Proxmox VM Server - Is my idea crazy, or crazy enough to work?

gat19g · September 24

MacOS has been my daily driver for over a decade, but I now find myself also needing to use Windows (mainly for .NET) and linux for software development. I do not want to totally abandon macOS since I use Logic and other macOS only programs, so I have been weighing the options out there. Parallels and VMware fusion are not a solution since I have an M1 mac and I need a way to run apps on x86 windows. I also code integrations for specific web apps that I need to run as virtual machines for testing the integrations, which currently slows down my mac (and is making it run out of disk space to store the VMs)

Here is my idea. I am thinking of building a Proxmox server (with Ryzen or Intel Core cpu). I would then setup a Windows VM that I could access on my mac via sunlight and moonlight or a client like NoMachine. I could also setup the other linux-based VMs I need on Proxmox. My thought is that this would give me the flexibility of using Windows with my current mac hardware instead of my original though of just adding an extra Windows/Linux dual-boot desktop into the mix. This also means that I can push off a lot of computation power to the Proxmox server so my mac does not get bogged down with running other VMs (or run out of space to store the VMs). Is my idea crazy, or crazy enough that it might just work? Thanks in advanced.

Electronics Wizardy · September 24

Should work fine. If you don't mind the annoyances of remote desktop I don't see an issue here.

gat19g · September 24

18 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Should work fine. If you don't mind the annoyances of remote desktop I don't see an issue here.

Ok, great. Thank you. I know remote desktop does have some annoyances, but I figure the tradeoff is worth it compared to adding another computer into the mix and needing a KVM switch. Some of the tests I have seen with sunshine and moonlight also look really good, and since I will be accessing the VMs over LAN, the latency will hopefully be negligible. Some YouTubers are showing game streaming over lan from a Windows VM in Proxmox with great results.