Suggestions for hardware, disk configuration (filesystem) and backup

[ashesofasker]

Hi all.

After recently switching jobs I want to get some hands on experience with Proxmox as we might be moving from VMware to Proxmox in the near future.

So I want to get Proxmox up and running at home but is a little unsure regarding the best setup and especially disk configuration.

I have a Synology DS918+ currently running with 4 x 4 TB disk in raid10 configuration and ext4 as filesystem. I plan to keep this and want to add it as storage for several VM's on Proxmox, mainly a VM running Plex.

I bought an almost new Dell PowerEdge T30 rocking a Xeon (E3-1225V5 Quad core @ 3.3 GHz) and 64 GB om ECC memory. I got it really cheap but I wonder if is should sell it and build a small case Ryzen machine that fulfils my needs.

Either way my plan is to run a couple of VM's or containers on Proxmox being:
Plex server (with storage attached from Synology )
MineOS (minecraft server for my son and a couple of friends)
Unifi controller
VPN gateway
1 Linux VM for training RedHat certification.

I will only need storage for the VM's and backups and not much data besides this so what I was thinking in term of storage was:

2 SSD's 500GB in Raid1 configuration (ZFS) chosen during Proxmox installation.

Before I really get started I was hoping on some comments on the setup above and specifically:

1) Would you suggest sticking with the Dell PowerEdge T30 or switch for a small Ryzen build when I don't need a lot of storage? I guess I would win Hyperthreading, bigger caches and more cores. Properly also small power consumption.

2) Does 2 SSD's in Raid1 ZFS cover my needs? And will I be able to have both Proxmox install, VM's, ISO-share etc. on this? (and will it configure automatically during installation)?

3) Should I split OS and VM's on separate disks? E.g. 120 GB SSD for OS and 2 x SSD 500 GB in Raid1 for VM's?

4) What about backup? Running Raid1 gives some security but I would like to backup to outside the server. Would I be able to just mount a share from the Synology and use for backup of VM's?

Any help and comments are appreciated. Really fell that Proxmox could be a great experience but the learning curve is a little step to begin with. Most youtubers showing installs also do really advanced setup with 6x 3.5" disks and haven't really found anything similar to what I am thinking in terms of specs and usage.

 

[Dominic]

Hi!

1) For power consumption: Would the power savings recoup the investment into new hardware? Do you need hyperthreading, bigger caches and more cores?

2) Probably, yes, yes. Your 64GB ECC memory are a good start for ZFS. When installing Proxmox VE you can choose ZFS Raid 1 with 4 clicks The installer will automatically create two so called "storages" for you. You can upload ISO files and backups to one and create VMs on the other storage.

3) It's not necessary, but being able to easily reinstall Proxmox VE for example might make tinkering around easier. Do you have the necessary SSDs already?

4) Yes. You can add storages like NFS to Proxmox VE with a few clicks in the GUI and use them for backups.

One of your most valuable resources should probably be our reference documentation.

 

[ashesofasker]

Hi!

1) For power consumption: Would the power savings recoup the investment into new hardware? Do you need hyperthreading, bigger caches and more cores?

2) Probably, yes, yes. Your 64GB ECC memory are a good start for ZFS. When installing Proxmox VE you can choose ZFS Raid 1 with 4 clicks The installer will automatically create two so called "storages" for you. You can upload ISO files and backups to one and create VMs on the other storage.

3) It's not necessary, but being able to easily reinstall Proxmox VE for example might make tinkering around easier. Do you have the necessary SSDs already?

4) Yes. You can add storages like NFS to Proxmox VE with a few clicks in the GUI and use them for backups.

One of your most valuable resources should probably be our reference documentation.

Dominic, thank you very much for your answers and the very useful link to your reference documentation. Really appreciate your time. A couple of comments and additional questions arise:

1) For power consumption: Would the power savings recoup the investment into new hardware? Do you need hyperthreading, bigger caches and more cores?

I would be able to move from the Dell Poweredge T30 to a Ryzen based machine build roughly without cost. So its more a question of do should I or do I have everthing I need on the current platform.

Biggests gain would properly be the HyperThreading. But if I'm just running a small Plex server, a small Minecraft server, a small VPN and one CentOS for RedHat training I guess the E3-1225V5 is move than enough. Even without HyperThreading, this would give me 4x4=16 vCPU's to play with, right?

2) Probably, yes, yes. Your 64GB ECC memory are a good start for ZFS. When installing Proxmox VE you can choose ZFS Raid 1 with 4 clicks The installer will automatically create two so called "storages" for you. You can upload ISO files and backups to one and create VMs on the other storage.

3) It's not necessary, but being able to easily reinstall Proxmox VE for example might make tinkering around easier. Do you have the necessary SSDs already?

That's perfect. Thanks for the explanation. I have not yet bought the SSD's so will need to purchase them. So might as well do it "best / most correct" from the beginning.

So is that 2 x 500 GB SSD in ZFS Raid 1
or 2 x 120 GB SSD in ZFS Raid 1 for Proxmox OS only + 2 x 500 GB SSD in ZFS1 for VM's and images?

As long as my setup is a simple as it will be and I do snapshots of the VM's to an external disk, then I guess it wouldn't be much of a problem having just the 2 X 500 GB setup.

But again, I want to to it the best way. The small costs assosiated with one or two SSD's is not of concern.

 

[Dominic]

Even without HyperThreading, this would give me 4x4=16 vCPU's to play with, right?

There are some restrictions with core count and virtual machines. From our documentation:

It is perfectly safe if the overall number of cores of all your VMs is greater than the number of cores on the server (e.g., 4 VMs with each 4 cores on a machine with only 8 cores). (...) However, Proxmox VE will prevent you from starting VMs with more virtual CPU cores than physically available (...).

As a reference: I have a Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1231 v3 here and it runs multiple test VMs just fine.
Maybe Plex can use some special CPU features that the Xeon doesn't have?

But again, I want to to it the best way.

You can create backups of some configuration files and easily reinstall Proxmox VE if your single SSD breaks. But as you are less likely to have an unavailable system, having RAID for the OS looks clearly better to me. Some RAID is even recommended in our system requirements.

So might as well do it "best / most correct" from the beginning.

If you really want the best practice, then you have to go for enterprise class SSDs as well. See our Ceph Benchmark for an idea of the performance difference.