Help request: The basics of setting up HW RAID 5 as Proxmox storage

[gregwbrooks]

Sorry for the very newbie questions but:

1. Strictly in terms of performance, would Directory or LVM-thinpool be the better option for a virtual disk running RAID5 with a hardware controller? (I'm only worried about performance rather than features like snapshotting.)
2. Can some kind person walk me through (or point me to a grade-school guide for) setting up that virtual disk (SDB in the image) for your preferred option? Google's AI-generated slop always assumes I want to start by creating the RAID array or has other inconsistencies with this actual situation, and I don't want to screw it up.

(RAID controller is H730 mini, which I'm told doesn't handle true passthrough well; that's why I'm not considering ZFS.)

Image below: Actual disk layout. PVE host running on SDA; want to use SDB for all other storage -- live VMs, ISOs, you name it. Partitions are as created by Proxmox and the H730 during initialization.)

Thanks!

 

[waltar]

But there's somethink strange as partitions are NOT as created by Proxmox !
If you create from dell raid ctrl. menue a raid1 set out of two disks you got 1 virtual disk eg as sda (other 3x 1TB disks unshown).
After installing pve you got 3 partitions (sda1-3, bios, efi, lvm) and no part5 and NO any labels of linux_raid_member !
After pve is installed install perccli (dell download) and create your raid5, don't need label nor partition.
a) Then pvcreate /dev/sdb, vgcreate vg00 /dev/sdb, then lvcreate ... 1 lvm (for filesystem for iso etc) and 1 lvm-thin (vm+lxc images) volumes if you want use block storage.
b) Or if always use file storage just create a filesystem on /dev/sdb.
--> I would complete create from scratch, remove both raidsets from bios ctrl. menue, just make new raid1, install new pve.

 

[gregwbrooks]

But there's somethink strange as partitions are NOT as created by Proxmox !
If you create from dell raid ctrl. menue a raid1 set out of two disks you got 1 virtual disk eg as sda (other 3x 1TB disks unshown).
After installing pve you got 3 partitions (sda1-3, bios, efi, lvm) and no part5 and NO any labels of linux_raid_member !
After pve is installed install perccli (dell download) and create your raid5, don't need label nor partition.
a) Then pvcreate /dev/sdb, vgcreate vg00 /dev/sdb, then lvcreate ... 1 lvm (for filesystem for iso etc) and 1 lvm-thin (vm+lxc images) volumes if you want use block storage.
b) Or if always use file storage just create a filesystem on /dev/sdb.
--> I would complete create from scratch, remove both raidsets from bios ctrl. menue, just make new raid1, install new pve.

This was extraordinarily helpful, thank you.

Ended up deleting the RAID5, individually erasing the disks, then recreated the virtual disk. That gave me a clean VD with no partitions, and from there it was straightforward via your instructions.