Reinstall from scratch... HHD vs SSD vs USB strictly for Prox O/S?

[Shadowed]

am about to reinstall my system from scratch. I have read so many different things about what to use for a boot drive and never felt I got a definitive answer. For the last two years, I have been running the base O/S from a 256gb thumb drive with no issues. I am wondering if the actual speed of the drive makes a huge difference for just the O/S when everything else is running on separate RAIDs. I know there is a R/RW issue with Solid State devices and life span. Thus disabled three key things dealing with logging so that might be why I haven't seen any issues.

Can I get away with running an HDD @5400rpms? I am not super worried about redundancy as all the actual LXCs/VMs are backed up and the RAIDS that actually store things I want to keep are RAID1/BK'ed off-site. The only LXC I was thinking about putting on the boot drive this time would be the recorder database for Home Assistant.

Extra credit question... Currently, I run Plex and each of the 'arrs in separate LXCs. Does it really make a difference resource-wise to separate them vs all in one LXC? I separated them years back when I kept having issues with one being dumb and taking the rest with it.

Thanks in an advance

Dell PE R730xd

 

[_gabriel]

slow hdd drive as boot doesn't slow down your VMs.
You can disable swap (set to 0 within installer) because swap by default is on boot drive.

thumb drives aren't recommended mainly because of missing trim support. you can't really monitor their wear level...
I'm using mlc usb key on two system without problems too, but keep in mind, re install base os will be needed later or sooner.
ssd in an usb enclosure can be an alternative because trim and wear level is supported.

 

[susannegraf]

Follow-up:
Hi Gabriel, I'm also interested in using USB media since my motherboard has a built-in USB host. What's your overall experience with using MLC USB drives? How long have they been working for you before you encountered any issues?

 

[Ramalama]

Some boards support iscsi boot, like the x570d4i-2t that im using.
Just as an idea if you have already some sort of storage server running anyway.

Cheers

 

[Shadowed]

Follow-up:
Hi Gabriel, I'm also interested in using USB media since my motherboard has a built-in USB host. What's your overall experience with using MLC USB drives? How long have they been working for you before you encountered any issues?

This is the one I have been using 24/7 since end of 2021.

Samsung 256gb

 

[_gabriel]

Transcend JetFlash 780 64GB
one system 24/7 since 2021-02 , 50 GB partition allocated , 2 GB used by pve-os , 1 VM (Xpenology)
other system 24/7 since 2022-01, 32GB partition allocated , 4 GB used by pve-os. 1 VM (Windows Server) + PBS installed alongside too with daily backup.
pve config/important files written down to be able to fast re-install

 

[susannegraf]

@Shadowed
To Shadowed:

Thanks a ton! It's quite the marvel that this colossal contraption (a USB thumb drive) houses nothing but Proxmox itself. You know, I originally envisioned a 64GB stick for this - a Samsung BAR Plus 256GB would feel like an elephant on a skateboard to me. Speaking of elephants, do you know the joke about the computer doing yoga? No? Well, it was just trying to stretch its bytes!

@Ramalama
To Ramalama:

When it comes to ISCSi boot, I can't say I'm over the moon. My experiences suggest that the stability of the solution depends heavily on the implementation by the motherboard manufacturer. There was this one time at work where things nearly hit the fan. If push comes to shove, I lean more towards Fibre Channel HBA - it's been running 24/7 for the past two years at my workplace without a hitch.

As for my Homelab, though, that would be downright overkill. Just imagine having a SAN next to your desk, sounding like a jet engine during takeoff. Every time you accessed your data, you'd probably think you were about to miss your flight! And believe me, nothing beats the adrenaline rush of sprinting through an airport... except maybe not having to sprint through an airport.

Greetings
Susanne

 

[Ramalama]

@Shadowed
To Shadowed:

Thanks a ton! It's quite the marvel that this colossal contraption (a USB thumb drive) houses nothing but Proxmox itself. You know, I originally envisioned a 64GB stick for this - a Samsung BAR Plus 256GB would feel like an elephant on a skateboard to me. Speaking of elephants, do you know the joke about the computer doing yoga? No? Well, it was just trying to stretch its bytes!

@Ramalama
To Ramalama:

When it comes to ISCSi boot, I can't say I'm over the moon. My experiences suggest that the stability of the solution depends heavily on the implementation by the motherboard manufacturer. There was this one time at work where things nearly hit the fan. If push comes to shove, I lean more towards Fibre Channel HBA - it's been running 24/7 for the past two years at my workplace without a hitch.

As for my Homelab, though, that would be downright overkill. Just imagine having a SAN next to your desk, sounding like a jet engine during takeoff. Every time you accessed your data, you'd probably think you were about to miss your flight! And believe me, nothing beats the adrenaline rush of sprinting through an airport... except maybe not having to sprint through an airport.

Greetings
Susanne

In my opinion fc is surely better, you're right there, but for fc you need usually a lot more hardware... Fc switches, an fc pcie card, the fc san...

I just told iscsi as an option, because some people at home have maybe a 10gbe Synology/qnap/custom build/whatever and for iscsi you don't need to have any special hardware other as more then a 1gb connection
Another point is, when something goes wrong, Proxmox won't boot at all, which is in my opinion better as if Proxmox boots degraded in some fashion.

Cheers