Hi All,
Please to ignore the vast scope of this post. Its my experience and I'm not sure what the problem or what's possible at this point.
TLDR; This is about problems running Proxmox for homelab / media centre on cheap unsupported hardware that's not well documented.
I had a Mac Mini 2012 i7 (4 core / 8 thread / 16Gb Ram / 1Tb SSD) that due to age Apple stop providing updates so I bought a new M1 mac mini which is great, wish I'd gone for more memory with hindsight but that's another story.
I installed Proxmox on the old mac and connected it via USB to a 5 bay DAS. Its been perfect for years. Everyone will tell you, don't run proxmox on 'consumer' hardware and don't run ZFS over USB. Well I can tell you the mac has had 0 errors for years running with ZFS over the USB.
I know a lot of people will say "What do you expect running proxmox on consumer hardware?" but the Mac Mini draws 15 - 20W is silent and perfectly capable for most applications. You wouldn't run a business on it, but I don't want a full 2U server drawing 500W and sounding like a jet engine either. This hardware is not broken its something else that should be fixable for the home user.
So I saw a minisforum 5800H on offer for 430 euros. 8 Core 16 Thread, geekbenches 12000 which is just shy of my 2700 euro Macbook Pro M1. Regarding Plex this appears to be a bad idea for hardware transcoding since they say it might work but won't commit and say only Intel is offically supported. I've only had it a week so not sure if its possible or not at this point.
Now to the questions:
Q1 : Its constantly had problems with read / write errors using the DAS box over USB. Putting the DAS box back on the old Mac Mini, no problems so I'm guessing something is going on with here that is usb related, not a problem with the disks.
Q2 : Without the DAS connected, usually within 12 hours the internal SSD has read errors and remounts read only bringing everything down.
On the Minisforum site. Ubuntu is stated as supported, but Debian not. I booted off a Ubuntu live Iso. I ran smartctl tests. No problem. I ran badblocks on the SSD no problem.
Something happens when running, I've seen posts about forcing the SSD into 'max_performance' mode all the time that might help.
I've ordered a new Crucial Nvme to see if the installed ssd is somehow faulty despite passing smartctl and badblocks tests.
I'll let you know, but any advice welcome....
Thoughts:
- Are certain SSD's no good?
- Are some USB settings to aggressive for low end DAS boxes?
- Are there BIOS settings that could help?
- Is removing the errors=remount-ro option an option?
Cheers All,
Please to ignore the vast scope of this post. Its my experience and I'm not sure what the problem or what's possible at this point.
TLDR; This is about problems running Proxmox for homelab / media centre on cheap unsupported hardware that's not well documented.
I had a Mac Mini 2012 i7 (4 core / 8 thread / 16Gb Ram / 1Tb SSD) that due to age Apple stop providing updates so I bought a new M1 mac mini which is great, wish I'd gone for more memory with hindsight but that's another story.
I installed Proxmox on the old mac and connected it via USB to a 5 bay DAS. Its been perfect for years. Everyone will tell you, don't run proxmox on 'consumer' hardware and don't run ZFS over USB. Well I can tell you the mac has had 0 errors for years running with ZFS over the USB.
I know a lot of people will say "What do you expect running proxmox on consumer hardware?" but the Mac Mini draws 15 - 20W is silent and perfectly capable for most applications. You wouldn't run a business on it, but I don't want a full 2U server drawing 500W and sounding like a jet engine either. This hardware is not broken its something else that should be fixable for the home user.
So I saw a minisforum 5800H on offer for 430 euros. 8 Core 16 Thread, geekbenches 12000 which is just shy of my 2700 euro Macbook Pro M1. Regarding Plex this appears to be a bad idea for hardware transcoding since they say it might work but won't commit and say only Intel is offically supported. I've only had it a week so not sure if its possible or not at this point.
Now to the questions:
Q1 : Its constantly had problems with read / write errors using the DAS box over USB. Putting the DAS box back on the old Mac Mini, no problems so I'm guessing something is going on with here that is usb related, not a problem with the disks.
Q2 : Without the DAS connected, usually within 12 hours the internal SSD has read errors and remounts read only bringing everything down.
On the Minisforum site. Ubuntu is stated as supported, but Debian not. I booted off a Ubuntu live Iso. I ran smartctl tests. No problem. I ran badblocks on the SSD no problem.
Something happens when running, I've seen posts about forcing the SSD into 'max_performance' mode all the time that might help.
I've ordered a new Crucial Nvme to see if the installed ssd is somehow faulty despite passing smartctl and badblocks tests.
I'll let you know, but any advice welcome....
Thoughts:
- Are certain SSD's no good?
- Are some USB settings to aggressive for low end DAS boxes?
- Are there BIOS settings that could help?
- Is removing the errors=remount-ro option an option?
Cheers All,
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