PROXMOX HDD-Setup on HP ProDesk 600 G3 USFF

[viab]

Hi everyone,
I could need some input for my new home server. My goal is to have a small, independent home server that runs some services.
Currently, I run IObroker on my SynologyNAS in docker and want to migrate (preferably I will do a clean new setup) to the new home server. Other services will be pihole, ngnix, wireguard, etc. So nothing very "hungry" besides from IObroker.

As hardware, I have an HP ProDesk 600 G3 USFF with 16GB of RAM. I chose it because it is very quiet, has a low power consumption and got it cheap.

I am struggling a bit with the hard disk setup, as I only can fit two drives. I have a 256GB SATA SSD and a 1TB m.2 NVMe.
Currently, I wanted to use the SSD as boot disk and the NVMe as VM and container storage. Which file system should I choose? Should I consider a different approach? I have read different opinions about single drive ZFS.

As a Proxmox-newbie, how should I approach this also regarding backups etc. without the redundancy of a correct RAID? As I understand, I can schedule VM backups to my NAS with iSCSI/NFS.

What is you opinion? Thanks in advance for your input.

 

[Dunuin]

I am struggling a bit with the hard disk setup, as I only can fit two drives. I have a 256GB SATA SSD and a 1TB m.2 NVMe.
Currently, I wanted to use the SSD as boot disk and the NVMe as VM and container storage. Which file system should I choose? Should I consider a different approach? I have read different opinions about single drive ZFS.

ZFS needs alot of RAM, causes alot of overhead and therefore wear so consumer SSDs aren't great for ZFS because of the bad sync write performance and low durability. And you are right, without parity ZFS won't be able to use all features. Bit rot protection for example would be missing with single disks (it could only tell you what files got corrupted but can't repair them). And ECC RAM would also be recommended if using ZFS. With your hardware I would stick with LVM-thin.

As a Proxmox-newbie, how should I approach this also regarding backups etc. without the redundancy of a correct RAID? As I understand, I can schedule VM backups to my NAS with iSCSI/NFS.

I would create a VM on that NAS (2-4 GB RAM and 2-4 vCPUs should be fine) and install the proxmox backup server in that VM. You can then add your PBS as a backup storage and do daily/weekly backups. PBS uses compression and deduplication so if your VMs/LXCs doesn't change very much, it really doesn't matter of you create 1 or 100 backups of a VM/LXC because nothing needs to be stored twice so both nearly consume the same space. You might also want to create a cronjob that runs the proxmox-backup-client on your PVE server to backup the "/etc" folder (especially the "/etc/pve")

 

[viab]

With your hardware I would stick with LVM-thin.

To summarize: I will install PVE on the 256GB SSD with the default ext4 filesystem and after that I install the 1TB NVME and will create a storage with lvm-thin. Can I configure that via the Proxmox GUI or only by shell?

I would create a VM on that NAS (2-4 GB RAM and 2-4 vCPUs should be fine) and install the proxmox backup server in that VM. You can then add your PBS as a backup storage and so daily/weekly backups. PBS uses compression and deduplication so if your VMs/LXCs doesn't change very much, it really doesn't matter of you create 1 or 100 backups of a VM/LXC because nothing needs to be stored twice so both nearly consume the same space. You might also want to create a cronjob that runs the proxmox-backup-client on your PVE server to backup the "/etc" folder (especially the "/etc/pve")

Thanks for that input, that sounds like a great idea.

 

[Dunuin]

To summarize: I will install PVE on the 256GB SSD with the default ext4 filesystem and after that I install the 1TB NVME and will create a storage with lvm-thin. Can I configure that via the Proxmox GUI or only by shell?

You can do that in the webUI. Just make sure to wipe the M.2 SSD first. PVE will only allow you to create a LVM-thin if the SSD got no already existing partitions.

 

[jaceqp]

To summarize: I will install PVE on the 256GB SSD with the default ext4 filesystem and after that I install the 1TB NVME and will create a storage with lvm-thin. Can I configure that via the Proxmox GUI or only by shell?

If your new disk is trully 'unused' storage configuration from webGUI should be possible. For single drive I'd leave ZFS and use simple ext4 with lvm-thin instead.
PS. Using NAS as a VM storage probably not a great idea comparing performance nVME vs LAN (1Gbps tops?). Depends on a NAS ofcourse. Besides CIFS (naaah) or iSCSI consider NFS.

PS. Now - about skipping drive redundancy. It depends on your scenario. Is it some kind of a test/home lab or more or less productional? It's always a nice touch to have redundancy. Unless you're fine in downtimes for restoring data (and loosing some depending on backup schedule).

 

[Dunuin]

If your new disk is trully 'unused' storage configuration from webGUI should be possible. For single drive I'd leave ZFS and use simple ext4 with lvm-thin instead.
PS. Using NAS as a VM storage probably not a great idea comparing performance nVME vs LAN (1Gbps tops?). Depends on a NAS ofcourse. Besides CIFS (naaah) or iSCSI consider NFS.

Jep, but the idea was to use the NAS as a PBS inside a VM, not as a VM storage.