New to Proxmox – Need help installing on Dell T3500 and setting up backups/network storage

[falil]

Hello Proxmox community,

I’m new to Proxmox and just started exploring it after losing a hard drive with 27 years of personal data. I’ve read that having a backup server or Network Attached Storage (NAS) is essential, and many people recommend Proxmox as a free, reliable virtualization platform, especially since VMware reportedly has issues with Broadcom new brand (I read this on Reddit and other sites).

I have a Dell T3500 workstation (Xeon W3690, 3.47 GHz, 24 GB RAM) that I want to use for Proxmox. My goal is to safely store all my future data on this machine and make it accessible to other computers at home via the network, ideally as a mapped network drive (if I understand correctly).

However, I’m not sure how to get started or what best practices I should follow to set up storage and backups to avoid losing data again.

I’ve watched several YouTube videos, but most jump straight into configuration steps and assume prior knowledge, which I don’t have yet. I’d really appreciate guidance starting from the basics so I can follow along and learn properly.

Could anyone kindly help me with:

What are the types of Proxmox? Is it like VMware or VirtualBox, or am I misunderstanding? Honestly, I’m not clear on the different VMware products and their roles either. I’ve only used VMware Workstation Pro Player to run guest OSes safely.

How do I install Proxmox on my Dell T3500?

How do I set up storage and backups, especially using NAS or network shares?

Any beginner tips or resources to avoid common mistakes?

How do I safely create and manage virtual machines?

What are this containers thing that every one is talking about? is it a virtual machine?

Thank you so much in advance for any advice or pointers!

 

[UdoB]

You are asking for a complete book, or two. Did you look into any documentation?

How do I install Proxmox on my Dell T3500?

https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/pve-admin-guide.html#chapter_installation

How do I set up storage and backups, especially using NAS or network shares?

Use ZFS as the basis. Learn how to install Virtual Machines. Use a VM to serve files. There are a zillion options, each having some pros and cons.

Any beginner tips or resources to avoid common mistakes?

Prepare backups from the beginning ;-)

How do I safely create and manage virtual machines?

What do you mean by this? Gloves and safety goggles are usually not required ;-)

Everything you do during your first rounds is "local". Only if you want to establish some services reachable from the outside world some additional work needs to be done. (Think: virtual private networks; Web-Proxies; paket filter; ...)

What are this containers thing that every one is talking about? is it a virtual machine?

A Container serves one service. It uses the kernel of the OS. It is NOT a VM. It is considered "light weight" and "not so safe as a VM".


And... this forum works best when you ask a specific question - then the chance for a helpful answer is higher...