I have an old x86_64 computer which I am planning to use as a NAS. Which of the 2 is a better option? Is it helpful or better to run on bare metal or as a VM on proxmox?
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I run OMV baremetal for last few years. I really like it. I did try TrueNAS and found it too convoluted.
Nextcloud is a totally different beast that would run on top of either.
OMV allows you to use ZFS as well if you want (I do) but also the flexibility to use other raid systems.
I just wish they’d left in portainer as default. No point reinventing the docker wheel…
Yeah I liked how docker was before the compose update.
I verry much like OMV, simply because i could use it with knowledge i already have.
It is a Debian system -> I understand that
It uses normal RAID and ext4 -> I understand that (Plus, if things go wrong, I can just pop the drives back into any other computer and use it without much fuss)
It has a rSnapshot plug in -> I already used that in the past.
Sure I’m missing out on fancy stuff like BTRFS / ZFS, but i can live with that.
Lvm can get you 80% of the way to basic zfs. I’m a bit similar, old school Unix who likes debian because it makes sense, but storage is one of my dominating constraints so zfs is mandatory (even if I hate stuff like the way the arc works by default).
I’ve had a little OMV VM running on Proxmox for about 4 years with no issues at all.
What benefits to running it as an VM rather than on bare metal.
For me just the convenience of having everything in one box. Simplifies networking too. I run home assistant, openwrt, OMV, an ubuntu dtop VM and a wordpress LXC on a little m93 I jacked up with 32Gb RAM. Backups are dead simple and it’s all on one little UPS.
Some might prefer metal for other reasons but simplicity and convenience are priorities for me, at least in my homelab.
The rules now are generally: bare metal if that’s all the box will do, or it’s main task, container if it’s one of many services, vm if it’s a larger application you might migrate and i/o isn’t your limitation.
The line between container and vm is fuzzy, but bare metal means you’re making a design choice for that machine and if that or another application breaks the machine you’re screwed.
In a way freebsd is amazing for this, you put all applications in jails and don’t use the main userspace much, but the virtualiztion story isn’t quite there yet.
OMV with SnapRaid+MergerFS in a Proxmox VM. I used an LSI card with PCI passthrough to the VM so it could see the drives. Nightly snapshots of the VMs are very convenient if you ever need to restore/migrate your install.
That’s a lot to learn.
Things are easy or free. Rarely both. :) it’s well worth learning OMV. If you have any questions I’ll try to help!
Having faced the same situation, here’s my 2 cents:
- OMV is the best solution for reusing/upcycling old consumer grade PC hardware. Your storage pool is easily expandable using MergerFS, you don’t need 16+ GB of RAM, and you certainly don’t need server-grade hardware. But you won’t have the bells and whistles the ZFS offers (yes, there is ZFS plugin, but at this point, why not just use TrueNAS?).
- TrueNAS if you intend to build a “serious” storage server with many GB-s of ECC RAM, multi-Gbit networking and all that jazz. And if you have the budget to buy 5 or 6 large HDD-s at once to start out your storage pool with a single vdev using RAIDz1 or RAIDz2 (or buy 2 HDDs for a single mirrored vdev with a whopping 50% of all your current and future storage going to redundancy). As I understand it, ZFS expandability is in the works, but not production-ready yet—which makes ZFS less suitable for ad hoc grow-it-as-you-go storage solution.
In the end, OMV won it out for me, the 10TB motley crew of various HDD-s has served me well and I can expand cheaply when my needs grow.
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I was doing that but I have a Windows PC on the network and have fucked up Samba too many times to be confident to do it again.
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Me too.
I have tried few of them but I highly recommend you to try UNRAID. It will introduce you to world of docker containers
I chose to run TrueNAS Scale. But I have a travel kit on a couple of RPis that consists of OpenWRT + OMV with some Docker containers.
I seem to have the opposite experience of other commenters. I find TrueNAS Scale very intuitive to use. The only issue I have with it, are some Truechart apps (it seems to usually be ones that require a ingress)
OMV is okay. I find it really hard to navigate the UI. It feels like something from the 00s.
I tried proxmox but gave up on it. I just could not figure out Permissions for portainer. Nothing worked. But I guess that’s on me because everyone loves proxmox
