Proxmox vs Openmediavault

[agarg]

Folks:

I discovered an unused HP Microserver with RAIDZ (5 drives, including caddie in the defunct DVD drive) and 16GB of DDR3 RAM. It has a AMD Turion II Processor Model Neo N54L dual core and an ubuntu rev 22 server in USB drive with swap disabled.

My use case is just a NAS filer.

If I install proxmox on a 32Gb flash drive with no swap and don't really use Lekcee or VM (except storage on zfs) from other pve devices on the zfs tank (nfs or samba exposed), would that be ok? Dont need much logs. Perhaps no swap. And, also no VM/LXC.

Openmedia vault encourages HDD/SSD install but does not object if we use flash drive for OS.

Is it better that I use proxmox, or should I debian server this or perhaps Openmedia Vault? Pls advise as my requirements are anonymous access to samba server.

 

[ness1602]

wrt turion processor, i would just spin up openmediavault for a simple file-share machine.

 

[aabraham]

Folks:

I discovered an unused HP Microserver with RAIDZ (5 drives, including caddie in the defunct DVD drive) and 16GB of DDR3 RAM. It has a AMD Turion II Processor Model Neo N54L dual core and an ubuntu rev 22 server in USB drive with swap disabled.

My use care is just a NAS filer.

If I install proxmox on a 32Gb flash drive with no swap and don't really use Lekcee or VM (except storage on zfs) from other pve devices on the zfs tank (nfs or samba exposed), would that be ok? Dont need much logs. Perhaps no swap. And, also no VM/LXC.

Openmedia vault encourages HDD/SSD install but does not object if we use flash drive for OS.

Is it better that I use proxmox, or should I debian server this or perhaps Openmedia Vault? Pls advise as my requirements are anonymous access to samba server.

I would agree with @ness1602. It entirely depends on how heavily you plan to use this device.

 

[agarg]

Thank you. The usage is sporadic and not much at all.

 

[Johannes S]

If you really don't want to do anything with VMs you are better off with just a Linux server or NAS distribution like OMV. I would also consider UnRAID or TrueNAS Scale.
All of them allows to host Apps via docker if the need arise.

 

[agarg]

If you really don't want to do anything with VMs you are better off with just a Linux server or NAS distribution like OMV. I would also consider UnRAID or TrueNAS Scale.
All of them allows to host Apps via docker if the need arise.

I am going to play around with PVE on a couple of other machines. And, my original thoughts was that I will add this to the cluster but this machine even though a PVE will only serve files and play host storage to other pve .

But now, I am doing OMV 7 and serve the raidz as a storage in other pve when I get them ready. I will check out unraid and truenas as well. Someone send me an email and seaid just install debian 12 with cockpit.

Cheers!

 

[agarg]

Folks:

I discovered an unused HP Microserver with RAIDZ (5 drives, including caddie in the defunct DVD drive) and 16GB of DDR3 RAM. It has a AMD Turion II Processor Model Neo N54L dual core and an ubuntu rev 22 server in USB drive with swap disabled.

My use case is just a NAS filer.

If I install proxmox on a 32Gb flash drive with no swap and don't really use Lekcee or VM (except storage on zfs) from other pve devices on the zfs tank (nfs or samba exposed), would that be ok? Dont need much logs. Perhaps no swap. And, also no VM/LXC.

Openmedia vault encourages HDD/SSD install but does not object if we use flash drive for OS.

Is it better that I use proxmox, or should I debian server this or perhaps Openmedia Vault? Pls advise as my requirements are anonymous access to samba server.

Folks: Sorry to belabor the same discussion. What if I create a proxmox boot disk on a SATA-USB SSD (say 64 gb, I have that spare) and then install proxmox on a msata-USB boot drive. Use proxmox to share the zfs share 100% of the time.

Anytime, I want to check out a php cms feature, I can just fire up an lxc and test and then shut it down. This won't be much load and mostly sporadic one or two hour a week usage and so it may offers flexibility.

Given this, do you still think OMV is the way to go for performance reasons? or simplicity? I love OMV but this added flexibility is making me wonder.

Is Proxmox without the VM and Containers more resource hungry than OMV?

Appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks.

 

[Johannes S]

Folks: Sorry to belabor the same discussion. What if I create a proxmox boot disk on a SATA-USB SSD (say 64 gb, I have that spare) and then install proxmox on a msata-USB boot drive. Use proxmox to share the zfs share 100% of the time.

