Proxmox Disks / Storage Setup

[the-gloaming]

I'm setting up a Proxmox server (for a homelab) and am not sure how best to set up disks and storage. I am a newbie with servers, storage, Proxmox et al and current plan is a TrueNAS setup; I will play later also around with software/containers as well and see where it takes me.

The disks I have are and my plan for them is as below (no m.2 connectors):

• 2x 800GB Intel DC SSDs: in a ZFS mirror to install and run the Proxmox OS, as well for VMs/containers and ISO and related storage. I also intend to install TrueNAS here.
• 3x 4TB NAS HDDs: for TrueNAS storage
• I also have 2x 4TB regular HDDs and 1x Samsung 850 128GB SSD (but no plans for using these yet; I can connect 7 discs to my setup in total)

My thoughts / questions / concerns, and where I am looking for help

1. Does the above look like a proper approach for discs and storage? A key concern I have is if it is okay to use the SSDs for Proxmox OS, VMs, Containers, TrueNAS etc. If so, do I need to do any specific setup/partioning in advance?
2. Or should I use a smaller SSD for the Proxmox OS (the Samsung 850 128GB SSD?) and use the Intel DC SSDs (in ZFS mirror) for VMs/Containers/TrueNAS/etc.? If I do, the Proxmos OS will not be on ZFS or mirrored disks (don't think that matters much for my setup).

 

[charfix]

TrueNAS is going to be a guest I take it?

I am a beginner looking to set up something very similar. I'll share my learnings because they seem relevant. I went for RAIDZ1 on entire SSDs, but regretting it now because:
1. I don't have a thin pool on which to store thinly provisioned vms. I could have my VMs on the HDDs but I want that an ext4 fs on RAID1 there so I can store files, backups etc.
2. Apparently RAIDZ1 is not mirrored, so in the case of a disk failure the rebuilding will involve much heavier IO. This may be not a big deal given that I only have two disks, but it's not clear to me. This article[1] discusses mirrored vdevs vs RAIDZ and argues for the first for safer and faster recovery and extensibility, with some sacrifice in storage efficiency.

So now I'm thinking of rebuilding with mirror vdevs and a thin pool. I take it this requires that the root fs is partitioned separately so I will set aside maybe 80GB so I don't ever have to worry about running out of space. Still leaves 720GB (in your case) for thin pool.

[1] https://jrs-s.net/2015/02/06/zfs-you-should-use-mirror-vdevs-not-raidz/