TrueNAS and Proxmox Back Up Server on Proxmox Server?

TrueNAS General
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1

Hello everyone,

First of all, I’m a complete beginner, so I hope I’m getting this right. I was wondering if the following setup makes sense:

I’m currently running a mini PC with Proxmox to host my VMs and LXC containers for services like Nextcloud, Photoprism, etc. I’m now considering adding a NAS that would store all the data from Nextcloud, Photoprism, and so on, as well as backups/snapshots of the mini PC Proxmox host server.

My plan is to build a NAS (let’s call it NAS1) running Proxmox with two virtual machines on it: one for TrueNAS and another for Proxmox Backup Server. I also have an Asustor NAS that I plan to convert to TrueNAS (this will be NAS2). NAS2 will be located offsite and serve as a backup for NAS1.

In short it would looke like this:

                 ┌──────────────────────────┐
                 │        miniPC            │
                 │ ──────────────────────── │
                 │  Runs: Proxmox           │
                 │  ├── VM / LXC: Nextcloud │
                 │  ├── VM / LXC: Photoprism│
                 │  └── Other services      │
                 │                          │
                 │  ↳ Stores data on NAS1   │
                 └────────────┬─────────────┘
                              │
                              │ (Data + Backups)
                              ▼
       ┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
       │                 NAS1                    │
       │ ─────────────────────────────────────── │
       │  Runs: Proxmox                         │
       │  ├── VM: TrueNAS  → Main data storage  │
       │  └── VM: Proxmox Backup Server →       │
       │      Backups from miniPC Proxmox host  │
       │                                         │
       │  ↳ Periodic backup to NAS2 (offsite)   │
       └───────────────┬────────────────────────┘
                       │
                       │ (Offsite backup)
                       ▼
       ┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
       │                 NAS2                    │
       │ ─────────────────────────────────────── │
       │  Runs: TrueNAS                          │
       │  Location: Offsite                      │
       │  Purpose: Backup of NAS1                │
       └─────────────────────────────────────────┘

Does this setup make sense, or would there be a better approach?

1 Like
2

So, you plan to run 2 proxmox nodes but not in a cluster? Perhaps not the best solution. I mean, if you only need truenas and pbs on NAS1, you can just run truenas on it. And pbs would be a VM or a (docker) container. I personally run pbs as a container (there is no official image, though).

3

I guess you are right, I haven’t thought of that… My thinking was: since I haven’t decided on the hardware for the NAS1 yet, I wanted to keep the option open to run additional VMs on the NAS1 in case I end up with pretty powerful hardware…. I’m currently just using a GMKtec G5 N97 (MiniPC… super cheap and low power) to run all my VMs (Nextcloud etc.) so it might be a good option to have some more compute power available on the NAS1 if I ever need it in the future.

4

I had two mini pcs. Both have died (perhaps from overheating), so I’ve ditched the idea (for a while) and built a proxmox node in a regular matx case.

IMO, it would be pretty hard to track whether there are no circular dependencies. If you’re about utilising all compute power, mb you should consider to Deploy Hyper-Converged Ceph Cluster - Proxmox VE. Disclaimer – I never used it myself.

Your current plan makes some of the VMs (on NAS1) and their own backups reside on the same machine. I think that is not a good idea.

My current setup has more loose coupling. It’s a proxmox node and truenas with pbs (as a container) and some smb shares for proxmox VM’s (boot drives are all local). I still have some kind of circular dependency (with AD being a VM, and smb shares won’t work without AD).