Samsung 860 evo 250gb for proxmox OS only

[zecas]

Hi,

During the process of setting up a new proxmox server, I asked some questions around the forums and another situation arise that caused me some concern.

The question was related with the use of SSDs for ZFS on proxmox.

So I was thinking that I had a pair of samsung 860 pro 250gb to use for proxmox OS only, setting them as raid1. But ... in reality I found out that I really have a pair of samsung 860 evo 250gb, which are worse in terms of endurance.

Basically I would then set a pair of samsung 860 evo 250gb:
- as ZFS raid1;
- assigning only 200gb (for over-provisioning);
- setting ashift=12;
- setting lz4 compression;
- disabling atime;
- and be very strict to use them for proxmox OS only.

My main concerns are:
- Will this just kill my SSDs?
- Will I be better of to just install proxmox on a single SSD with ext4, and leave the other one as a replacement if needed (thus loosing OS redundancy)?
- Would there be any more settings that I could use to help reduce their usage and enhance their longevity?

I saw some tutorials online that followed this approach, ie, installing proxmox as raid1 in non-enterprise SSDs, but of course I see no information regarding their usage, so better ask here where people will have more experience on this matter.

I'm also gathering information about enterprise SSDs with power loss protection and higher endurance, for a near future build, but for this one build I had planned using these 860 evo's, but now I have these concerns.


Thank you.
zecas

 

[Dunuin]

I would just test it. Use smartctl -a /dev/yourSSD and write down that output. Then after some weeks do it again and compare the results. You can then calculate how much PVE is writing to the SSDs per day and extrapolate how fast you would reach the TBW. If it will last for 5 or more years just keep it. If it won't last that long then get some small enterprise SSD (32GB is plenty of space for just a PVE installation where you don't want to store ISOs/backups...you don't need 200Gb for it) and clone your evos to the new enterprise SSDs using dd or clonezilla.

 

[zecas]

I would just test it. Use smartctl -a /dev/yourSSD and write down that output. Then after some weeks do it again and compare the results. You can then calculate how much PVE is writing to the SSDs per day and extrapolate how fast you would reach the TBW. If it will last for 5 or more years just keep it. If it won't last that long then get some small enterprise SSD (32GB is plenty of space for just a PVE installation where you don't want to store ISOs/backups...you don't need 200Gb for it) and clone your evos to the new enterprise SSDs using dd or clonezilla.

Thanks for the reply.

Yes that may be a possibility, although I'm feeling that in the end, I'll just have to replace them ... being ZFS couldn't I just replace the disk, wait for ZFS to replicate, then re-write the grub on the new disk? Or just using clonezilla to make a 1:1 copy would just do all that?

I'm over provisioning the disks, so I'm just assuming that it will stay that way, using ZFS replication or clonezilla. Right?

Thanks

 

[Dunuin]

ZFS replication alone won't help much as only 1 of 3 partitions will use ZFS. I would just clone the whole drive or atleast all partitions. Cloning partition table, syncing systemd boot or writing a new grub + replacing the ZFS partition should work too.