Proxmox on Dell PowerEdge T140

[ThinkYEAH]

Hi,

We want to install Proxmox v7.4 or v8.2 in our Dell PowerEdge T140 with PERC S140 Controller.

Server has some old dell disks, we would like to buy 2x DC600M 2.5” SATA Enterprise SSD (small storage size) for proxmox OS, and 2x DC600M 2.5” SATA Enterprise SSD (2TB) for VM pool.

Firmware is old as you can see on attached image, but we surely will update to last version before we try to install Proxmox.

What ia the best practices to install Proxmox in our hardware? Do we need to disable raid controller and use AHCI (if that's possible) or change to HBA mode?

We would like to use ZFS with software raid 1 for pool1 (proxmox) and pool2 (vm storage).

I really appreciate your help.
Thank you!

 

[cheiss]

Hi,

We want to install Proxmox v7.4 or v8.2

first of - 7.4 will be EOL starting with next month (see also How long will my Proxmox VE version be supported?), so I'd definitely advise installing 8.2!

Firmware is old as you can see on attached image, but we surely will update to last version before we try to install Proxmox.

That's always a good idea, keeping the firmware at the latest version.

What ia the best practices to install Proxmox in our hardware? Do we need to disable raid controller and use AHCI (if that's possible) or change to HBA mode?

We would like to use ZFS with software raid 1 for pool1 (proxmox) and pool2 (vm storage).

If you want to use ZFS, change it to HBA mode (or, if possible, flash IT-mode firmware) - never use ZFS on top of hardware RAID. (And hardware RAID can always be a bit problematic, since when that controller dies, your data has good chance to be just gone.)

You'll find a lot of information on that topic in the forum by just searching a bit. I also recommend reading the ZFS on Linux chapter in our documentation, which explain ZFS usage & administration in detail

Hope that helps!

 

[jdancer]

May want to configure that S140 for AHCI mode. Proxmox can use SATA/SAS ports just fine.

 

[ThinkYEAH]

May want to configure that S140 for AHCI mode. Proxmox can use SATA/SAS ports just fine.

AHCI Mode with 4 SSD, two for Proxmox (ZFS raid1) and two for VMs (ZFS raid1) will work just fine right?

Just want to make sure, this is my 1st time am using Proxmox on Dell server.

Thank you!

 

[jdancer]

AHCI Mode with 4 SSD, two for Proxmox (ZFS raid1) and two for VMs (ZFS raid1) will work just fine right?

Just want to make sure, this is my 1st time am using Proxmox on Dell server.

Thank you!

Yes, that will work.

I don't deal with tower servers but with rack-mounted 4-drive servers, I use RAID-10 for both Proxmox and VMS. Not considered best practice but wanted the IOPs.

The VMs are backed up to a separate bare-metal Proxmox Backup Server.