First off, I know ultimately I’m the only person who can decide if it’s worth it. But I was hoping for some input from your collective experience.

I have a server I built currently running Ubuntu 22.04. I’m using KVM/qemu to host VMs and have recently started exploring the exciting world of Docker, with a VM dedicated to Portainer. I manage the VMs with a mix of virt-manager via xRDP, cli tools, and (if I’m feeling extra lazy) Cockpit. Disks are spindles currently in software Raid 10 (md), and I use LVM to assign volumes to the KVM VMs. Backups are via a script I wrote to snapshot the LVM volume and back it up to B2 via restic.

It all works. Rather smoothly except when it doesn’t 😀.

I’ve been planning an HD upgrade and was considering using that as an excuse to start over. My thoughts are to either install Debian and continue with my status quo, or to give Proxmox a try. I’ve been reading alot of positive comments about it here and I have longed for one unified web interface to manage my VMs.

My main concerns are:

  1. Backups. I want to be able to backup to B2 but from what I’ve read I don’t see a way to do that. I don’t mean backup to a local repository and then sync that to B2. I’m talking direct to B2.
  2. Performance. People rave about ZFS, but I have no experience. Will I get at least equivalent performance out of ZFS and how much RAM will that cost me? Do I even need ZFS or can I just continue to store VMs the way I do today?

Having never used Proxmox to compare I’m really on the fence about this one. I’d appreciate any input. Thanks.

  • Matthias Liffers@social.tthi.as
    1·
    1 year ago

    I just swapped from Ubuntu to Debian but I don’t use VMs - only containers. I back my files up directly to B2 using autorestic, also running in a container that is scheduled by… another container (chadburn).

    No need for any VMs in my house. I honestly can’t see the point of them when containers exist.

    • 𝓢𝓮𝓮𝓙𝓪𝔂𝓔𝓶𝓶OP
      2·
      1 year ago

      Eh, to each their own. In fairness, some iteration of my current setup has existed for many years and I’ve only just get my feet wet with containers in the last month.

    • TrenchcoatFullOfBats@belfry.rip
      1·
      1 year ago

      Just an FYI to OP: If you’re looking to run docker containers, you should know that Proxmox specifically does NOT support running docker in an LXC, as there is a very good chance that stuff will break when you upgrade. You should really only run docker containers in VMs with Proxmox.

      Proxmox Staff:

      Just for completeness sake - We don’t recommend running docker inside of a container (precisely because it causes issues upon upgrades of Kernel, LXC, Storage packages) - I would install docker inside of a Qemu VM as this has fewer interaction with the host system and is known to run far more stable.