Right now is a mess (For a lack of planning for the cluster)
Life is learning - and not repeating earlier mistakes…
I had 35+ years to reach present level, but I learned on the way…
You have now more options and can be more flexible with networking, as proxmox allows you to hook up new wiring without disrupting services.
“Freeing up USB on the Synology…” The Backup Hub is a fast USB Hub, you can cascade the Storage there… 
Switching over to a Raspberry is really fast and easy. I’d estimate 15 minutes… If you want to do it really slowly and document things on the way, it’ll take 45 minutes.
You need a Raspberry (RPI3B with 1GB RAM is more than sufficient, no need for a RPI4!).
A decent microSD card (98 or 100 MBits), Sandisk are quite cheap at the moment, you only need a 16 or 32 GB microSD.
How many users / employees does your company have?
How many sites are involved (Only one, I assume)?
Mio dos pesos
Andy
PS: Is that correct? “Mio dos pesos”.
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“Mis dos pesos”
Mis dos centavos, mis ojos, mis dos pesos (plural)
My two cents, my eyes, my two pesos (plural)
Mi vida, mi familia (singular)
My life, my family (singular)
Mi aprendizaje, nuestro aprendizaje - My learning, our learning
Es mio - It’s mine.
Este aprendizaje es mio This learning is mine
Este es mi mundo - This is my world
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¡Hola Enrique!
Had a good rest?
I’m not asking about the heat, I know Mexico is hot… We’re having the hottest end of July / 1st of August since nearly 100 years…
It’s called a “tropical” night, when it does not go under 20C at night…
Very good, but the night seems really short, almost got late to work.
At this office, almost 88 computers, plus some servers (linux, windows)
This is the only site for now, but when I manage to buy some other FGT I plan to join 4 external (warehouse, flea market, hatchery, feed mill); medium-term project (or a little more).
As you can imagine, the reason I asked about users / sites is to motivate you to use names accordingly…
How are the NAS doing?
And your Proxmox, all migrated to DiskImage?
Prepare for a long (maybe confused) post
But, with two NICs on each proxmox, I can’t have 4 networks.
On the proxmox-1 (dell R320 24GB RAM) I put a not so cheap, but not high grade nic card, it works “fine”, but some weeks ago the server greeted me with a boot error because of that interface.
My current plan is:
To use proxmox-1 and the NAS to have the VM disk images in a “good place”; with security measures as backups, etc.
Then reinstall the proxmox-2 (generic PC, 16GB RAM) to be in the cluster and run for now the AD/Nethserver VM. Using SSD to boot and add more RAM
After this, (maybe) reinstall the proxmox-1, why? To put 2 SSD to boot (RAID1) and have 2 HDD for DiskImage (in case the NAS is not available, God forbids). But maybe I can leave as is, but need some tweaks for the networks interfaces and RAM.
Hardware needs:
- RAM for both proxmox servers: +64GB, 120 will be super good
- 4 SSD for boot in both servers (2 in RAID 1, each)
- Switches and NICs
- Raspberry 3 (I have one assigned to learn, at this moment is running pi-hole)
The next thing are more critical:
- Create a VM for our payroll system, is running in our physical server that runs our ERP, doing this I can fix the issue for our payroll system provider, next year sqlserver 2008 r2 can’t be used for this payroll software. I think to assign 8GB RAM
And the most critical step (for now)
- Reinstall our ERP as a VM (windows 2012 r2 + sql server 2008 r2), this old ERP can’t use new versions of sql server; need to ask to our provider to some kind of “migration” for this to work.
This VM, need to be joined on the AD/Nethserver, right now is joined on the AD from the SBS2000
The hardware for this server (Dell R620, 64GB RAM), then can be used with proxmox; to run the VM for our ERP (when this is migrated); this use SAS HDD, I don’t know if exists SAS disk SSD form. So with a 2 disks run proxmox, and the other 2 again as storage just in case the NAS is not enough to handle the load.
