Running proxmox from a USB drive? - SOLVED

[Joseph Chrzempiec]

Hello i was curious if it would be okay to run proxmox from a USB drive? The reason why I'm asking is because i have a server that only has two sata ports and it is very small form factor case. I need to run the two sata drives in raid one for backup. But i don't have a main boot drive. So i was wondering if i would be okay with that flash drive?


Joseph

 

[aaron]

Normal USB flash drives? No. The main reason is that Proxmox VE writes quite a bit of logs and that will kill your USB flash drive in a short time. Besides that, Proxmox VE will use the flash drive as a normal hard drive and for that, flash drives are in my experience terribly slow.

If you have to use something small you could try to use a USB based SSD? Maybe some other users can contribute some experience with such a setup because I don't have any.

 

[spirit]

with normal usb flash drives, you'll burn them in less than 1month

but it should be possible with usb key with mlc memory

something like:

https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/t...flash-910-high-endurance-usb-flash-drive.html

 

[johncsuti]

I know this is a dead thread but would something like this work well?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MNFH1PX/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A41S1C1L96T2O&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B086BKGSC1/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

 

[_gabriel]

i've no problem yet with two systems with 64GB MLC usb key (Transcend 780).
3 GB root used by Proxmox OS.
i disable swap to reduce write activity.

one custom built since feb. 2021
dedicated for Xpenology because passthrough 5 hdd in raid5 by Synology got from faulty atom soc ds1515 thanks to Intel & Synology.

second system since jan. 2022, hp proliant ML 350p , swap disabled.
dedicated ssd ext4/Lvmthin with only a Windows server 2012r2 ssd ext4/Lvmthin VM.

 

[Dunuin]

I know this is a dead thread but would something like this work well?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MNFH1PX/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A41S1C1L96T2O&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B086BKGSC1/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

Should work. But they are just empty cases, you still need to buy some more or less durable M.2 SSDs.

 

[Joseph Chrzempiec]

Hello, Everyone Thank you all for the information and Help. What I Did at that time I have bought a 64GB usb SSD. and I took my 2 Hard drives raidded them together as one drive. It all works and still running up to this day. Thank you all for the help.


Joseph

 

[Joseph Chrzempiec]

Should work. But they are just empty cases, you still need to buy some more or less durable M.2 SSDs.

This is a older system no M.2 only have two Sata ports on it. One of them very small old Dell Desktop. But I have gotten it to work from back then.

 

[Joseph Chrzempiec]

Hello All, What I mange to did back then was bought a USB 32GB ssd it was cheap back then. And used that as my proxmox drive. and use the two sata ports for 2 320GB drives. The system had build in raid anduse them drives as my VM drives.

I still use this system up to this day.


Joseph

 

[Crash1hd]

Hello All, What I mange to did back then was bought a USB 32GB ssd it was cheap back then. And used that as my proxmox drive. and use the two sata ports for 2 320GB drives. The system had build in raid anduse them drives as my VM drives.

I still use this system up to this day.


Joseph

Just curious, you indicate that you still use this system up to this day but you did not indicate when you started using it? just curious if it has been for 2+,3+, 5+ years? (My apologies for bringing up a very old thread.)

 

[Dunuin]

"USB SSD" should be fine (so a real M.2 or 2.5" SSD but in a Case with USB-Plug or some dedicated USB-SSDs like a Sandisk/Samsung Portable SSD). Just don't use SD-Cards or USB pen drives without wear leveling, cheap NAND, missing SLC/RAM caching and so on.