Proxmox mirroring installation

[Lucas Rey]

Hello community, I'm changing my home server hardware where Proxmox OS runs in a single 2TB nvme disk together with the VMs.
My new MoBo will be MAG B660M MORTAR MAX WIFI DDR4. It supports 2x m.2 nvme disks. I have another 2TB nvme disk and I'm thinking to re-install Proxmox using both in mirroring.

As I understood, Proxmox software mirror ability (during installation) could be a good way. I'll use etx4 for installation. But anyway, Proxmox will always boot from one disk, so that if this disk will fail I have to manually switch to other nvme to properly boot the OS. Am I wrong?
Other option could be use the MoBo RAID controller, but in this case, is there a way to check the mirror status on proxmox CLI? I have already some scripts who check hardware status and send a push message (I'm using PushOver API) if something is wrong, but how can I check the onboard raid controller status? Is it possible?
Thank you
Lucas

 

[Dunuin]

As I understood, Proxmox software mirror ability (during installation) could be a good way. I'll use etx4 for installation. But anyway, Proxmox will always boot from one disk, so that if this disk will fail I have to manually switch to other nvme to properly boot the OS. Am I wrong?

When mirroring using the PVE installer it will use ZFS. Its not recommended to use ZFS with Consumer Disks and I bet you didn't bought enterprise M.2 with power-loss protection.
And no, you will have to set up both disks as the primary and secondary boot devices in UEFI, root filesystem will be mirrored by ZFS and bootloaders will be kept in sync by the proxmox-boot-tool. So no matter which disk fails, PVE will continue working as nothing has happend and will also boot from that remaining disk.

Other option could be use the MoBo RAID controller, but in this case, is there a way to check the mirror status on proxmox CLI?

Depends if your mainboard manufacturer ships linux tool for that. PVE probably won't do that out of the box. Also keep in mins that onboard raid combines the downsides of HW raid and software raid without any of those benefits.

 

[Lucas Rey]

Firstly, thanks for reply, then

When mirroring using the PVE installer it will use ZFS. Its not recommended to use ZFS with Consumer Disks and I bet you didn't bought enterprise M.2 with power-loss protection.

No, they're just "simple" Crucial P3 m.2. nvme disks. I didn't know that, to use mirror feature, I'm forced to use ZFS. So no way to use etx4 with software mirror during installation?
EDIT: Ok, I see, from doc: Please note that Proxmox VE currently only supports one technology for local software defined RAID storage: ZFS
So, this is a no go for software raid.

And no, you will have to set up both disks as the primary and secondary boot devices in UEFI, root filesystem will be mirrored by ZFS and bootloaders will be kept in sync by the proxmox-boot-tool. So no matter which disk fails, PVE will continue working as nothing has happend and will also boot from that remaining disk.

Oh, that's good, I misunderstood then some other posts in the forum.

Depends if your mainboard manufacturer ships linux tool for that. PVE probably won't do that out of the box. Also keep in mins that onboard raid combines the downsides of HW raid and software raid without any of those benefits.

Nope, unfortunately the manufacter ships only windows tools. I thought I could use some other "generic" tools or any OS command to check it.

 

[Dunuin]

So no way to use etx4 with software mirror during installation?

No, for ext4 you would need onboard or HW raid or install debian 12 using mdadm software raid (not officially supported but works) and install PVE on top of Debian 12. See: https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Install_Proxmox_VE_on_Debian_12_Bookworm

 

[Lucas Rey]

No, for ext4 you would need onboard or HW raid or install debian 12 using mdadm software raid (not officially supported but works) and install PVE on top of Debian 12. See: https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Install_Proxmox_VE_on_Debian_12_Bookworm

I see, as per my original edit message, the Proxmox wiki clearly reports that mirroring is possible only with ZFS.
At this point I'll keep the Proxmox OS and VMs on my first nvne and use the other one to store VM backup (other than that on my nas).