Migrating from Proxmox VE to TrueNAS Scale

Tue, 13 Sep 2022 19:30:00 +0100

I’ve been using Proxmox VE for over a year now, ever since I built the new server. However, I started to run into limitations mainly because Proxmox VE is not the right tool for my situation. I always thought I needed the flexibility off full blown VM’s and that the storage side of things came after, I have been proven wrong.

I like to keep things separated, this means that I have over 15 VM’s running and most of them are just simple services like a load balancer or a dashboard. Running full VM’s for this is overkill and has a huge impact on the server’s resources, including storage. Because they’re all VM’s they need a boot disk and some storage, the default for a simple Debian server is around 10 to 20GB which is not fully utilised.

Also, most of the work and usage is storage. Nextcloud and Plex are the biggest services running on the server, but far from being the most critical. Home Assistant is the most important service running right now which controls everything in the house.

Knowing this, the idea is to move to TrueNAS Scale. Mainly because TrueNAS is focused on storage rather than being a Virtual Machine first approach. Especially now containerization is the norm, even in enterprise environments.

I do know that Proxmox VE has the option to run LXC, but with LXC being the less popular its safer to go for TrueNAS scale which implements Kubernetes. Plus TrueNAS has the whole storage first approach, which for me is the better option because reliable storage (and more user friendly interface) has become more important for me than flexibility in running environments.

I will still recommend Proxmox VE to people who need full control over their VM’s, it’s especially good for running multiple full blown desktops with remote login (think thin clients etc).

migrate on Kevin Heruer

Migrating from Proxmox VE to TrueNAS Scale