Got some questions about my future server computer

[Exor]

Hello, I am new to Proxmox and really interested in it. But after researching, it seems better to keep my Synology NAS for NAS and server computer for VMs/Plex.

First of all, here's the spec that I will be building in next week:
x2 Intel Xeon E5-2670 V3
x2 Noctua NH-D9DX i4 3U heatsink
x1 Supermicro X10DRH-CT motherboard
x4 16gb RDIMM ECC
x1 GT 710 2GB Low Profile
x1 WD Red 8TB 5400 RPM (for VMs)
x1 Samsung 960 Pro 512GB (for Proxmox)
x1 Corsair CX750M 750w PSU
x1 Antec P101 case

This will be my first server computer that has Xeon. My Plex is running inside Synology NAS which apparently is very weak when transcoding videos with subtitles.

So my plan with the server computer I am building is Plex + NAS (media files and storage for VMs) + VMs. VMs for some game servers. With all this, is Proxmox worth it? Or should I pursue for other method? Should I keep Synology NAS for media files and Plex in a VM within the server computer? Also I would like to be able to add a new hard drive into raid later when storage is approaching to full. I was thinking to put everything into a single server computer.

Any help/suggestion/recommendation is helpful.

Thank you.

 

[Dominic]

Proxmox VE can do all tasks that you mentioned fine. What might not be fun is running VMs on a 5400 RPM drive instead of a SSD.

 

[Exor]

Proxmox VE can do all tasks that you mentioned fine. What might not be fun is running VMs on a 5400 RPM drive instead of a SSD.

VMs running on 5400 RPM made me realize. lol I bought it mainly for NAS but now that you mentioned it. I might as well use the 512GB SSD instead. I will have to buy maybe 120gb or 250gb for Proxmox?

How much capacity of SSD (raid as well for future) should I get for VMs?

 

[Dominic]

120gb or 250gb for Proxmox?

That should be easily sufficient. You can create a bootable Proxmox VE installation on about 10GB of storage space.

How much capacity of SSD (raid as well for future) should I get for VMs?

That's hard for us to guess. What might be worth a look is thin-provisioning and how easy it is for you to add drives to the different storage types that Proxmox VE supports natively: https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Storage

 

[Exor]

That should be easily sufficient. You can create a bootable Proxmox VE installation on about 10GB of storage space.

I can just buy 120gb and use it for this.

That's hard for us to guess. What might be worth a look is thin-provisioning and how easy it is for you to add drives to the different storage types that Proxmox VE supports natively: https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Storage

That's a very good read. Thin provisioning is an interesting concept. It is similar to raid but I wonder if all drives that I want to be part of the thin provisioning will need to be in same pool correct?

For example ZFS (SSD) with thin provisioning for VMs and NFS (HDD) with thin provisioning for media files for Plex. With thin provisioning, I can add an empty SSD or HDD to respective storage system's pool?

 

[Dominic]

You can add devices to the zpool (increase the size of the ZFS storage) when thin provisioning is activated in Proxmox VE for the ZFS storage.

You can try this by creating a VM on whatever you are currently using and install Proxmox VE into it. By adding some disks to the PVE VM you can test the storage commands. You could even create a VM with Proxmox VE to easily create disks etc. and in there run another VM with Proxmox VE to test the ZFS stuff and then there run some VMs with gameservers.

 

[Exor]

You can add devices to the zpool (increase the size of the ZFS storage) when thin provisioning is activated in Proxmox VE for the ZFS storage.

That seems easier than I thought.

You can try this by creating a VM on whatever you are currently using and install Proxmox VE into it. By adding some disks to the PVE VM you can test the storage commands. You could even create a VM with Proxmox VE to easily create disks etc. and in there run another VM with Proxmox VE to test the ZFS stuff and then there run some VMs with gameservers.

My server computer components are almost all ready so I will just wait until the last few components to arrive then I will play around with Proxmox. I like how thin-provisioning work. I think it's really cool feature!

One more question: After creating three hard drives with ZFS and put them in a single zpool then is it possible if I create another VM that run FreeNAS and attach the zpool to FreeNAS VM?

I wanted to ask about amount of resources needed for Plex to transcode 1080p up to ~4 people at same time but this forum might not be the right place to ask?

 

[PigLover]

If your primary issue is Plex transcoding then the dual 2670s might not be the best choice. It will be a world better than you got on the Synology, but transcoding really works best on a GPU.

Either (a) add a good Nvidia GPU to this project and pass it through to the Plex VM for transcoding (you'll have to run the special Nvidia image of Plex) or (b) save a ton of money and go with a single-CPU E-22xx series system with an on-die Intel GPU. Even the little on-die iGPU will run circles around the dual-2670 for Plex transcoding.

You weren't real clear on requirements for the other VMs so its not clear if the E-22xx platform would handle the other workloads. Also the Intel iGPU is a PITA to passthough with Proxmox. There are other ways to handle that - but as this is a Proxmox forum I won't start with non-Proxmox solutions here. Easy enough for you to research though.

 

[Exor]

If your primary issue is Plex transcoding then the dual 2670s might not be the best choice. It will be a world better than you got on the Synology, but transcoding really works best on a GPU.

Either (a) add a good Nvidia GPU to this project and pass it through to the Plex VM for transcoding (you'll have to run the special Nvidia image of Plex) or (b) save a ton of money and go with a single-CPU E-22xx series system with an on-die Intel GPU. Even the little on-die iGPU will run circles around the dual-2670 for Plex transcoding.

You weren't real clear on requirements for the other VMs so its not clear if the E-22xx platform would handle the other workloads. Also the Intel iGPU is a PITA to passthough with Proxmox. There are other ways to handle that - but as this is a Proxmox forum I won't start with non-Proxmox solutions here. Easy enough for you to research though.

I have a GTX 1660 Ti in a little server computer I have. Would that work better if I put it in this server computer? Should I go for cheaper Quadro card instead?

My current requirements are just Plex and game servers mostly for modded Minecraft (several servers of this) and some other in future such as Satisfactory (maybe two servers of this). Possibly a web server, I don't know how it works in Proxmox but I would imagine it will be possible and obviously I will research for this. After all this, it's unknown what I will be doing with the rest of resources. Maybe I will find something to add in future.

My main goal is to put everything I have, the little server and Synology NAS, into a single server computer.

 

[Fossi]

Hello folks.

We just struggling with installing Plex weather in VM or Container (debian buster) or xpenology NAS VM. It seems, that the plexserver / VM needs something special to configure. The Plex login side directly foreward to plex.tv for login and after that it isn't possible to configure the server. It gets a behavior like a client side. Could someone of the plex specialist spend a little handup for us to get it working? Do we need some special kind of cpu, gpu or storage to tell the server to become a server?

Thx - Fossi

 

[Dominic]

weather in VM or Container (debian buster) or xpenology NAS VM. It seems, that the plexserver / VM needs something special to configure

I suggest you also ask this in some Plex forum. If this happens independently of your hypervisor and seems to be a Plex configuration problem then you might be more successful there.

 

[Fossi]

Oh - I solved the problem for now - i have to excuse, that I havn't posted it yet.

For the others who get in the same trouble: The first initialisation of the plex server (configuration steps) must be done from the same subnet. If it is not, the installation becomes an else behavior, like a plex client registration.

So have a good time with plex - Fossi