Moving From Unraid to Prox

[BigDaddyDingDong]

I put together a healthy gaming server to run media dockers with a gaming VM. After 2 straight months and long nights trying to get the VM to run correctly I'm throwing in the towel and moving to Proxmox. Before I make the plunge I have 3 questions...

- Is it possible to move without losing my data on my current array?
- Are AMD GPU VM's as finicky and unstable as Unraid?
- What's the hardest part about setting up dockers in Prox?

 

[Dunuin]

- Is it possible to move without losing my data on my current array?

I don't think so. Also keep in mind that PVE is not a NAS and won't allow you to manage SMB/NFS shares. You could of cause virtualize a Unraid in a VM and passthrough the disks or HBA...I guess then it might work and the Unraid could run your SMB/NFS servers.

- Are AMD GPU VM's as finicky and unstable as Unraid?

Except for the reset bug they work fine in general. iGPUs are problematic in general...both Intel and AMD.

- What's the hardest part about setting up dockers in Prox?

PVE isn't supporting docker. So you would need to set up Docker yourself in a VM. For example using Portainer in case you want a GUI.

And, unlike TrueNAS or Unraid, PVE is not an appliance. Its a full Debian-bases Linux distro. So if you really want you could install and set up SMB/NFS servers and docker yourself bare metal on the host using CLI. Whatever is possbile with Debian will also work with PVE. But that won't be easy if you aren't an experienced linux admin.

 

[BigDaddyDingDong]

I don't think so. Also keep in mind that PVE is not a NAS and won't allow you to manage SMB/NFS shares. You could of cause virtualize a Unraid in a VM and passthrough the disks or HBA...I guess then it might work and the Unraid could run your SMB/NFS servers.


Except for the reset bug they work fine in general. iGPUs are problematic in general...both Intel and AMD.


PVE isn't supporting docker. So you would need to set up Docker yourself in a VM. For example using Portainer in case you want a GUI.

And, unlike TrueNAS or Unraid, PVE is not an appliance. Its a full Debian-bases Linux distro. So if you really want you could install and set up SMB/NFS servers and docker yourself bare metal on the host using CLI. Whatever is possbile with Debian will also work with PVE. But that won't be easy if you aren't an experienced linux admin.

Yes, I understand it's not a NAS or SMB or any of that but it can run TrueNas or Unraid in a VM correct? My thought is if I run Unraid within Prox then I'll get the Docker/NAS flexibility with the reliability of PVE that Unraid is lacking.

Can you elaborate on the "reset bug" and the problems PVE has with iGPU? The reason I want to leave Unraid is due to instability with GPU passthrough. If PVE has the same issues then it wouldn't make sense to jump. Unraid's VM's work great until you start passing through GPU's.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7900X3D | MB: ASUS X670XE | RAM: 128GB DDR5 | PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 1000GT 80+ Gold | GPU: AMD Radeon 7800 XT | Array: 3x Seagate 14TB EXOS | Parity: Seagate 14TB | Pools: Crucial 6TB NVMe Gen 4

 

[alexskysilk]

Also keep in mind that PVE is not a NAS and won't allow you to manage SMB/NFS shares

uhh...

apt install samba nfs-kernel-server. easy peasy.

 

[Dunuin]

apt install samba nfs-kernel-server. easy peasy.

Yes, and then you add stuff like shadow copy via snapshots, immutable/WORM shares, harden security, multichannel/multipath, ACLs/groups/users, maybe kerberos for NFS authentification, NFS+SMB sharing the same folder, syncing stuff to S3 for a offsite copy, replication, ... nothing I would recommend for everyone, especially in case someone maybe never touched a CLI. There is tons to learn and do in CLI if you really want every feature something like the TrueNAS GUI is offering as ready to use appliance where you don"t need to understand every detail to use it.
If you know what you are doing and you don't care about all the fancy advanced stuff, this of cause might be an viable option.

 

[alexskysilk]

I put together a healthy gaming server to run media dockers with a gaming VM.

Yes, and then you add stuff like shadow copy via snapshots, immutable/WORM shares, harden security, multichannel/multipath, ACLs/groups/users, maybe kerberos for NFS authentification, NFS+SMB sharing the same folder, syncing stuff to S3 for a offsite copy, replication,

I dont think what you describe is fitting the use case. If you were to require all the above, I'd say you want an administrator that CAN do it in cli (and in my case, prefer to as it has far more control.) if GUI is the hill that you're dying on, webmin has been a thing for many years.

Seems to me that op just wants to have a simple fileshare, which is easily done without requirining a "purpose built" nas distro. I'm not saying its necessarily the best option, just responding to "PVE is not a NAS."

 

[BigDaddyDingDong]

Soooo.... can I run Unraid in a VM and passthrough my HDD's while using my SSD's for a VM Win11 gaming rig? Everything thing I've read points to yes but I'm looking for validation because when I read the Unraid could run Gaming VMs but that was bogus.

 

[alexskysilk]

can I run Unraid in a VM and passthrough my HDD's

Yes

while using my SSD's for a VM Win11 gaming rig?

Yes

read the Unraid could run Gaming VMs but that was bogus.

Unraid is just a technique to aggregate disks. PVE can use any Linux accessible backing file system to host virtual disks. What you might not be very impressed with is the performance you'd achieve with it.

 

[BigDaddyDingDong]

Yes

Yes

Unraid is just a technique to aggregate disks. PVE can use any Linux accessible backing file system to host virtual disks. What you might not be very impressed with is the performance you'd achieve with it.

This is the direct answer I was looking for! Thank you for this. Much appreciated!

 

[BobhWasatch]

Soooo.... can I run Unraid in a VM and passthrough my HDD's while using my SSD's for a VM Win11 gaming rig? Everything thing I've read points to yes but I'm looking for validation because when I read the Unraid could run Gaming VMs but that was bogus.

That's possible but you need to set your expectations. Anybody who tells you that gaming works as well in a VM as on bare hardware is lying. You can get close, with more or less effort depending on your HW, but it cannot be the same. I'm speaking of things like GPU passthrough. How well that works is influenced as much by your hardware & BIOS as by the OS.

Given that Unraid uses the same VM tech as PVE it seems really doubtful that performance under PVE will be much different than under Unraid. The only difference would be if PVE lets you apply more tweaks more easily than Unraid.

 

[BigDaddyDingDong]

That's possible but you need to set your expectations. Anybody who tells you that gaming works as well in a VM as on bare hardware is lying. You can get close, with more or less effort depending on your HW, but it cannot be the same. I'm speaking of things like GPU passthrough. How well that works is influenced as much by your hardware & BIOS as by the OS.

Given that Unraid uses the same VM tech as PVE it seems really doubtful that performance under PVE will be much different than under Unraid. The only difference would be if PVE lets you apply more tweaks more easily than Unraid.

Yup! same VM issues with Unraid within Proxmox. Looked up the 7 series Radeon GPUs and it seems like everyone is having the same issues of instability with VMs.