I have a trusty UnRaid server that has been running great for almost 3 years now, with some kinks and headaches here and there, but mostly very stable. Now I’m entertaining the idea of setting that box up with ProxMox, and running UnRaid virtualized. The reason being that I want to use UnRaid exclusively as a NAS and then run all dockers and VMs on ProxMox (at least that’s how I’m picturing it). I would like to know your opinion on this idea. All I have is Nextcloud, Immich, Vaultwarden, Jellyfin, Calibre, Kavita and a Windows VM I use to update some hardware every now and then. I mainly want to do that for the backup capabilities in ProxMox for each instance. Storage is not a concern, and I have 64GB of ECC Ram running in that box. What are the Pros and Cons, or is it even worth it to move all this to ProxMox?

  • just_another_person@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    2 months ago

    Oof. No.

    Wouldn’t do it for a litany of reasons, but the main being that it’s not meant for such things. You want it to be as close to the OS and drivers as possible. Anything getting between Unraid managing the disks is overly complex, and asking for trouble. What happens if the container dies? What happens if the container gets OOMkill’d?

    If you’re not going to use it to manage your disks, then I guess no issues, but there’s better suited software for such things.

    Isn’t Unraid also a VM host of sorts?

    • JJLinux@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      3·
      2 months ago

      Yeah, UnRaid does all of that, but from my very basic testing of ProxMox in an old computer, the VM management is much better than in UnRaid. The same goes for VLAN awareness with just 1 nic.

      I’m in no way unsatisfied with UnRaid, but I watched a video by Christian Lempa doing something similar, only with TrueNAS instead of UnRaid, which is what got my brain thinking about all these potential options.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3pKprTdNqQ

      • just_another_person@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        2 months ago

        There’s the question of “CAN I do this?” vs “SHOULD I do this?”. I don’t think abstracting your main storage handling software away from where it definitely needs to be is going to net you anything positive, but add more issues and complications.

        I’m sure you can find videos of people running drivers out of containers just because it’s possible. Should you though? Nope.

        • JJLinux@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
          1·
          2 months ago

          I do have the advantage of having a mirror of my server 2.5K miles away in my brother’s house. That’s probably why I’m thinking about being so candidly careless.

          I appreciate the great advise. But now I’m willing to take one for the team and come back with either am horror story or an epic win.

          BRB.

          • just_another_person@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            2 months ago

            You’re thinking about this wrong way though. Why are trying to abstract the thing that keeps your disks working properly? What’s your gain here?

            • JJLinux@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
              1·
              2 months ago

              Oh, ok. Mainly 3 things:

              1. Manage all my containers and VMs over ProxMox instead of inside UnRaid directly, effectively leaving UnRaid to be just manage storage only.
              2. This, from my understanding, will in turn allow me to play with container options other than docker (docker is awesome, I know, but it also has limitations), effectively opening new roads of knowledge to me. UnRaid doesn’t even support Kubernetes or LXC.
              3. Easier VLAN management in the server side. I have to play with firewall permissions on my PFSense to allow some containers to talk to others. ProxMox, being VLAN aware, would allow me to eliminate those permissions from PFSense and just manage interconnectivity via ProxMox.

              While I’m aware that I can even compose dockers in UnRaid if there’s no UnRaid docker template available, it’s not the most user friendly way for managing those containers, in my opinion.

              Another reason is that I’m always trying to learn new things, and from my limited experience with ProxMox (I’ve only been playing with it for about a month or so on an old rig), ProxMox is incredibly easy and powerful when it comes to container and VM deployment. The management options seem to be infinite.

              Your point is very solid, which is why I’m contemplating segregating UnRaid and ProxMox into 2 separate rigs as opposed to virtualizing UnRaid.

              These are hard decisions. Keep just 1 rig and spend way more time and probably migraines configuring this, or just build a new rig for ProxMox and migrate all my containers and VMs to it, which is faster, but will come at a higher monetary price, including power consumption.

              • just_another_person@lemmy.worldEnglish
                1·
                2 months ago

                Just get a separate host for whatever the VM stuff you want. You won’t need to worry about messing anything related to storage up, AND you’ll be able to mess with all the networking stuff without impacting your NAS.

                If you’re just trying to run some simple services, just get a $300 Ryzen minipc. Plenty powerful for what it sounds like you’re looking to do.

                • JJLinux@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
                  1·
                  2 months ago

                  Yeah. I told my wife what I wanted to do, and she actually would rather have me spend the money than risk spending too much time if and when I break something. I’m thinking a minispc Ryzen 9 or a Ryzen 7 venus, set it up with a 4TB NVMe. That should do the trick. It’s a bit over 300 bucks, but will be a bit more future proof. 64GB DDR5, and fire it away.