System Setup Help

[stnd]

Hopefully someone can help me and save me hours. Well I have already spent a bunch of time reading and will continue to but in the mean time maybe someone can give me some quick guidance. Thank you in advance.

I want to setup a Proxmox home server on an old machine.

CPU: Intel i7-3770 (4/8 Core/Threads)
RAM: 32GB (maxed out for this PC)

HDD:
2 x 1tb SSD
2 x 8tb WD RED PLUS

What I would like to do is install Proxmox on the 2 x 1tb SSD configured in a mirror raid, and setup the 2 x 8tb in a mirror raid as well to be used by a NAS VM hosted on proxmox. This will be the final configuration for many years to come so I am not worried about scalability, only being able to replace a drive if it fails. And hopefully can migrate to a stronger machine if I outgrow ram.

Questions:

1. Should I use ZFS for Proxmox install raid? (2x1tb)
2. Should I use ZFS for NAS raid? (2x8tb)
3. Should I setup ZFS raid for NAS on proxmox host or just pass through the drives to a VM/LXC container?
4. If I setup ZFS raid for NAS on proxmox should I just use proxmox to be the File Server, or still use a VM/LXC container to be the File Serve?

Thank you,
stnd

 

[AKA]

1. Yes
2. ZFS would still be my choice, but with the limited RAM you have, you would definitely need to MAX your ARC size, because it could take up to 50% of your RAM. Otherwise MD-RAID is one way to go.
3. Both is possible. I'm a fan of having my block devices only in the Proxmox host itself (Because it makes backupping, restoring and moving disks easy)
4. I think that's personal taste. I would probably make a container rather than a VM. Or just use the proxmox host itself.

 

[Dunuin]

You should decide first if you want a NAS OS with a webUI for managing your storage/shares or not. PVE won't offer this. So you would need to setup ZFS and SMB/NFS server on your your own by editing config files and using alot of CLI. If you don't want that you should choose a NAS OS and run it inside a VM/LXCs.
For example TrueNAS runs Unix and only allows ZFS so you can only run it inside a VM and not a LXC and you should let TrueNAS handle the ZFS pools. For that you would need to passthrough the disks to your TrueNAS VM and that is only possible (if you want real passthrough and no virtualized drives using virtio) if you get a dedicated PCIe HBA card where your disks are attached to and than PCI passthrough the whole HBA into your TrueNAS VM.

OpenMediaVault would be another choice. Its based on Debian 10 so you could also run it into a LXC. And with LXCs you can use bind-mounts to bring folders from your host into your LXC. So that way you could manage your ZFS on your host and just passthrough folders to your LXC and then use the OMV webUI to manage your SMB/NFS shares.

Rule of thumb for ZFS is 4GB + 1GB RAM per 1TB of raw storage. So in your case it would be good to give ZFS 22GB of your RAM. It will work with less but might be less snappy. Also your PVE itself needs around 2GB of RAM. So you only got around 8GB for your guests.

 

[stnd]

1. Yes
2. ZFS would still be my choice, but with the limited RAM you have, you would definitely need to MAX your ARC size, because it could take up to 50% of your RAM. Otherwise MD-RAID is one way to go.
3. Both is possible. I'm a fan of having my block devices only in the Proxmox host itself (Because it makes backupping, restoring and moving disks easy)
4. I think that's personal taste. I would probably make a container rather than a VM. Or just use the proxmox host itself.

You should decide first if you want a NAS OS with a webUI for managing your storage/shares or not. PVE won't offer this. So you would need to setup ZFS and SMB/NFS server on your your own by editing config files and using alot of CLI. If you don't want that you should choose a NAS OS and run it inside a VM/LXCs.
For example TrueNAS runs Unix and only allows ZFS so you can only run it inside a VM and not a LXC and you should let TrueNAS handle the ZFS pools. For that you would need to passthrough the disks to your TrueNAS VM and that is only possible (if you want real passthrough and no virtualized drives using virtio) if you get a dedicated PCIe HBA card where your disks are attached to and than PCI passthrough the whole HBA into your TrueNAS VM.

OpenMediaVault would be another choice. Its based on Debian 10 so you could also run it into a LXC. And with LXCs you can use bind-mounts to bring folders from your host into your LXC. So that way you could manage your ZFS on your host and just passthrough folders to your LXC and then use the OMV webUI to manage your SMB/NFS shares.

Rule of thumb for ZFS is 4GB + 1GB RAM per 1TB of raw storage. So in your case it would be good to give ZFS 22GB of your RAM. It will work with less but might be less snappy. Also your PVE itself needs around 2GB of RAM. So you only got around 8GB for your guests.

Thank you both. I think i'll do ZFS pools for both sets of drives on the host, then create an Open Media Vault container to manage the sharing. That way if i hate open media vault or the next thing I try the files are still good on the host. I'm not sure the Dell Vostro 570 motherboard can do PCI passthrough.

Thanks again. Time to experiment and hopefully the 32 gigs will be enough for OMV, pihole, radarr/sonarr/etc. and a small webserver. All low personal traffic.