First Proxmox homelab build - sanity check on hardware, service layout, and storage

[halfdan1988]

Hi everyone,
TL;DR: Planning my first Proxmox home lab build and looking for a sanity check on the hardware and service layout before I commit.

I've been researching a lot, and I'm a bit torn between official documentation - which I assume mostly targets professional setups - and what homelabbers actually do. I'm not looking to cut corners for the sake of it: I want to get as close to a "proper" setup as I reasonably can. At the same time, I don't have the resources to roll out the full enterprise recommendation list, and I'm not sure if that would even be the right call for a home lab. So I'd appreciate input on where it makes sense to invest and where consumer-grade is fine.

Proxmox Host:

• CPU: Intel i3-14100
• RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws V 32GB (2×16GB) DDR4 3200 MHz (non-ECC)
• HDDs: 2× Seagate IronWolf Pro 16TB

PBS (Proxmox Backup Server):

• Model: Dell Optiplex 7060 Micro
• CPU: Intel i3-8100T
• RAM: 2×4GB (planning to upgrade to 2×8GB, or 2×16GB if it makes sense)

Spare SSDs on hand:

• Crucial BX500 240GB (new, originally planned as host OS disk - now considering it for PBS OS instead)
• Corsair Force MP510 480GB (NVMe, from an old build)
• Samsung 860 EVO 1TB (SATA, from an old build)

My Plan regarding services looks roughly like this:

VMs:

arr-vm (docker compose)

• Sonarr
• Radarr
• Jellyseerr
• Prowlarr
• Bazarr
• SABnzbd

media-vm (docker compose, iGPU passthrough)

• Jellyfin
• Immich

apps-vm (docker compose)

• OwnTracks Recorder
• OwnTracks Frontend
• Linkding

nextcloud-vm

• Nextcloud

LXCs:

• Samba
• Caddy
• AdGuard Home
• Beszel
• Uptime Kuma
• Scrutiny
• Mosquitto
• Vaultwarden
• Kavita

Questions:

Service layout

• Is the general split between VMs and LXCs reasonable, or would you run some of these differently?

Hardware

• What should I change or supplement?
• Is a mirror for the host OS only useful for availability, or are there other reasons to do it? (I can live with some downtime.)
• Where should I source enterprise-grade SSDs (for OS and/or VM storage)? Any specific models you'd recommend?
• Can I reuse any of the old disks I listed, or would you discourage that?

Storage / ZFS config

• Is a special vdev (mirrored) recommended for the HDD pool and/or PBS?
• For PBS: assuming it's used for backups/snapshots of the VMs and LXCs above, how much storage should I plan for? Any rule of thumb for calculating this based on my setup?

Power

• Do I need a UPS for this build? If so, what should I look for, and how should I wire up graceful shutdown for the host and PBS?

Thanks in advance!

 

[bl1mp]

Hi halfdan1988,

just a few incomplete thoughts on the setup:

Service distribution VMs/LXCs seems reasonable
Just save yourself the pain ato run docker (and equivalents) in VMs instead of LXC.
Currently most oft my workload is imported from OCI images as LXCs - that saves overhead and I can use prebuild formats for most Software. - but this may heavily depend on the Software.
E.g. for Filesharing I gave in on keeping Nextcloud clients and server version sin sync - so we switched to SFTPGo on LXC with WebDAV+sshfs support. - Works very smooth so far.

With zfs you should be at least aware of the the ECC-RAM topic. BTRFS with RAID1 could be a alternative. With BTRFS you might also like to look into a bcache setup - which also enables hot and cold data tiering.

Depending.on your downtime.and restore requirements, you could basically install PBS an PVE on the same host and use external disks as removable data stores, for offsite copies.
You should use the PBS, with the dedup feature your backups will save a certain amount of disk space over time used with immich and data sharing. The initial dedup rate will depend on the data structure.

I word recommend a (overhauled) enterprise server board (maybe passive cooled) in favour of the alibaba ones, for the peace of mind. They usually ship with enough sata, network and PCI ports, too. The Power consumpt of Board and CPU should be suitable for the environment.

I am using a simple USV, which saved me at least one time. There are different models, with different functions. On the one hand they are supposed to deliver power, during a power loss on the other hand they can help to stabilize the grid frequence, if it deviates. Depending on the local grid, that might be useful.

The family is considering the home server as very useful, we also run the home automation on it.
For proper segregation and configuration the ISP router basically got reduced to an uplink modem and routing for internal is done via a vyos, former OpenWRT, vm linked to WiFi Access Points and enables granular VPN configuration. This also saved several headeaches on discussions with ISP during uplink outtakes.

Concerning the disk hardware, monitoring might be of interest. Gotify ships with a CLI, enabling the usage in notification scripts for alertings, e.g. the SMART Values of ssds. Reliable recommendations for disks are difficult, in times of product piracy. I am using regular WD blue, which is work fine so far.

BR, Lucas