new debian10/omv5 server install

Hello All,

Hope you are all keeping safe and healthy in these trying times.

I work for a mid-size internet/cloud service provider, and am now working from home - aka lots of extra time on my hands for projects.

I used to administer windows servers in the early 2000s, but have done zero system admin since then. I have very little linux xp, but have some xp with cmd line, mostly cisco IOS.

My simple htpc/media/storage solution is full, and I have decided to build my own nas/web/backup/file server instead of buying a limited synology/qnap device.

I've done quite a bit of reading, and have decided to use OMV5 on a deb10 server install w/ZFS media volumes.

I've purchased the following hardware, and have it assembled and ready for OS/sw installs:

Dell PE T430 8-bay (dual 12-core procs, 96gb ram)

2 - 180gb intel SSDs for OS/apps - probably not raid-mirrored, most likely daily incremental mirror to limit writes

4 - 3Tb SAS drives - which I will initially use for all media/web storage, but eventually only use for crucial family media/web (planned raidZ2)

plan for additional 4 - 6Tb drives in raidZ1 for long-term media storage - will move non-family media from raidZ2 above

So that's where i'm at. I started installing debian, and was immediately hit by ?s regarding partition sizes on the 180gb SSD. debain wanted to create a 26gb root, 30gb usr, and 103gb swap partition.

That just doesn't strike me as an efficient use of space - but i am a noob...

Just figured I'd throw these ?s up here while i continue to watch/read TechnoDad and some other great contributors and try and educate myself.

If anyone has the time and wants to weigh-in on their experiences/recommendations - primarily from a storage/partition layout perspective.

Best to all,

John in Wyoming, MI

So I struggled with my first Debian 10 install. I ended up doing a few practice installs. I went with a single partition and 8Gb swap. I had lots of failure messages first time around. Took me awhile to figure out how to edit source file to remove the CDROM entry - my first time using vi - not very user friendly. I had also installed Debian with the web/apache option - seems that may have been conflicting with OMV. I reinstalled without www and things went better. Used the install scripts to get OMV and extras installed.

I changed web mgmt port to 8000 as I would like to run a very basic web server on port 80 - still researching. Ran into problems when I tried to run ALL the update pkgs at once. I needed to install one particular update first that was a pre-req for another update. Things went better after that. Installed proxmox and set it's kernel to be default. Installed ZFS, which I plan on using to setup raidZ1 and raidZ2 volumes for my data on the 8 hot-swap drives.

I struggled to find info on how OMV uses disk space. So if OMV is installed on my primary SSD, on debian, will I not be able to install any other apps to that drive? KM0201 stated above that i won't be able to use any of the remaining space on this SSD for any OMV apps? that really stinks - seems there should be a workaround for that. I got a great price on the 180Gb intel SSDs - $45 ea - otherwise I would have just gotten 32 or 64Gb units.

I tried finding opinions on system backup apps for OMV, at least more info for the ones listed in OMVExtras. I had planned on cloning the system drive daily/every-other-day to another SSD. I didn't find any real recommendations for one backup app over the others - but it appears they each have specific features. Guess I'll install each of them and see which works the best for my use-case.

Thanks to all for the replies.

JR

after re-reading comments above, I think I understand what's being said about the OMV storage issue. I should have created another partition on the primary drive, maybe labeled "apps" and made that 120Gb or so. Then that partition would be visible/available for any docker/container/apps I need to install in OMV - like Emby. Does anyone have an idea what else I would ever need space for in the primary partition? debian and OMV are there. Nothing else will ever be installed there? Is 30Gb as large as I'll ever need that partition?

Damn, guess i'll go wipe it and try again...

Thanks again for the input!

JR