Forgive my ignorance in "high level hardware" but I've only experience with my "self made" Proxmox server at home and I've been asked by a friend that runs a small IT business about a Proxmox server for his customers.
My idea is that I will boot from 2 ZFS raid1 small DC Sata SSD, have a VM dedicated ZFS Storage as Sata SSD or NVMe Raid1 or Raid10, and at least 2 Raid1 high capacity HDD for local backup.
This sounds a basic requirements to me (my home server is more or less like that), but looking in major brend sites (Dell, HP), I was not able to understand if these needs can be met (of course without a stellar budget, here, Italy, business are really small in size). Seems that if you want feature 'A' you can't have 'B' and so on. Also storage seems "all 3.5" or "all 2.5", do you select "3.5" and then use 2.5 to 3.5 adapters?
So, based on your experience, I would love to have suggestions about HW that can be currently purcased (and not obsolete as in many posts here or self assembled) and has these features:
- works with Proxmox and ZFS
- decent CPU range performance (index 10 - 20.000)
- can be expanded with >= 64GB RAM but a max of 256GB is more than enough
- one cpu socket is enough (and don't want to have to add "second CPU" just to have NVMe or something like that)
- has bays for at least 2 x 3.5" Sata HDD (big capacity for local backup), and "n" 2.5" SSD or U.2 NVMe for VM storage + 2 x 2.5" SSD for Proxmox installation (as stated above)
- can have at least 4 disks NVMe U.2 (we will use of course DC ones)
- preferably form factor 2U 19" (1U is too noisy!) or Tower
- enough PCIe slots for at least i.e. 1 x 4 1Gbit card and one dual port 10 or 40GBit (or 100Gbit) card (if I want a cluster or fast connection with switch / other host)
- reduntant power supply option would be nice to have
- storage (disks) can be purcased separately (i.e. buy a Dell server but buy lower cost storage somewhere else)
In short I would love to have an "universal" server that can be equiped with basic storage (OS and backup) and have additional Sata and/or NVMe ZFS storage for VMs.
(ZFS implies a MB that has raliable on board sata or a tested HBA IT mode).
Please tell me also if my assumptions are wrong, i.e. I've found not 2.5" HD high capacity that are ok for server usage, only laptop ones.
Also I would need the exact list of what you are using (i.e. Server Model X, with controller Y1 for Sata end Y2 for NVMe, and optionale backplane X for nvme, cables, etc.).
If this can't be achieved with only one server model and different expansion options, 2 models (Sata and NVMe) can be considered.
Finally, looking at Dell site I see in some "NVMe and PCIe Storage Adapters" section that as adapter is listed "SAS 12Gbps HBA External Controller", what do they mean for "external" and why "SAS" and how can a 12Gbps be enough? Or is one controller for each NVMe disk (still below NVMe theoretichal bandwidth)?
Thanks a lot!
My idea is that I will boot from 2 ZFS raid1 small DC Sata SSD, have a VM dedicated ZFS Storage as Sata SSD or NVMe Raid1 or Raid10, and at least 2 Raid1 high capacity HDD for local backup.
This sounds a basic requirements to me (my home server is more or less like that), but looking in major brend sites (Dell, HP), I was not able to understand if these needs can be met (of course without a stellar budget, here, Italy, business are really small in size). Seems that if you want feature 'A' you can't have 'B' and so on. Also storage seems "all 3.5" or "all 2.5", do you select "3.5" and then use 2.5 to 3.5 adapters?
So, based on your experience, I would love to have suggestions about HW that can be currently purcased (and not obsolete as in many posts here or self assembled) and has these features:
- works with Proxmox and ZFS
- decent CPU range performance (index 10 - 20.000)
- can be expanded with >= 64GB RAM but a max of 256GB is more than enough
- one cpu socket is enough (and don't want to have to add "second CPU" just to have NVMe or something like that)
- has bays for at least 2 x 3.5" Sata HDD (big capacity for local backup), and "n" 2.5" SSD or U.2 NVMe for VM storage + 2 x 2.5" SSD for Proxmox installation (as stated above)
- can have at least 4 disks NVMe U.2 (we will use of course DC ones)
- preferably form factor 2U 19" (1U is too noisy!) or Tower
- enough PCIe slots for at least i.e. 1 x 4 1Gbit card and one dual port 10 or 40GBit (or 100Gbit) card (if I want a cluster or fast connection with switch / other host)
- reduntant power supply option would be nice to have
- storage (disks) can be purcased separately (i.e. buy a Dell server but buy lower cost storage somewhere else)
In short I would love to have an "universal" server that can be equiped with basic storage (OS and backup) and have additional Sata and/or NVMe ZFS storage for VMs.
(ZFS implies a MB that has raliable on board sata or a tested HBA IT mode).
Please tell me also if my assumptions are wrong, i.e. I've found not 2.5" HD high capacity that are ok for server usage, only laptop ones.
Also I would need the exact list of what you are using (i.e. Server Model X, with controller Y1 for Sata end Y2 for NVMe, and optionale backplane X for nvme, cables, etc.).
If this can't be achieved with only one server model and different expansion options, 2 models (Sata and NVMe) can be considered.
Finally, looking at Dell site I see in some "NVMe and PCIe Storage Adapters" section that as adapter is listed "SAS 12Gbps HBA External Controller", what do they mean for "external" and why "SAS" and how can a 12Gbps be enough? Or is one controller for each NVMe disk (still below NVMe theoretichal bandwidth)?
Thanks a lot!
