As the title states, how would you set it up? I’ve got an HP EliteDesk G5, what are the strengths and weaknesses of either:
- ProxMox with one VM running TrueNAS and another VM running Nextcloud
- TrueNAS on bare metal with Nextcloud running in docker
- Some other setup
I’d like to be able to easily expand and backup the storage available to Nextcloud as needed and I’d also like the ability to add additional VMs/containers/services as needed
I looked into Proxmox briefly but then figured that since 99% of my workload was going to be docker containers and I’d need just a single VM for them it made no sense to run it.
So that’s what I did. Ubuntu + Portainer and a shed load of stacks.
I would clearly prefer Proxmox, which gives you the greatest possible freedom in terms of what else you want to do. Then a VM or LXC for each service.
Maybe you could install nextcloud in docker on a separate VM (I use Debian) and then mount a Truenas network share in docker.
Trying to use TrueNAS for anything but a file share is not going to work well in terms of flexablity
That’s where I’m at now. Same kind of issue as OP. Wanting more out of my bare metal!
Proxmox VMs shouldn’t have much of a performance penalty compared to bare metal. (Assuming you have virtualization and similar extensions enabled)
I have TrueNAS Scale running inside of ProxMox, but I plan to replace it with a Turnkey system on top of an LXC instead.
For as convenient as TrueNAS is, it is not a replacement for ProxMox. ProxMox is designed for business, and it shows in comparison. The logical layout, the backup options, the storage flexibility, etc.
In comparison, TrueNAS feels more homelab hobby. For reference, I could see ProxMox on a business install with enterprise support. TrueNAS, I’m not so sure.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters LXC Linux Containers NAS Network-Attached Storage k8s Kubernetes container management package
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well, there are many things to consider. TrueNAS’s ZFS is memory hungry, and is best used on it’s original BSD. Also, you may need SMART directly in your NAS, then you’ll need to PCI passthrough the disk controller if you are on proxmox. With that said, either directly running TrueNAS Scale or TrueNAS Core on proxmox isn’t ideal. Also, running database storage over NFS has great disadvantages, so I would really advice against going proxmox+truenas route.
IMO, a mature NAS system is only useful as it is designed to be: bare metal system for your disk management. If you really wanna ZFS, then use TrueNAS Scale. If you are a guru and can or are willing to setup things yourself and doesn’t care about RAID5/6, just use regular linux + docker/podman + btrfs.
If they really want just ZFS, Proxmox offers it.
It just doesn’t come with a built-in UI
well, it actually has a UI for managing ZFS volumes in proxmox lol. proxmox is very versatile I’ll admit. I use it also, but because I absolutely need the vm capability to run opnsense and debian on the same machine. If OP only needs a NAS with docker, he may not need that power. well who am I to decide. this is selfhosted so people can just try anything.
Yeah, fair, there is a UI, but it’s veeery basic, not at all comparable with TrueNAS
Personally I go with low resource box with lots of drives for a nas and a higher compute but low storage box for a hypervisor. That way the NAS storing all the bulk data uses as little power as it can and can just sit there doing the pretty well singular task of serving drives. Backup is all automatic via mirror raid and snapshots.
I’ve been running TrueNAS core for years. I used to have my applications in Jails on TrueNAS. If you just want to start out learning I think using SCALE and keeping your apps within TrueNAS is a good way to go.
I believe SCALE uses docker for its apps so that should make it easy to migrate your data in the future if you pick another platform.
None, because Proxmox is questionable open-source with annoyances and a mangled system that fails often. TrueNAS Scale is overkill and buggy, not even a simple WG container they can get right. Install it all barebones on Debian 12, setup Samba for shares, FileBrowser for a WebUI, ZFS or whatever filesystem with the appropriate tools and if you need some kind of isolation use LXC/LXD that are now both available from Debian repositories without Snaps.
WG comes to mind, totally broken because someone decided to hardcode eth0 as interface name and modern systems use biosdevname.
