Hello,
I am the head IT and only IT person at my Dr. office. I build pcs often, and have built most of the staffs personal computers in the office including my Dr.s which they all love, but one of the last 3 that are horribly old and causing problems need to be replaced like over the weekend. This is more of a helping my Dr as he is my friend also than a job, as he is retiring soon but will keep open for a bit of time scaled down. I wan't to save him money and myself time so heres what I thought would work and please let me know your thoughts before I dive into all this and I super appreciate any feedback!
During this last pc failure yesterday when I got the call, I realized all of the office persons files were lost in the pc breakdown, and is recoverable through a long process, but I want to prevent any of this from happening again. There used to be a large, very loud Windows Server workstation in the office with a cheap NAS attached to it but the IT guy before me who sabotaged me and everyone else on is way out left me in a very rough state. I got all networking squared away, up and workng without the server as its noise and heat and power consumption were ridiculous since the NAS is mainly the only thing used by the server, so here is my plan to fix all this at one time:
I have already built a PC for the office manager, she will hand hers down to this next in line, but I'm thinking, why not use this PC with a 13600k (20 threads), 64gb of ddr4 3600 ram, 1tb 980 pro, on an ASUS strix board I had around (z690). So I would install Windows 11 and run virualbox and deploy proxmox as a vm. creating a TRUENAS vm with zfs raidz1 pool using the 4 2tb WD Hdds installed in case also. Also, using proxmox I could run either one Windows 11 vm with more resources available, or 2 or 3 smaller resourced vms for client use they could connect to using their laptops at work. Install alll needed software and updates, etc on VM and access via laptops at work, but heres where i am confused:
1) should I install proxmox as the host OS and dish out windows 11 vm for office manager, and one or more vm's seperate for the not as privilaged office staff, or run Winndows 11 and proxmos as a vm (seems counter-intuitive), and can one vm be accessed by 2 or 3 employees simontaneously, or would they need thier own vdi or however it is setup in proxmox?
I am not familiar with accessing vms through other devices, just in their own hosts or via minecraft servers and small web servers deployed via docker. also, i hear turenas which i use regualary is not recconded to run as a vm, but will work. I don't care if core or scale. Would I just be better off doing all virtualization through truenas scale without proxmox? I need to have something figured out asap, if yall can help me with these questsions thats awesome if not thats ok. I know i can use like VNC or QEMU or something iike that to access vm's inside the network, right? Does network booting make sense in this case also?
I basically need 3 employees to have thier own vm, that backs up to preferably a zfs pool, but with a fast backup and file storage server and i willl not let him pay for a synthology underpoweed NAS with a cool UI, i just cannot do it.. Im trying to solve the problem and cost of building more physical PCs in the future when they go out, and snapshots are a great thing id think to have in a Dr. Office! NOTE: I have plenty of fast NVME drives unopend and high capacity if needed to help with deploying this, also i could technically swap my 13900k im using now with the 13600kf I have installed, as i believe 64gb and 20 threads should be enough to do this trick, especially at 5.8-6ghz on p cores..
All help would be so great, i mean am i trying to do something impossible? or if it gets technical im good with that, shoudl truenas be avoided or put in a small case and seperate from it all, what's my best options here? Thanks in advance so much!!
I am the head IT and only IT person at my Dr. office. I build pcs often, and have built most of the staffs personal computers in the office including my Dr.s which they all love, but one of the last 3 that are horribly old and causing problems need to be replaced like over the weekend. This is more of a helping my Dr as he is my friend also than a job, as he is retiring soon but will keep open for a bit of time scaled down. I wan't to save him money and myself time so heres what I thought would work and please let me know your thoughts before I dive into all this and I super appreciate any feedback!
During this last pc failure yesterday when I got the call, I realized all of the office persons files were lost in the pc breakdown, and is recoverable through a long process, but I want to prevent any of this from happening again. There used to be a large, very loud Windows Server workstation in the office with a cheap NAS attached to it but the IT guy before me who sabotaged me and everyone else on is way out left me in a very rough state. I got all networking squared away, up and workng without the server as its noise and heat and power consumption were ridiculous since the NAS is mainly the only thing used by the server, so here is my plan to fix all this at one time:
I have already built a PC for the office manager, she will hand hers down to this next in line, but I'm thinking, why not use this PC with a 13600k (20 threads), 64gb of ddr4 3600 ram, 1tb 980 pro, on an ASUS strix board I had around (z690). So I would install Windows 11 and run virualbox and deploy proxmox as a vm. creating a TRUENAS vm with zfs raidz1 pool using the 4 2tb WD Hdds installed in case also. Also, using proxmox I could run either one Windows 11 vm with more resources available, or 2 or 3 smaller resourced vms for client use they could connect to using their laptops at work. Install alll needed software and updates, etc on VM and access via laptops at work, but heres where i am confused:
1) should I install proxmox as the host OS and dish out windows 11 vm for office manager, and one or more vm's seperate for the not as privilaged office staff, or run Winndows 11 and proxmos as a vm (seems counter-intuitive), and can one vm be accessed by 2 or 3 employees simontaneously, or would they need thier own vdi or however it is setup in proxmox?
I am not familiar with accessing vms through other devices, just in their own hosts or via minecraft servers and small web servers deployed via docker. also, i hear turenas which i use regualary is not recconded to run as a vm, but will work. I don't care if core or scale. Would I just be better off doing all virtualization through truenas scale without proxmox? I need to have something figured out asap, if yall can help me with these questsions thats awesome if not thats ok. I know i can use like VNC or QEMU or something iike that to access vm's inside the network, right? Does network booting make sense in this case also?
I basically need 3 employees to have thier own vm, that backs up to preferably a zfs pool, but with a fast backup and file storage server and i willl not let him pay for a synthology underpoweed NAS with a cool UI, i just cannot do it.. Im trying to solve the problem and cost of building more physical PCs in the future when they go out, and snapshots are a great thing id think to have in a Dr. Office! NOTE: I have plenty of fast NVME drives unopend and high capacity if needed to help with deploying this, also i could technically swap my 13900k im using now with the 13600kf I have installed, as i believe 64gb and 20 threads should be enough to do this trick, especially at 5.8-6ghz on p cores..
All help would be so great, i mean am i trying to do something impossible? or if it gets technical im good with that, shoudl truenas be avoided or put in a small case and seperate from it all, what's my best options here? Thanks in advance so much!!