New user, fresh installation

[invgr]

Hi.

I'm rather new to ProxMox. I'm thinking if creating a home lab and i'm trying to find the best way to setup ProxMox.

I have a nvme SSD which i intended to use both as the ProxMox boot drive as well as data storage for vms. From what i've read in this thread (post by Radiowave) though, it's not the best idea because (among other reasons) if at some point you decide to reinstall ProxMox, the full disk will be wiped.

After that, i'm starting to move away from this option. An alternative i've thought is to install it on a USB stick but i understand it's not a good solution either because of the heavy log-writing ProxMox has. So, the question now is: is there a way when installing proxmox on a usb stick, to configure it to perform all log-writing to a partition on the nvme disk? If there is a way, if i have to reinstall ProxMox at some point and do the same setup (usb-nvme), will the usb stick be the only thing that will be wiped or if i again set the logs on the nvme, it will also be wiped?

Please, no suggestions of the type "add another disk", i plan to do just that but i want to use either the nvme or the usb-nvme-combination as a way to boot to proxmox. All other disks will be used exclusively for VMs.

 

[hd--]

There is no clean, non super hacky way to the Proxmox VE to write the logsfile onto the NVME.
If you've only got the NVME i'd just install Proxmox VE on the NVME. If you're planning on hosting any serious/important data you'll want to have backups of the VMs (you could use Proxmox Backup Server for that). And if you have Backups of the VMs and decide the reinstall Proxmox VE you can simply recover all your VMs from the backup.
If you don't have any additional disks you could even save the backups of the USB Drive (ofc. depending on the size of the USB drive and VM Disk sizes).

 

[invgr]

There is no clean, non super hacky way to the Proxmox VE to write the logsfile onto the NVME.

Thanks for answering. It would be nice if the "write" location (for the logs and/or other things) was configurable but since it isn't, i guess i'll have to make different plans.

Let's say ProxMox (just it, nothing else) is installed on a new disk and the PC has an additional disk on which only the VMs exist. If the ProxMox disk crashes at some point and i reinstall it on a new disk, it would just "see" the VMs disk and i would be able to re-import the VMs and use them normally (as is done in eSXi), right?

 

[hd--]

If you had a second disk you could use create a storage on it and store the VMs on it, yes.
After the reinstall you'd have to add the storage (Datacenter -> Storage) and then you'd just see the VMs, yes.

 

[invgr]

Great. Thank you, you've been very helpful.

I've decided to implement the following scenario: I'll attach a small SSD, install ProxMox there and use the NVME and a couple of HDDs i have for the VMs.