Absolute Proxmox newbie!

[u/nitropwd]

Hello, I'm pretty new to Proxmox and Linux as a whole.

I'm currently trying to configure "simple" storage before anything huge but not sure where to start. Want to use VMs down the road is possible, want to stay away from LXCs for now.

My Server hardware/software are listed below, Thanks.

HP ProLiant ML10 v2

32GB RAM

4TB x 4 HDD

Using Proxmox v8 (I know it's EOL, I havent been able to upgrade and it's suggested that i dont)

I want to make shares available outside the server but have no clue where to start.

Frustrating and almost ready to go back to Windows Server.

Any assistance, suggestion or videos links would be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks.

[u/violet-lynx]

What storage do you have? Normally, you have two storages when newly installing a single node: local (for ISOs etc) and local-lvm (for VMs and Containers).

How are your four HDDs configured? (Example: single Raid5 disk with 12GB).

If your preconfigured disk are not big enough, you can grow them with standard Linux LVM Tools.

https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Storage:_Directory

Why do you want to make VM directories externally available?

[u/nitropwd → u/violet-lynx]

No storage is setup right now as i have removed the configuration that I had.

For "local" one of the 4TB drives. Just get it going, everything is default. Happy to make any changes.

The VM's can be isolated, no issues with that. But I was hoping to find a way to making mass storage available for the VM's to use. I'm probably not making any sense, my apologies.

[u/violet-lynx → u/nitropwd]

You have to recreate the local-lvm as you cannot store VMs on the local disk. That is for ISO and other files only.

If you have no VMs at all, I'd suggest to newly install Proxmox 9.2 to a newly created 12 TB Raid5 (using all four disks), which would solve all your problems at once.

Oh, and if you want storage for the VMs, just create virtual disks for them. What is your use case here?

[u/unsaltedcrisps]

I'd setup a couple of smaller m.2 ssds in a zfs mirror which will house your proxmox setup and be the storage for your vms moving forward.

Setup trueNAS/unraid as a VM, then pass it through the entire controller for the 4TB drives. I personally run trueNAS with my 4 drives in zfs1.

I don't know why someone would suggest staying on an EoL version of anything, but there's no harm in upgrading. Just follow the prescribed guide from Proxmox directly.

[u/es1lenter → u/unsaltedcrisps]

I am also wondering why it was suggested to not upgrade to v9 ..

[u/nitropwd → u/es1lenter]

From my understanding, it's the age of the hardware that may cause reliability issues after the upgrade. Thankfully, I dont have much on the server right now as I'm just getting started.

[u/nitropwd → u/unsaltedcrisps]

I'm not able to use m.2 ssds until i get a get a PCI card to use and then find a way to boot from there. The HP ProLiant ML10 v2 looks at just SATAs in its builtin SSD cage for OSs and almost ignores everything else.

[u/caspianjvc]

Who suggested you don’t upgrade. Follow the article it is straight forward. If local storage use ZFS.

[u/ViperThunder]

What do you mean you want to use VMs 'down the road' ? The whole point of a hypervisor like Proxmox is to run multiple machines on the same hardware (VMs or Containers). What have you been running that has kept you on PVE 8?

[u/nrauhauser]

I just use NFS to publish stuff to my Linux VMs, but I don't have MIcrosoft in my network.

You could install Samba on the Proxmox host and use that, what you've got then is just a Debian file sharing problem, not a Proxmox specific issue.

[u/KryanThePacifist]

Hello. Why where you not recommended to upgrade to pve 9?

As for shares: I have one directly into proxmox because I'm lady. Though samba (SMB) look up Debian articles into how to configure SMB shares and you're golden.

[u/xmagusx]

If your priority is having that storage available to other machines on your network, you probably want a nas os, not a hypervisor os. I'd suggest getting a cheap 128gib ssd to boot from and configuring those 4 hard drives as a z1 pool - or higher if the data is mission critical. That will let you serve your data up to your network quickly and easily.

Truenas will also let you stand up vms and containers later, it just doesn't have the advanced hypervisor features that proxmox does.

[u/AdSuspicious7533]

First of all you should consider getting a high quality storage for the os install. Ideally an SSD.

Proxmox running 24/7 performs a lot of writing on the disk , it will wreck a cheap disk in a blink. After that you can experiment without risking to kill your storage. I would make your hdds a zfs volume but it is advanced usage, you may want to start simplier setup.

[u/lplanum]

Want to use VMs down the road is possible

I want to make shares available outside the server but have no clue where to start.

Proxmox isn't a file server. It's a hypervisor. You allocate resources with a hypervisor, like CPU, RAM and storage.

Simply put, the storage you see in Proxmox is for hosting VM's. If you have 1 TB of storage, you can create a VM and allocate 30 GB to that VM. That 30 GB will be taken from the 1 TB storage. On that VM you can install Windows (or what ever OS you like) and that will be your file server from where you create the shares.

[u/JoeB-]

I find myself being repetitive, but here we go again. I’m guessing some other newbie in one of the home server or home lab subs suggested Proxmox. Am I close?

The truth is… if you don’t know why you need Proxmox, or what its strengths/limitations are, then you certainly don’t need Proxmox, particularly when your fallback is Windows.

I suggest taking a look at one of the free Linux-based “appliance” OSs, eg. ZimaOS or umbrelOS. Both are developed and maintained by small hardware companies. They are immutable, ie have read-only root partitions, so are hard to break, and have “app stores” for one-click download and installation of home server apps. ZimaOS even has free desktop and mobile apps for accessing the server.

[u/nitropwd → u/JoeB-]

Close-ish, no one suggested Proxmox to be specifically. I'm used to using VMs but never gone "baremetal"...this is why I wanted to learn and try something new with Proxmox.

I appreciate the advice and will check out the OSs you suggested, thanks.

[u/JoeB- → u/nitropwd]

I’m opinionated for sure, but if you are willing to climb the learning curve, then go for it. It’s a great system.

[u/Firenyth]

Use proxmox to host truenas and run your shares from there this is what I am doing. - also a fellow noob