1 yr. ago • 91%

Proxmox Clusters worth it?

Hey guys!

I have recently joined the selfhosting world after many years of thinking about it. Currently running casaOS with an assortment of containers. Mainly use nextcloud, paperlessNGX, and general file storage.

I am thinking of creating a proxmox cluster. Just wanted to ask for those who do. Is it worth it? And what services are you guys running?

I was thinking of using it for NAS, and a window VM and run other random things that I don't know yet.

Looking into grabbing some Lenovo M715q. Found a decent deal.

Thank you all in advance.

22 comments

I've got a 3 node cluster. They are a hodge-podge of weak, old hardware. Yes, it's worth it. Don't worry about HA and automatic migration. It's nice to have a single interface to all the nodes. Also look into the proxmox backup server (PBS). It's a very nice backup system.

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- Thank I will definitely be looking into PBS!
  
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Yes, yes, yes, yes. For the tiny amount of overhead, even the remote console is worth it. Especially when you get into crazy "omg I have so much hardware" homelab territory and have stuff strewn over half your home. Being able to rely on Proxmox being pretty rock solid (if you're careful and smart about your upgrades and not constantly insisting on running bleeding edge), and being able to access the consoles and 'reset buttons' of all your VMs from a single computer is AMAZING.

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- Yeah I'm trying not to get to the point where half my house is computers... 😂
  
  That does sound really good though! Thanks!
  
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Lots of large operations run proxmox. You're good

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What do you mean by worth it? Financially? Haha

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- Idk if any of this is beneficial financially...haha
  
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Absolutely. You're going to be paying for more overhead but I've never regretting setting up a cluster. I run mine on a t5500, a dl360 gen 6, and a raspberry pi as a witness.

On the cluster I'm running pfsense, file shares, home assistant, a pihole, and a Debian vm with docker that has containers running radarr, sonarr, watchtower, plex, jackett, and mealie. Also spin up various VMs for testing.

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- That's nice! I'm looking to make media server as well.
  
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  I switched to moving all of my media services from VMs to containers and haven't regretted it. Highly recommend that as your approach.
  
  I left xteve off the list of services as well. Very useful if you plan on doing IPTV.
  
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Proxmox is all I use for VM hosting, it is well worth it IMO, I colo metal and I host several virtual machines on it, webservers, ircds, kbin, etc. I specifically use Virtual Machines (KVM) however, it does have the ability to do containerization too (LXC).

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- Man, I wish I could find a good colo solution that wouldn't kill me with fees. VPS isn't bad cost-wise, but I'd really like to be able to throw as much hardware as I want at it without paying $1k/mo.
  
  1
- Ok sweet! What are you running currently on them?
  
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  gitlab, several docker containers, kbin, ircds, a bouncer, 3-4 web servers, a couple seperate mysql servers, Handshake DNS hosting and Handshake nodes
  
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The primary reason to virtualize is to maximize the "bang for your buck" on your hardware. Containers are great, but have their limits.

So long as you have a desire to learn it (and the budget), I say dive in with Proxmox and see how you can put that hardware to use. VMWare ESXi is more common in a business/enterprise setting, but costs money to for anything beyond the basic functionality after the evaluation period.

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- Basic functionality is probably good for most people. I believe the biggest limit I hit was for the resources. Believe it was 8 vCore /8GB RAM on a single VM. Most of the other vSphere/vSAN and orchestrator stuff is probably beyond home lab needs
  
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  I picked up some systems with 16gb each and it's a Ryzen 5 2400. I think it should be good for my needs... hopefully.
  
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- Ok great! I'm doing it to just learn and tinker with. Thank you!
  
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- Fwiw as an SRE specialized in infrastructure for large companies, the primary limits of containers are not about resources, they're about isolation. It's hard to beat CPU hardware virtualization (VMs) for proper isolation with decent performance, but for maximizing resource utilization, containers are actually better if you aren't running untrusted code like a cloud provider. Which is why companies like Google use them at their scale. And in fact, at least for long enough for it to end up in books, ran their VMs through their container orchestration tools. Virtualization has a penalty because you're running multiple kernels and switching back and forth etc.
  
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for sure a proxmox server is great, id just say don't go for the cluster just yet. Frankly, most self hosted stuff is dockerized and thats a huge plus. And it seems you already have that sorted out (id even ask you if casa OSs fileshare and an external drive could handle the NAS aspect).

I say this not to be a killjoy, but because I have a proxmox node I both overbuilt (for small services and running off a UPS) and underbuilt (for multiple big VMs) all because bought it to, and i kid you mot, “use it for NAS, and a window VM and run other random things that I don’t know yet”. 2 years in and i still don't know what those random things are.

So, my two cents: start cheap get a node to learn and understand where you want to go from there.

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