h/w suggestion

[chudak]

Need to get some advice from this forum.

I am thinking to build a box to host VMs/Containers for home/small buz use.
Nothing too powerful, want to host several say 2-3 Windows and 2-3 Linux VMs, possible to move pfSense to it

I like Intel NUCs I7 - they come with 32 GB RAM max.
I’d prefer 64GB, some people were saying that it’s possible for specific memory types (not sure if true?)

Will NUC8i7beh vs NUC7i7BNH make big difference ?

What would be best choice for proxmox ?

Thx

 

[chudak]

I guess it was a bad quest it was a bad question since I got no reply

One more thing here, will one drive be enough or I need one to proxmox itself and one for VMs storage?

Thx

 

[LnxBil]

I guess it was a bad quest it was a bad question since I got no reply

Often, people state question like yours and they most probably will get a response like this: "It depends" - because it does.

Knowing you're running 4-6 VMs of any kind of OS is just not enough to say if it'll be performant and that is the real question. The information you provided is just not enough to make any recommendation besides it should work.
If you have not enough RAM, you cannot assign more to your VMs. If you have not enough disk space, you cannot have more disk space in your guests. If you have not enough IOPS, your VMs will not be fast. Running pfsense is best if you have separated nics, it works on a VLANed setup, but it'll require a supporting switch.
Always use RAIDed storage, it'll solve the main issue of any running computer system: hardware storage failure. Therefore, I suggest to buy two identically-sized SSDs for the machine and go with ZFS (the only supported software raid solution in PVE).

 

[Jarvar]

Need to get some advice from this forum.

I am thinking to build a box to host VMs/Containers for home/small buz use.
Nothing too powerful, want to host several say 2-3 Windows and 2-3 Linux VMs, possible to move pfSense to it

I like Intel NUCs I7 - they come with 32 GB RAM max.
I’d prefer 64GB, some people were saying that it’s possible for specific memory types (not sure if true?)

Will NUC8i7beh vs NUC7i7BNH make big difference ?

What would be best choice for proxmox ?

Thx

I have read in a few places that the Intel NUCs ever since 6th generation are capable of handling 64GB of ram, you just need to find the more expensive 32GB modules. I think Samsung makes them. https://kacangisnuts.com/2019/04/yes-intel-nuc-8i5beh-accepts-64-gb-ram/

 

[Jarvar]

Often, people state question like yours and they most probably will get a response like this: "It depends" - because it does.

Knowing you're running 4-6 VMs of any kind of OS is just not enough to say if it'll be performant and that is the real question. The information you provided is just not enough to make any recommendation besides it should work.
If you have not enough RAM, you cannot assign more to your VMs. If you have not enough disk space, you cannot have more disk space in your guests. If you have not enough IOPS, your VMs will not be fast. Running pfsense is best if you have separated nics, it works on a VLANed setup, but it'll require a supporting switch.
Always use RAIDed storage, it'll solve the main issue of any running computer system: hardware storage failure. Therefore, I suggest to buy two identically-sized SSDs for the machine and go with ZFS (the only supported software raid solution in PVE).

Have you had any experience with these? I know the NUC8i7BEH handles an M.2 slot as well as a 2.5" SATA connection, so the SSD sizes could be matches but they would be different formats. Would that make any difference?

 

[guletz]

Hi,

Pls. read again what @LnxBil said for you. Start from your load, and then go to find the proper hardware for this. Do not try to find hardware first, it will be a mistake. Also think for future ... maybe you will need to add more VM/CT?