Help me build a Proxmox Server / NAS / Pick Hardware

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1

Hiya!

I’m looking at building a single home server and instead of purchasing a rack unit I’ve decided to build a smaller tower server.

I’m a Windows admin, however I am really interested to start learning Linux and advancing my Linux knowledge and figured the best way to go would be to have Proxmox (KVM) as the hypervisor and base my core VM’s on Linux.

I’ll be using this server to run the following;

  • Proxmox Hypervisor
  • pfSense
  • FreeNAS - open to suggestions
  • Linux VM, for learning
  • Plex Media Server (LXC container)
  • Web Server (LXC container)
  • Windows Server

Configuration;

  • VMs/LXCs (on a mirrored RAID 1 - open to configuration suggestions
  • NAS Storage on RAID/ZFS pool - open to configuration suggestions

Questions;

  • Do I use ZFS or a hardware RAID?
  • Do I install Proxmox to a USB, or use a dedicated partition / drives such as an SSD RAID?
  • Will I need an additional HBA card for the SATA drives?

Hardware is not my forte and this is where I was hoping the community would be able to help me select hardware / point me in the right direction.

Budget? No real restrictions. If I can keep the budget to under AUD $1500.00, that’d be great.

Hardware Requirements;

  • CPU (Intel)

  • Motherboard

  • Memory (16GB minimum, ECC?)

  • Case (not a full sized tower, the smaller the better)

  • Power Supply

  • Additional Cables / Adapters

  • Additional Network Card with minimum 2 NICs (I read that I need this for the network configuration if using pfSense)

  • Storage

  • 2x 256GB SSD’s for VM’s / LXC Containers
  • 4x 4TB WD RED’s for NAS (docs, multimedia,) and Backups

I really appreciate your assistance! Thanks! :slight_smile:

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Older Xeons can be picked up pretty cheap now a days. I’ve seen 2 x 1366 8 Core Xeons go for as cheap as $30-40 here in NZ. The only problem is that motherboards, I don’t know about in Aus but over here they’re really hard to find.
With a $1500 budget you could probably easily go for a New platform though, My knowledge of Xeons is kinda limited, so that’s where my help ends with them.

If you wanted to you could also go for a AMD FX cpu. With the release of Ryzen prices have dropped a lot and they have support for ECC and Virtualisation.

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ZFS, and pray you never have to look at a hardware RAID controller ever.

I would say that the Proxmox install is valuable enough to warrant something nicer than a USB drive.

That depends on the motherboard you get, and how many drives you use. My guess is you will probably need an additional controller.

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Same here. So I wrote a guide on this a while back: How To Create A NAS Using ZFS and Proxmox (with pictures)

I spent about $500 US on mine. It’s just for tertiary backup so… ~refurb disks, installed Proxmox to a usb flash drive and some cheapo add-in cards. At $1500 AUS, I would recommend new, or at least “in-warranty” disks and an HBM card. CPU/mobo does not matter beyond ECC support unless you want your Plex server to do transcoding too. Then get at least an AMD 6-core CPU or Intel 4-core w/HT. An R5 1400 would also work.

Probably. At $1500 AUS

For cases…

The NAS favorite case is: Fractal Design Node 304 ITX case for $75 + shipping.

I went cheapo and did a Rosewill Stealth ATX mid-tower for $50 on ebay.

There are like… actual 4U server cases designed for rackmounts as well. Newegg search.

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Unless you put it in IT mode

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Super easy to outgrow Node 304 IMO would not recommend it.

7

What would you recommend?

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I went rack mount as I have a 24u rack but any full tower would work that has like 8 plus drive slots depends if you are going to grow that big or not