New to Proxmox - Storage Advice

[TheBokke]

Hi All,

I've just started with Proxmox, looks like a great product and a great community here. Proxmox comes with a bit of a steep learning curve so looking for some advice on how to setup the storage. I have tried to read as much as I can but its all very new to me.

I've built a Proxmox node for a home server installation. The box will be for VMs for: media/data fileserving duties (ubuntu server or OMV), IP Camera server (Unifi Video); backups for other machines, maybe a couple of other containers for Plex etc..

I've installed the OS on a NVME SSD which I'll keep the OS and VM data etc.I have a couple of other drives which I'd like to store media files on (HW Raid 10 array) and separate disks for IP Camera and for Backups. The backup disk is in a hot swap bay and intended to be swapped with an equivalent drive and stored in a fireproof safe.

1) Whats the recommended way to add the extra drives/storage? From my reading it looks like l should create via LVM for new Volume Groups to create a LVMthin pools? Or should I pass drives through to individual VM's?

2) If via LVM, do I need to create a filesystem on the LV's? Or does proxmox serve them as RAW format? If a fs is needed then what is recommended for this type of machine?

Help appreciated, many thanks.

 

[devinacosta]

In regards to your question about the storage, there are various ways in which you can configure your disks to work in your environment. what you didn't specify in your original e-mail was how many disks are in the system available to be used for the various storage mounts that you want to create. If you can update this and tell me how many drives you have to use, what types of drives they are, i will assist you.

 

[TheBokke]

Thank you devincosta, very much appreciated.

Here's whats currently installed in the machine. I haven't configured any VM's or storage yet, other than the initial install the Proxmox did on the NVME SSD.

Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 465.8 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors

This is the 500Gb NVME SSD boot disk that has got Proxmox installed on it. I planned to use for VM storage. It has LV's for 'Swap', 'Root' and and an LVM thin pool for 'data', not shown below.

Disk /dev/mapper/pve-swap: 8 GiB, 8589934592 bytes, 16777216 sectors
Disk /dev/mapper/pve-root: 96 GiB, 103079215104 bytes, 201326592 sectors

Disk /dev/sda: 14.6 TiB, 16001192689664 bytes, 31252329472 sectors
This is a Raid 10 Array running off 4 SATA 8Tb HDD’s on a LSI HW Raid Card with BBU. The idea was to use this for general fileserving storage, movies, photos, music and shared files. Also backups of other PC's in the house.I had the card already. I dont know if I'll use Ubuntu server or OMV for serving the content though. Never tried OMV before.

Disk /dev/sdb: 232.4 GiB, 249510756352 bytes, 487325696 sectors
Disk /dev/sdc: 232.4 GiB, 249510756352 bytes, 487325696 sectors
- These are two identical 250GB SSD’s in hot swap bays which I was planning on using for additional Proxmox VM data or Proxmox backups? Flexible with their use though.

Disk /dev/sdd: 7.3 TiB, 8001563222016 bytes, 15628053168 sectors
- 8TB HDD in a hot swap bay which I wanted to use as a backup for fileserver data. I have another identical HDD which I can swap over periodically and store one in a fireproof safe.


Disk /dev/sdf: 3.7 TiB, 4000787030016 bytes, 7814037168 sectors
- Dedicated 4Tb WD Purple HDD to be used for recording IP camera video data from a VM running Ubiquiti Unifi Video.

I hope this gives you what you need to recommend how best to set up the storage. Looking for a stable system where possible. Data integrity for fileserver data is important hence wanting to periodically backup to a hot swap removable drive and store this in a safe. Not sure how best to configure in Proxmox.

Thanks
Thebokke

 

[devinacosta]

So based upon the information that you presented above, I think the most flexible and easiest thing for you to use for all of the disks will be "LOCAL Filesystem". This will give you the most flexibility and allow you to more easily take drives out and put them back in (ie: in the case of your backup for your fireproof safe". A lot of the other types of Storage Providers that Proxmox provides are for various use cases, like creating a cluster of disk that spans multiple servers, or for those wanting to do ZFS but then you wouldn't be having a hardware RAID controller.

So to start off with Lets configure your 14.6TB RAID-10 as a local filesystem, so that way you can get some real space going and can start to spin up Instances and get moving along with some deployments.

On Linux command line do the following:
mkdir -p /data/raid10
mkfs.xfs /dev/sda
echo "/dev/sda /data/raid10 xfs defaults 0 0" >> /etc/fstab
mount -a

Inside GUI:
Highlight Data Center -> Storage -> Add -> Directory
ID: raid10 Directory: /data/raid10 Content Menu: "Select All the items." Nodes: Restrict to the 1 node (as it is local to box only)
click "Add Storage"

Once that you have configured the 1st disk as I provided to you, if you SSH into the host and browse the filesystem under /data/raid10, you will see several directories (dump, images, templates). The next thing you will need to do is download ISO images for the various Virtual Machines that you want to install. You will need to SSH into the server, change to the directory /data/raid10/template/iso, then put the ISO file into this directory.

Example of what I do:
# cd /data/raid10/template/iso
# wget http://isoredirect.centos.org/centos/7/isos/x86_64/CentOS-7-x86_64-Minimal-1804.iso

Once that is downloaded, then from the GUI when you go to new VM, and then select the ISO to boot, you can then install CentOS 7.5 as a VM. Just 'wget' all the various ISO's you want into the template/iso directory and start to play with getting the VM's installed.

As for the other Hard Drives, we will do very similar operations, we will create another /data/{mount_point}, then format the disk as XFS filesystem. Then Add in the GUI as a local Disk, and only selection the type of images you want to store on it. For the Backups that you plan to put in safe we would ONLY select "VZDUMP" as we will only store backups on the disk.

So try what I gave you above and then let me know once you got to this point and we can go forward.

 

[TheBokke]

Thanks for the tipstips devinc, I'll have a go this evening and let you know once done. I see you recommend XFS rather than ext3/4. Anything I need to be aware of with this fs? I've never tried an alternative so hoping no issues with recovery in future.

Also the vzdump backup disk's - will I be able to store usual fileserver backups on there as well as proxmox backups if tagged as vzdump?

Thanks for taking the time to help, much appreciated.