with enough drive slots that you don't need to use USB-disks, as these are not that reliable.

 

[hlab]

If you care about your data and downtime, yes. But I wouldn't use NVMe for that. The PVE system disk would even run fine using two old HDDs. So that is just wasting PCIe lanes and money. Two small SATA SSDs would be totally sufficient. Also, keep in mind that ZFS is quite demanding. SSDs will wear faster and be slower so Enterprise SSDs are recommended, more RAM is needed, CPU is hit harder, ...
But in case you also plan to store the virtual disks on the system disks, then NVMe might be a good choice. Just keep in mind that you are quite limited in storage capacity when using M.2 as you should avoid QLC NAND and the capacitors of the power-loss protection of enterprise SSDs also got a big footprint.

Also make sure to have some RAM expandability. RAM is usually what runs out first, as you can't overprovision it. And I would buy a machine with enough drive slots that you don't need to use USB-disks, as these are not that reliable.

Thanks a lot.
Yes I'm thinking of going with VMs and core OS on OS drive and was looking at TLC NVMe, NVMe mostly cause it doesn't take much space.
Going to use all HDD slots for data drives.
Also counting expenses as one time spending towards home improvement so not limiting myself much (doesn't mean I get infinite resources though )