Storage Strategy Question: TrueNAS VM vs Direct Proxmox ZFS Dataset

mafsi

New Member
Jul 22, 2024
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I'm trying to decide on the best storage strategy for my Proxmox setup, particularly for NextCloud storage. Here's my current situation:

Current Setup
- Proxmox host with ZFS pool
- NextCloud VM with:
- 50GB OS disk
- 2.5TB directly attached disk (formatted with filesystem for user data)
- TrueNAS Scale VM with:
- 50GB OS disk
- Several HDDs in passthrough forming a separate ZFS pool

My Dilemma
I need efficient storage for NextCloud (about 2-3TB). I've identified two possible approaches:

1. TrueNAS VM Approach:
- Create dataset in TrueNAS
- Share via NFS
- Mount in NextCloud VM

2. Direct Proxmox Approach:
- Create dataset in Proxmox's ZFS pool
- Attach directly to NextCloud VM

My Concerns
The current setup (directly attached disk) has two main issues:
- Need to format the large disk, losing space to filesystem overhead
- Full disk snapshots are very slow and resource-intensive

Questions
1. Which approach would you recommend and why?
2. Is there any significant advantage to using TrueNAS VM instead of managing ZFS directly in Proxmox?
3. What's the common practice for handling large storage needs in NextCloud VMs?
4. Are there any major drawbacks to either approach that I should consider?

Extra Info
My main priorities are:
- Efficient snapshots
- Minimal space overhead
- Reliable backups
- Good performance

Would really appreciate insights from experienced Proxmox users who have dealt with similar setups.
 

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