Storage Configuration and Backup Clarification

[sonoracomm]

Hi,

I have a single server that I'm using to test Proxmox...on my home network...and I'm trying to learn best practices.

I have 4 1TB SATA drives and no RAID card.

So far, I have Proxmox VE installed on the first 1TB hard drive with the bulk of the disk space in the 'pve' volume group (named 'local', of type 'Directory'). I added the second drive as a new PV in a new VG (named pve2).

Was this a mistake? Should I have just expanded the original 'pve' volume group (which consists only of /dev/sda2)?

If it's OK the way I did it, how would I add the third drive? Should I just expand the new 'pve2' volume group?

Now, for backup...

My intention was to use the fourth drive as backup storage. How would I best go about that? Apparently, you can't back up to LVM-backed local storage?

Should I just mount the drive in the Proxmox filesystem, then add it as a 'Directory' storage type for VZdump Backups?

Or, would I be smarter to move the fourth 1TB drive to some network-attached box?

Finally, for optimal backup scenarios (minimal down time), LVM snapshots will be used, correct? How would I assure this will work properly?

Thanks in advance for all suggestions.

G

 

[dietmar]

I have a single server that I'm using to test Proxmox...on my home network...and I'm trying to learn best practices.

I have 4 1TB SATA drives and no RAID card.

I guess you know that this is not recommended (no RAID)

So far, I have Proxmox VE installed on the first 1TB hard drive with the bulk of the disk space in the 'pve' volume group (named 'local', of type 'Directory'). I added the second drive as a new PV in a new VG (named pve2).

Was this a mistake? Should I have just expanded the original 'pve' volume group (which consists only of /dev/sda2)?

If it's OK the way I did it, how would I add the third drive? Should I just expand the new 'pve2' volume group?

That is up to you - you can do it both ways.

Now, for backup...

My intention was to use the fourth drive as backup storage.

Backup to disk is dangerous. I would at least move the disk to another location.

 

[maxprox]

Hi,
I have a single server that I'm using to test Proxmox...on my home network...and I'm trying to learn best practices.
...

Hello,
yes, about the same I do.
Maybe this thread helps a bit?http://forum.proxmox.com/threads/6895-LVM-and-Storage-Model

As already dietmar says:

Backup to disk is dangerous. I would at least move the disk to another location.

At the very least for me, is the use of removable (backup)disks, which I regularly exchange ... to another location ...

I will save the productive data and installation files (the VM image) separately.
The VM images by vzdump. The user data (on my second VG) with backuppc (which is working on an other machine with removable disks).
This is currently my plan

 

[sonoracomm]

Hi dietmar and max,

Thank you both very much for your responses.

Yes, max, I had read that other thread...it actually led me to ask my questions.

I don't know much about LVM snapshots despite using LVM every day. The comment by Udo in your thread "so you need free space in the vg" led me to ask my question. I would still appreciate clarification. As I understand it, assuring your backups happen as LVM snapshots would seem to be a critical engineering detail for production use (for minimal down time).

When I asked about expanding the original 'pve' VG vs. creating a new VG, Dietmar said "you can do it both ways", but I already knew that. I'm just trying to determine the most strategic method or to determine when to do one or the other. I guess if one just had a single large high-performance RAID array, one wouldn't be asking this question...perhaps until they needed to expand their storage.

While in most circles snapshots are one thing, backups are another. The terminology seems a bit different with Proxmox VE. We too have other backup systems in place for backing up data (BackupPC for Linux/Unix and Ahsay for Windows). I mostly use the snapshots for testing, upgrades and disaster recovery.

As for the backup storage, we frequently use locally attached drives as level 1 backup space...like the Workstation Backup in SME Server. It works well, is inexpensive and offers fast disaster recovery...in conjunction with a level 2 (on-line) backup. Most of the time, we mount the drive, do the backup, then unmount the drive as an added safety mechanism.

Here on my home server, I can't afford a nice RAID controller. But that doesn't really have anything to do with my questions. It only illustrates my financial condition. ;-)

Thank you both again,

G