I have a couple of home server, both with Proxmox as hypervisor, one VM with Ubuntu 22.04 that does just Docker containers, one with Open Media Vault, one with Home Assistant (HA OS) and a couple of Windows VM to do some tests.
Since I wanted to move from OMV, right now I see 2 options:
I use proxmox with truenas scale. It’s a great option, but you just have to make sure to pass the hdd controller PCI device through to the VM. This can either be the SATA controller on the motherboard if you can make that work, or a separate PCIe HBA.
What’s the advantage to using proxmox and virtualizing TrueNAS in your use case?
I’m looking to setup a TrueNAS box mostly as a file server (I have a bunch of spare drives sitting around, so I can duplicate locally and then backup to a cloud provider), but also as a docker host.
(I’m also researching some setups for friends businesses with the VMware debacle - they have a year to migrate).
I have a lot of services. I use Ansible to manage many of them, so they’re all in one VM. I use Home Assistant, which works best when installed as a whole VM or on bare metal. For the remaining services that I have yet to set up with Ansible, I keep the services that need the GPU on one VM, and everything else on another. Finally, I have an LXC container that is my SSH entrypoint and Ansible management system.
I could technically use TrueNAS Scale as a hypervisor for all this, but Proxmox has a lot of quality-of-life features that make it a better hypervisor. I could use Proxmox for ZFS and shares, but TrueNAS has has a lot of quality-of-life features that make it a much better NAS, so I virtualize it.
On eBay they all seems to be coming from China at about 30$ with cables (although they are the 8087 and not 8086), could they be clone?
In Europe (where I live) they costs about 60€.
Does it works with SATA drives and, most important: can it provides the single drives to the OS without RAID (since I would want to use a software RADI like RIADz)?
Yeah, so the IT mode flash makes it just a JBOD controller, which is what truenas wants. It works with SAS and SATA. You’d need SFF-8086 to SATA cables. (One cable per 4 drives)
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I use proxmox with truenas scale. It’s a great option, but you just have to make sure to pass the hdd controller PCI device through to the VM. This can either be the SATA controller on the motherboard if you can make that work, or a separate PCIe HBA.
What’s the advantage to using proxmox and virtualizing TrueNAS in your use case?
I’m looking to setup a TrueNAS box mostly as a file server (I have a bunch of spare drives sitting around, so I can duplicate locally and then backup to a cloud provider), but also as a docker host.
(I’m also researching some setups for friends businesses with the VMware debacle - they have a year to migrate).
I have a lot of services. I use Ansible to manage many of them, so they’re all in one VM. I use Home Assistant, which works best when installed as a whole VM or on bare metal. For the remaining services that I have yet to set up with Ansible, I keep the services that need the GPU on one VM, and everything else on another. Finally, I have an LXC container that is my SSH entrypoint and Ansible management system.
I could technically use TrueNAS Scale as a hypervisor for all this, but Proxmox has a lot of quality-of-life features that make it a better hypervisor. I could use Proxmox for ZFS and shares, but TrueNAS has has a lot of quality-of-life features that make it a much better NAS, so I virtualize it.
Neat, thanks for the info.
Guess I need to read up on what Proxmox offers - I was focusing on TrueNAS as a simple all-on one, maybe Proxmox has something for me.
Honestly I would get a pcie sata controller card. It is fairly inexpensive and doesn’t tie up the controller on the motherboard
Should I pass the whole controller? I have the Proxmox disk on the same controller, how do I do that?
You can pass them as individual drives too.
https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/best-practice-for-truenas-virtualized-on-proxmox.133536/
https://www.wundertech.net/how-to-passthrough-a-disk-in-proxmox/#Passing_through_a_Physical_Disk_in_Proxmox
You would need a separate controller.
Ouch…got it. Thanks
The LSI 9210 8i - IT mode is a great option and can be had for under $50.
On eBay they all seems to be coming from China at about 30$ with cables (although they are the 8087 and not 8086), could they be clone? In Europe (where I live) they costs about 60€.
Does it works with SATA drives and, most important: can it provides the single drives to the OS without RAID (since I would want to use a software RADI like RIADz)?
Yeah, so the IT mode flash makes it just a JBOD controller, which is what truenas wants. It works with SAS and SATA. You’d need SFF-8086 to SATA cables. (One cable per 4 drives)
Interesting, I’ll have a look on how to flash the IT mode. Thanks!
It’s very easy to find them with IT mode already flashed so it’s plug-and-play.