Home Server for VMs - Hardware

[bredy]

Hey guys,

I want to build my first home server for some smaller private projects.

I am thinking about a Proxmox server with VMs for Pihole, Bitwarden, Cardav, Apache (as dev-system for web projects) and maybe a jira instance.

Everything for 1-2 users.

 

I would like to recycle my old gaming PC if possible.

- Intel i5 2500K 3.30 GHz
- 16gb RAM Kingston HyperX blu PC3-10667U CL9
- 500gb SSD Samsung 850 EVO
- ASUS P8Z68-V LX, Sockel 1155
- Nvidia GeForce GTX 960
- be quiet! PURE POWER CM BQT L8-CM-630W

 

My guess is that I need more Storage and RAM at least, but are the other components ok for the start or would you advise to start from scratch?

[igormp]

You won't need the GPU. I guess the RAM may be enough, give it a try and see if you run into any issues before buying more ram.

 

Storage may be okay or may be an issue depending on what you want to do. I'd say that if you stick proxmox into a usb drive and use your SSD for storage for the projects you mentioned, it should be more than fine.

 

Also, why VMs and not containers? This should make everything more lightweight.

[bredy]

VMS or containers is something I will read into. Thanks for the hint!

[NelizMastr]

On 6/10/2021 at 6:25 PM, igormp said:

Also, why VMs and not containers? This should make everything more lightweight.

I've containerized everything in the past but found it to be very unfriendly towards long-term maintenance. The Docker philosophy towards server maintenance and patching is to just pull a new image and start over. That didn't fit my needs at all as I want a "build once and maintain forever" solution as is standard in most other enterprise environments.

In the long run, it saves a lot of time, which is more valuable than the extra resources a VM takes up.

 

Just my two cents

 

That said, a Pihole VM used maybe 1-2GB RAM and 10GB disk if you keep the Linux OS under it as lean as possible and reduce FTL log retention. Most other tasks as well.

[igormp]

9 hours ago, NelizMastr said:

I've containerized everything in the past but found it to be very unfriendly towards long-term maintenance. The Docker philosophy towards server maintenance and patching is to just pull a new image and start over. That didn't fit my needs at all as I want a "build once and maintain forever" solution as is standard in most other enterprise environments.

In the long run, it saves a lot of time, which is more valuable than the extra resources a VM takes up.

 

Just my two cents

 

That said, a Pihole VM used maybe 1-2GB RAM and 10GB disk if you keep the Linux OS under it as lean as possible and reduce FTL log retention. Most other tasks as well.

Containers are meant to be ephemeral, so that's why you pull a new image and start over. You shouldn't be doing ANY configuration on those, and any config file should be located in an external volume that won't disappear after the container dies.