As you can see, the proxmox-1 doesn’t have enough RAM to run all the VMs that I plan to have (AD, Payroll, ERP) So I need to ask for more RAM; for all our servers to run smoothly.
And of course, the first step is to have proxmox and your MV running reliably to continue.
Disculpa mi caotico post. (Excuse my chaotic post.)
Regards
Best, is an ideal case… The world is reality.
There’s plenty a mexican can be proud of.
The corruption, very high murder rate, omnipotent drug gangs in the country certainly not.
Yet Mexico, like Switzerland are both democratic countries, where all should be fine…
In theory, theory and practice are the same…
I know what’s best, but in reality my 2 Proxmox at home also only have 2 NICs, so I have to make do as best as possible…
A cluster network is the first step
Then deciding either the backup or main shared storage NAS must be accessible through the cluster network.
-> Later on, if possible, add a NIC (or two) in each Proxmox…
My 2 cents
Andy
Synology / NAS Load:
I don’t think you need to worry, I’ve run heavier loads on a much smaller Synology: DS1819+…
The Network is the first point needed to be optimized.
Andy
ERP / Payroll System
If I understand you correctly, you want to reinstall this (At the moment single, hardware based windows installation) into two VMs, one for the ERP, and another for the Payroll System.
Maybe another idea:
Why not do a P2V (physical to virtual) migration as first step. Get the ERP / Payroll running “as is” on Proxmox.
2nd step would be to install the Virtio Drivers, to make the system really fast.
Last (optional) step: Make a Proxmox clone of that VM.
Clean up both “parts”. One has and keeps ERP, the other has the Payroll system.
Gives you the additional option of keeping saftey copies (snapshots/backups) of the VMs in each step…
There are SAS connected SSDs available, like from HP…
My 2 cents
Andy
This server runs w2012 r2 (and is good), but it have sql server 2008r2, and our payroll system provider will stop supporting sql2008 at 2021; so I need to use sql server 201x before 2021.
I need to join the current ERP server to AD-nethserver before attempt a P2V solution. Looks but, but there is a little something that I don’t like. The current Disk layout looks maybe is not as good as I like, or maybe it will take a lot of space on the NAS (or maybe don’t)
You can use eg Acronis to make the disk smaller, once it’s in Proxmox. I do this too, to minimalise the backup times…
I can provide you with a version or two…
I would only join the ERP AFTER the migration to Proxmox - as the hardware changes, and other stuff…
This made me think and blink; looks reasonable too.
The first thing you need to do for a P2V is to install MergeIDE from Microsoft. It’s only a registry key, telling the OS to boot from the first disk the BIOS offers. Needs no reboot nor interferes with anything!
Grab it from here:
When I found Proxmox many years ago; I read about this, and I look to used it for my SBS2000, it uses SCSI drives; you think the migration can work too for this old server? I wonder if I can run this SBS on proxmox (preparing for the decommission of this old server)
Some years ago( 2014) the “disk administrator” stop working and it doesn’t show; the Payroll was used here and some upgrade made the damage. Lucky me, when a HDD stops working the RAID can get repaired automatically.
Win2000 is a bit low, but CAN work and be migrated. I’ve done that a while ago, these systems were then upgraded once in Proxmox…
MergeIDE also helps with SCSI disks!
Migrating would assist migrating any service/data still needed, and you can save the VM for anything forgotten, even years later!
Good!
I’m reading again the proxmox wiki (I don’t want to get off topic.)
I like to practice with some “server”. I have a PC running windows 7, it does an important task: read our invoices then create a XML to be signed for our PAC (provider); it sent mails to our clientes, later a task sync the files to our NAS for easy recovery of our users.
Later, I want to create a VM for our current mail server; I’m using Citadel, is simply to manage with a little learning curve to setup.
Win7 would be an ideal “Test Server”.
It has full virtio support, meaning really fast network and disk.
And it’s easy to migrate.