Would ZFS work on one Nvme SSD with scheduled proxmox backups to an external hdd?

[KingTChoka]

So I'm trying to build a home server (using desktop components that don't support ECC RAM). I plan to have 1x 1TB Nvme SSD and 1x 2TB external USB HDD (already have one lying around).

From my understanding is that using non-ecc with zfs, if there is data corruption happening in memory, it will potentially screw up the entire zfs file system making the whole thing inaccessible.

From this assumption, is it feasible to still use zfs on the one ssd, but have proxmox schedule backups of the VM's and ISO files to my external USB? So in the case zfs crashes or breaks, I can just re-install proxmox on the ssd, and load the backed up VM's and ISO files from the external USB back into the newly installed Proxmox instance? Or should I go the extra step and buy ecc RAM for the motherboard (really hard to find unbuffered ecc ram for ATX mobo's)

Any feedback? Thanks

 

[leesteken]

You can run ZFS on one drive fine. More drives can give more performance (throughput or IOPS) and/or more resilience against hardware failure (so the system can continue to run). ZFS on more drives is not an alternative for backups, because RAID is not a backup!
As long as you have recent and verified backups, it only takes time (and a new drive) to get your VMs running again.

EDIT: Your description of the recovery process appears to be correct. And indeed ECC is a bit harder to find, slower and more expensive. Also, your CPU and motherboard need to support it. I did buy it for my current system, but not for my previous system and it worked fine (as far as I know ;-) ).