Migrating to proxmox, and converting huge 7 TB vmdk-Disk file (only Disk, no full VM)

[NDev]

Hi!

Im new to Proxmox.
Because im working with Vmware a lot in my company, i have an ESXi/vSphere setup also for my homelab.
My company "borrowed" a license for vSphere to me for a few years, because i was using it also for some tests and some development stuff for smaller projects.
Though, this is a home-setup. And i want a free (opensource) solution. Most likely im gonna be willing to accept all the drawbacks it has.

There is a mixed environment with Windows and Linux guest VMs.
There are all pretty small.
And i think im gonna use the opportunity to simply set them up from scratch with newer GuestOS versions. Like Win2019 and current Linux versions.
I read a lot about converting full vms to Proxmox, and it seems to have some problems and drawbacks now and then.

However, one of those is a Windows Fileserver.
And that one has a huge data disk with the windows shares on it.
This is like, my personal data grave, some movies, and other stuff.

My plan is to re-setup that VM in proxmox from scratch with Win2019 already.
And then afterwards attach that huge disk to it somehow.

My general question here is:
Is converting a single vmdk-disk less error-prune than doing this with a full VM with an OS inside?
Im asking because i seen most threads here about those problems have to do with Guest-OS problems. Like wrong drivers, SCSI instead of IDE, vmware tools, and other OS stuff.


Apart from that question, here is my setup:

Right now this is running on an E5 Xeon with a Supermicro Mainboard.
There are 2x 10 TB SATA HDDs and 2x 500 GB SATA SSDs attached to a RAID controller. So 2 different RAID1 arrays.
My plan is to throw out that Adaptec RAID controller, since Adaptec stopped updating firmware or drivers for it anyway.
I would buy newer, bigger disks because im pretty much at the space limit on both RAID arrays already.
And then setup ZFS-Software RAID in Proxmox. I guess thats the best way to go.
Because it has also notifications when a disk fails and so on, which i find sexy.

There is also an M.2 slot on that mainboard and maybe i might use it for an M.2 disk for the OS.
That slot is empty right now.
But im not too sure yet about that. I would have to partition it first because i dont want to use this holy space that is so superfast, but not redundant though.
Maybe i also want to put some less-critical testing VMs on it now and then, for really fast performance.
Other options would be installing OS to USB stick or on some partition on the SSD RAID.. Not sure about that yet.

I have a QNAP NAS purely for the backups on CIFS shares right now already.
Im gonna use the integrated backup function of Proxmox to backup to that QNAP.
But im not really sure if that performs fine yet, with dedupe and speed when doing incremental backups of that huge 7TB disk.
Guess i just have to plunge in and see what is going to happen.
When im at that point i cannot go-back anymore though i guess.
Im totally spoiled by Veeam right now, which is not an option later with Proxmox anymore.
But as i said earlier: Im willing to accept the drawbacks most likely.
I know that there is nothing else on the market that can compare to Veeam. I just want to do weekly backups that will not last for 6 days or something.


Do you have any suggestions and things i need to consider for all this?
I know, "read the manual" and so on. I already digged a lot here in the forum.
Proxmox seems to be pretty far devloped for an opensource platform, and there is a lot to know.

Regards,
NDev.
Greetings from Austria!

 

[Dunuin]

Other options would be installing OS to USB stick or on some partition on the SSD RAID.. Not sure about that yet.

Proxmox is write heavy and will kill USB sticks quite fast. If you really want to use USB you should use a USB SSD or a USB DOM.

I have a QNAP NAS purely for the backups on CIFS shares right now already.
Im gonna use the integrated backup function of Proxmox to backup to that QNAP.
But im not really sure if that performs fine yet, with dedupe and speed when doing incremental backups of that huge 7TB disk.

If you don't run proxmox backup server on your QNAP you won't be able to use incremental backups. The build in backup function (vzdump) will create a now copy of the whole 7TB drive each time you do a backup.
And if you want to use deduplication you need a lot of RAM. Rule of thumb is 4GB + 5GB RAM per 1TB of raw storage. So if you got 21TB of raw storage ZFSs ARC would need 109GB RAM. If you don't use deduplication it is "just" 4GB + 1GB RAM per 1TB of raw storage.
And deduplication isn't that useful in most cases. Could be useful if you are running DBs with alot of the same entries but most of the time its just not woth it.

 

[NDev]

Proxmox is write heavy and will kill USB sticks quite fast. If you really want to use USB you should use a USB SSD or a USB DOM.

Ok, thanks for the hint.
As of what i have read, the installer cannot make partitions, right?
Means i cannot just make a smaller partition on the M.2 disk during installation, and later use the rest of it for other purposes right?
Same for the SSD RAID i guess. If i choose ZFS RAID during Installation it will partition it as a whole, so its unavailable as a storage for VMs later?
Hmm im still thinking about how im gonna do this... Maybe partition the M.2 disk with gparted before i run the installation?

If you don't run proxmox backup server on your QNAP you won't be able to use incremental backups. The build in backup function (vzdump) will create a now copy of the whole 7TB drive each time you do a backup.

My plan was actually, making a VM with PBS on it, running on the hypervisor itself.
I read here in the forum some members are already running this successfully.
Maybe im just gonna mount the QNAP as NFS share to the PBS VM.
Im aware that this is going to have a performance impact on the whole system during weekly backup.
But well its a small homelab setup. And i dont wana buy and care for additional hardware.
I might just give it a try and see how it runs.

And if you want to use deduplication you need a lot of RAM. Rule of thumb is 4GB + 5GB RAM per 1TB of raw storage. So if you got 21TB of raw storage ZFSs ARC would need 109GB RAM. If you don't use deduplication it is "just" 4GB + 1GB RAM per 1TB of raw storage.
And deduplication isn't that useful in most cases. Could be useful if you are running DBs with alot of the same entries but most of the time its just not woth it.

I see.
I think i will backup without dedupe then for now. Can't affort that amount of RAM right now.
But its ok im gonna live with that.
Im not even sure whether deduplication would have a big impact on my resulting backup size or not. Maybe there is not even that much to dedupe in my data.

regards
NDev

 

[Dunuin]

Ok, thanks for the hint.
As of what i have read, the installer cannot make partitions, right?
Means i cannot just make a smaller partition on the M.2 disk during installation, and later use the rest of it for other purposes right?

If you use the ProxmoxVE ISO and select LVM or ZFS you can tell the installer to keep some space unused to partition that space later. See here for "minfree" or "hdsize". And it is always possible to install a default fresh debian, partition it as you like and install the proxmox packages ontop of it. Useful if you want tp use mdraid or LUKS encryption.

Same for the SSD RAID i guess. If i choose ZFS RAID during Installation it will partition it as a whole, so its unavailable as a storage for VMs later?
Hmm im still thinking about how im gonna do this... Maybe partition the M.2 disk with gparted before i run the installation?

The installer is always creating a storage for VMs on the boot drives. So you won't waste space if you use a big SSD.

My plan was actually, making a VM with PBS on it, running on the hypervisor itself.
I read here in the forum some members are already running this successfully.
Maybe im just gonna mount the QNAP as NFS share to the PBS VM.
Im aware that this is going to have a performance impact on the whole system during weekly backup.
But well its a small homelab setup. And i dont wana buy and care for additional hardware.
I might just give it a try and see how it runs.

You can do that but keep in mind that you need a running PBS VM to restore your backups. Not that easy if you lost all of your VMs including the PBS VM itself.