Proxmox or TrueNAS Scale baremetal?

[natharas]

Hi, I've been using TrueNAS scale via Proxmox and I'm starting to think I should go TrueNAS scale baremetal. I've got no "live" data in the storage pools yet, it's still in a fairly new state. I'm assuming TrueNAS Scale will be the best way to go for performance and configuration, I've had issues with Proxmox getting things right like NFS and VM's etc.

The main purpose of the server will be to replace my Synology NAS, so will have lots of photos on it as well as user profile data from a few computers at home. It will have a Windows VM on it for Blue Iris / Omada controller, how well does it handle GPU passthrough? It will also host a website via Docker more than likely and then some other VM's to testing / playing around with.

What are the main benefits of having TrueNAS in a Proxmox environment on the same hardware?

I'm open to any feedback and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[jgreco]

main benefits of having TrueNAS in a Proxmox environment on the same hardware?

Well, frankly, it's helpful to me to help determine if Proxmox has reached sufficient maturity to be stable running TrueNAS. Proxmox has historically been a second-rate hypervisor for virtualization of FreeNAS/TrueNAS, it works for some people, fails for others, and for yet a third set of people it is merely unreliable. We'd all love for it to be very solid, as it is with ESXi on compatible hardware, but historically it hasn't been. It's immature and PCIe passthru is llisted as experimental even by the Proxmox folks.

As long as you're aware that you're acting as a guinea pig, and you have sufficient backups of your data, it should be fine to try.

 

[natharas]

Well, frankly, it's helpful to me to help determine if Proxmox has reached sufficient maturity to be stable running TrueNAS. Proxmox has historically been a second-rate hypervisor for virtualization of FreeNAS/TrueNAS, it works for some people, fails for others, and for yet a third set of people it is merely unreliable. We'd all love for it to be very solid, as it is with ESXi on compatible hardware, but historically it hasn't been. It's immature and PCIe passthru is llisted as experimental even by the Proxmox folks.

Thanks for the quick response it is appreciated. It has been working for me, but I've had issues with configuration between it and TrueNAS e.g. NFS permissions and when building a VM via NFS it seems very slow. I was able to get passthrough for the HBA working fairly easily.

As long as you're aware that you're acting as a guinea pig, and you have sufficient backups of your data, it should be fine to try.

Unfortunately I don't want to be a guinea pig as you say as I'll have a lot of family photo's on it that will keep growing in size, these will be backed up to another device and then an external hard drive as well. Uptime will be a priority as well as it will run my home cameras.

 

[Seed]

Well, frankly, it's helpful to me to help determine if Proxmox has reached sufficient maturity to be stable running TrueNAS. Proxmox has historically been a second-rate hypervisor for virtualization of FreeNAS/TrueNAS, it works for some people, fails for others, and for yet a third set of people it is merely unreliable. We'd all love for it to be very solid, as it is with ESXi on compatible hardware, but historically it hasn't been. It's immature and PCIe passthru is llisted as experimental even by the Proxmox folks.

As long as you're aware that you're acting as a guinea pig, and you have sufficient backups of your data, it should be fine to try.

Sorry but this is a very short sighted reply. Ive been using Proxmox for years and more recently have been using it with a passthrough to Truenas Scale VM without issue. Proxmox isn't second rate by any means. I have run this on many different platforms, Intel and AMD and have also had it running in a 3-node Ceph cluster without issue either. I would even argue Truenas Scale isn't mature either as its only been RC for what, 6 months? I would agree, have backups, but you should regardless what platform you use. I moved off Synology to unraid/truenas/omv moons ago and use the Synology simply to store a copy of all the data and Proxmox has been the hypervisor for all of them with 0 issues.

 

[jgreco]

Proxmox isn't second rate by any means.

Thanks for your opinion. I've been providing virtualization support on these forums for more than a decade, along with having developed the safest strategy for doing virtualization. Proxmox's PCIe passthru support is listed as experimental even by the Proxmox folks and has only been around since ... I want to say 2017. ESXi has been stable with PCIe passthru on Sandy Bridge and newer since at least 2011, and has a huge development staff working on the underlying platform to support ever more complicated demands by their paying customers. My observation is that users putting TrueNAS on top of Proxmox do sometimes run into weird problems, and it does not meet my definition of "stable", and is not something I feel particularly comfortable recommending to anyone. I'd love for it to be better than that, as I see VMware as a bit of an "evil empire", but it is what it is, and Proxmox remains somewhat laggard compared to VMware especially on technically demanding features such as PCIe passthru. But at the end of the day, I have to make pragmatic estimations based on observed successes and problems.

more recently have been using it with a passthrough to Truenas Scale VM without issue

Great. Successful sample size increases by one. That does little to counteract the issues others have had. Give it a few more years, I think.

 

[Seed]

Sure. We all have our opinions. This is a truenas forum and the bias will be there regardless……

 

[jgreco]

Sure. We all have our opinions. This is a truenas forum and the bias will be there regardless……

Observations from someone who has provided support to hundreds of users experiencing virtualization problems and who wrote the book on how to virtualize correctly should carry more credibility though.

Not sure what "bias" you think is there. As I've said often before, I am not a big fan of VMware, but on the other hand, when you have something with the proven track record, even if you don't like it, it'd be foolish to avoid it just out of spite. If you want to think of that as anti-VMware bias, then, fine, guilty as charged.