How can I configure Proxmox Backup Server on RAID?

[Michdo93]

Hi,

I am sure my problem is that I use a RAID configuration. I am using a HP ProLiant Microserver Gen 8 and I want to create a Datastore.

It looks like this:





I thought it would be a smart idea to use the server, use RAID and then I just create a folder and put my backups there. The advantage would be that it would be backed up four times via the RAID. But if I understand the Proxmox Backup Server correctly, it can only do ext4 and this means that I can't store the operating system and my backups on one of the hard disks at the same time.

So I would have to connect an external hard disk and my backups are not additionally secured by a RAID. Or I would have to dissolve the RAID configuration, reinstall Proxmox on a hard disk and then have three hard disks left for backups.

Have I understood this correctly? (Apparently the admin password is also no longer available, so I could configure RAID differently...). Can I still store backups here despite the hardware RAID or is this extra folder required?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Chris]

Hi,

I thought it would be a smart idea to use the server, use RAID and then I just create a folder and put my backups there. The advantage would be that it would be backed up four times via the RAID. But if I understand the Proxmox Backup Server correctly, it can only do ext4 and this means that I can't store the operating system and my backups on one of the hard disks at the same time.

this does not look like a correctly setup hardware raid to me, the disks seem rather to show up as independent disks. Further, it seems like you have overwritten disk /dev/sda during installation. Also, the data will not necessarily be stored 4 times, the redundancy will depend on what RAID is used.

Proxmox Backup Server does not manage the hardware RAID for you, this has to be done before installation. Another way would be to use ZFS, which can be set up directly from the installer. For this your hardware raid controller has to expose the raw disks in JBOD mode.

Also, not only ext4 setup (although being the default) is possible, you might use ZFS or XFS. Note however that the filesystem used for a datastore has to support atime, so that prune jobs and garbage collection work as expected.

Please also note that enterprise grade SSDs are recommended as storage devices, with HDDs you will run into poor performance issues [0].

(Apparently the admin password is also no longer available, so I could configure RAID differently...)

I do not understand what is meant by this.

Can I still store backups here despite the hardware RAID or is this extra folder required?

You will have to create a filesystem on the disk exposed by the hardware raid controller, the datastore backing path has to be stored on a filesystem with atime support.

[0] https://pbs.proxmox.com/docs/installation.html#recommended-server-system-requirements

 

[Michdo93]

What I meant is that the iLO password I knew (yes, an HP server) didn't work, otherwise I would have just reinstalled the hardware RAID. I'll have to see what I can do tomorrow. Maybe I actually did something wrong when installing Proxmox. But I'm more afraid that my predecessor never configured the hardware RAID correctly on the server.

 

[sb-jw]

What I meant is that the iLO password I knew (yes, an HP server) didn't work

Login via SSH on the PBS, then install ipmitool and run ipmitool user set password USER_ID. In general the userid of root is 2.

 

[MGSteve]

What I meant is that the iLO password I knew (yes, an HP server) didn't work, otherwise I would have just reinstalled the hardware RAID. I'll have to see what I can do tomorrow. Maybe I actually did something wrong when installing Proxmox. But I'm more afraid that my predecessor never configured the hardware RAID correctly on the server.

I've got one of these servers. Just boot into the iLo setup program directly on the server (you'll need to connect a screen & keyboard to it) and you can reset the password easily that way. There's a prompt during the BIOS startup to press a Key to enter ILO setup. You don't need the password for this.

 

[_gabriel]

no hw raid in Micro Servers of HP.
only as option.

ZFS Striped Mirror can be done during install/reinstall of PBS, that will format all drives.
ZFS on 4 hdd can be too slow if there are many backups...
here use one hdd for 2 Windows vm, backup speed ok but Garbage Collection + Verify done only the Sunday, restore not speedy too... as data isn't contiguous on the disk...