Seeking Advice on OS and Configuration for My HP Proliant DL 380 Gen9 Setup

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Hey everyone,

I’m reaching out to tap into the collective wisdom here for some advice on how to best utilize my server setup. I have a bit of a dilemma regarding the choice of OS and how to configure my hardware effectively. Here are the details:

Hardware: I’m working with an HP Proliant DL 380 Gen9, which includes:

CPUs: 2 x Intel® Xeon® CPU E5-2640 v3 @ 2.60GHz

RAM: 128Gb DDR4

GPUs: Quadro P2000

Storage: 3 x 1 TB Samsung SATA SSD 870 Evo, 4 x 1 TB 2.5" SAS Drives, and an EMC Expansion Disk Array Shelf with 17 x Dell Exos 18TB drives, all connected through an external LSI card.

Additionally, I have a Dell R720xd setup as my current “Production” server, which I plan to eventually retire and use as an off-site backup server.

Current Setup: I’m currently running Unraid with “arr” apps, a couple of VMs, immich, and Home Assistant. I also use multiple VMs for setting up Windows servers and tinkering with Active Directory and the Microsoft ecosystem. I’ve accumulated around 140TB of data that I’m looking to keep.

Networking: My current network setup is gigabit on a UniFi system. I’m planning on upgrading to a 10G network/connection at least for the server in the future. My ISP connection is a 3.5G symmetric fiber, with the majority of traffic is going outside via wireguard tunnel.

Experience Level: While I’m comfortable enough with Linux to follow a guide for setup, troubleshooting is a bit out of my comfort zone, and I often rely on community support.

The Dilemma: I’m at a crossroads between choosing TrueNAS Scale, Proxmox, or sticking with Unraid (which I’m already familiar with). After doing some reading around, it seems since I’m using matching HDDs, TrueNAS and ZFS might be the “right” answers for my needs, but the ease of use with Unraid is very tempting given my familiarity.

Questions for the Community:

Given my hardware, current setup, and specific requirements (like setting up Veeam and needing VM snapshot capabilities), what would you recommend as the best approach?

If you were in my shoes, how would you configure this setup? Specifically, how would you approach organizing the drives—would you recommend splitting them into ZFS pools or another method?

Any general suggestions or insights from your experience would be highly appreciated. I’m keen on learning and don’t mind tinkering to get things right. I’m just looking for a nudge in the right direction.

Thanks in advance for your advice and insights. I’m looking forward to reading your suggestions and learning from your experiences!

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This is a good mentality to have. It depends on how much you want to tinker and if you have the ability/time/patience to set something up and then nuke it and restart with something else if something goes wrong.

I used to obsess about picking the “best” option before I did anything which led to decision paralysis and over-analyzing. At some point I came to the conclusion that since this is my homelab and I enjoy experimenting and learning new software, I can just pick something that looks promising and if it works, great, if not, then I learned something and now have the experience and can adapt from there.

That said, this thinking applies to my homelab.

If your systems are important, then you should go with something that is tried and tested in the business world. TrueNAS is a good bet.

I’ve heard of offices using Unraid in production, but only for small offices or non-profits where they aren’t mission critical.

If your systems are business-critical then, yes, you’ll need to put in some thought.

That said, if you just want an answer, read on.

I like TrueNAS.

Yes.

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