Is the boot disk a sd card or usb flash drive? Then you really shouldn't install PVE on it since it would quickly wear it out.

Anytime, I want to check out a php cms feature, I can just fire up an lxc and test and then shut it down. This won't be much load and mostly sporadic one or two hour a week usage and so it may offers flexibility.

That's correct but you could also do this with a docker container for that CMS. And since Openmedia is basically Debian you could also use lxc on it or lxd if you won't do this on a regular base. If on the other hand you are planning to do a lot of poking with LXCs or VMs then of course ProxmoxVE would be the better choice than OMV. My argument was mainly for the usecase "I just want to host my home-automation, a media- and fileserver and maybe paperless and frigate for my home network without having to do too much server-housekeeping". For that specific usecase I think OMV or another NAS distribution is a better solution than ProxmoxVE, at least for beginners.

Given this, do you still think OMV is the way to go for performance reasons? or simplicity? I love OMV but this added flexibility is making me wonder.

Is Proxmox without the VM and Containers more resource hungry than OMV?

Both are based on Debian, so on most machines the differences shouldn't matter much. The system requirements tell a different story though:

CPU: Any x86-64 or ARM compatible processor
RAM: 1 GiB capacity
HDD: System Drive: min. 4 GiB capacity (plus the capacity of the RAM)
Data Drive: capacity according to your needs
https://docs.openmediavault.org/en/latest/prerequisites.html

Minimum Requirements, for Evaluation
These minimum requirements are for evaluation purposes only and should not be used in production.

CPU: 64bit (Intel 64 or AMD64)

Intel VT/AMD-V capable CPU/motherboard for KVM full virtualization support

RAM: 1 GB RAM, plus additional RAM needed for guests

Hard drive

One network card (NIC)

Recommended System Requirements
Intel 64 or AMD64 with Intel VT/AMD-V CPU flag.

Memory: Minimum 2 GB for the OS and Proxmox VE services, plus designated memory for guests. For Ceph and ZFS, additional memory is required; approximately 1GB of memory for every TB of used storage.

Fast and redundant storage, best results are achieved with SSDs.

OS storage: Use a hardware RAID with battery protected write cache (“BBU”) or non-RAID with ZFS (optional SSD for ZIL).

VM storage:

For local storage, use either a hardware RAID with battery backed write cache (BBU) or non-RAID for ZFS and Ceph. Neither ZFS nor Ceph are compatible with a hardware RAID controller.

Shared and distributed storage is possible.

SSDs with Power-Loss-Protection (PLP) are recommended for good performance. Using consumer SSDs is discouraged.

Redundant (Multi-)Gbit NICs, with additional NICs depending on the preferred storage technology and cluster setup.

For PCI(e) passthrough the CPU needs to support the VT-d/AMD-d flag.

https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/System_Requirements

So ProxmoxVE needs at least x64 so ARM is out. And while the minimum needed RAM on both systems is quite small OMV seems to have the overall smaller footprint.

 

[agarg]

Is the boot disk a sd card or usb flash drive? Then you really shouldn't install PVE on it since it would quickly wear it out.

It is an msata USB riser.

That's correct but you could also do this with a docker container for that CMS. And since Openmedia is basically Debian you could also use lxc on it or lxd if you won't do this on a regular base.

This is awesome. Did not know that.

For that specific usecase I think OMV or another NAS distribution is a better solution than ProxmoxVE, at least for beginners.

This is a instantly understandable and an accurate situation.

So ProxmoxVE needs at least x64 so ARM is out. And while the minimum needed RAM on both systems is quite small OMV seems to have the overall smaller footprint.

Decision is clear. Why Proxmox when we don't need that on this compact box.

Thank you so much for patiently helping me understand.

 

[Johannes S]

It is an msata USB riser.

I have no experience with these devices so maybe somebody else has a word on it?

This is awesome. Did not know that.

Please take my words with a grain of salt: I think lxc on OMV should work (because why wouldn't?) but didn't tried it. So test the LXC stuff in a OMV VM first. You could use something like Virtualbox on your PC or notebook for that. OMV has a plugin for running VMs which seems to also support LXC containers: https://wiki.omv-extras.org/doku.php?id=omv7:omv7_plugins:kvm
Another plugin allows hosting docker containers: https://wiki.omv-extras.org/doku.php?id=omv7:omv7_plugins:docker_compose

To setup your CMS with Docker you would need a docker-compose file or docker image, not every cms provide that (so you would need to build a docker image first, which might be more than you are willing to do)