Switch OMV from bare metal to Proxmox

  • Hello guys,


    I am coming back to you because i would like to get your advise on my wish to move from OMV 5 bare metal installation type to a Proxmox environment.

    Currently, my setup looks like this :


    - HP DL380 G7

    - Dual Xeon L5640 2,26Ghz

    - 24GB of RAM

    - Internal P410i Raid controller with 512MB cache

    - External P822 Raid controller in JBOD mode

    - 4 HDD 300GB 15K SAS RAID 10 for the system

    - 4 HDD 600GB 10K SAS RAID 5 for the backup of my computers (system image only)

    - 12 HDD 2TB in software Raid 6 connected in a Storageworks MSA60

    - A second Storageworks MSA60 with 12 HDD 2TB currently not configured


    I am running OMV 5 with something like 16 containers (plex, nextcloud, letsencrypt, urbackup ...), CIFS share, UPS connected on it and monitored, no other fancy stuff.


    Aside that setup, i am running an OPNSense firewall on a similar machine. And finally, for testing purpose, i also have a third similar one running a Windows 2016 for test.

    When i look to that, i am wondering about the cost for electricity of course (servers are 120-140W idle according to their respective ILO measures), and efficiency (running such beast for OPNsense doesn't make .... any sense).

    But rather than investing in some new hardware, i have the project to switch to Proxmox all my setup, and for example run OMV and OPNSense on one server only and can like that power off one of them, i also play as i said with a Windows 2016 server for testing, that could also run into the Proxmox.

    now that you know a bit more my usage, i would like to have your opinion about the storage and the overall setup.

    The storage because i read so far that Proxmox doesn't support officially software raid but ZFS, would you switch back your installation to a hardware raid, move all data from one storageworks to the second and then expand the volume with the first once the data are transferred, or would you do the same approach but making a ZFS drive ?

    I am still not decided the way to go, i am also looking for performance of course, as i will switch to a 10GB network at the end or beginning of next year, so the storage has to perform well enough to sustain the bandwidth.

    Regarding the containers now, i saw that Proxmox can handle them too, would you keep them in OMV (everything is already configured, i had the idea of restoring a backup of OMV while moving to Proxmox) or switch them to Proxmox ?

    Basically my final goal would be :

    - OPNSense with 2 of my NICS in passthrough mode (WAN and LAN)

    - OMV with 1 decicated NIC in passthrough as well (for performance and to be 10GB ready when i will buy the adapter)

    - any other NIC shared with other VMs


    So thanks for your help, i found many post about Proxmox migration of OMV, but nothing that really match my use case.


    I will post the same question to the Proxmox forum if you don't mind, just to have their opinion too.

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    The storage because i read so far that Proxmox doesn't support officially software raid but ZFS, would you switch back your installation to a hardware raid, move all data from one storageworks to the second and then expand the volume with the first once the data are transferred, or would you do the same approach but making a ZFS drive ?

    Proxmox can use paths just fine. So, if you mount the filesystem and add the fstab entry, there is no issue. I am doing that on my proxmox servers.

    Regarding the containers now, i saw that Proxmox can handle them too, would you keep them in OMV (everything is already configured, i had the idea of restoring a backup of OMV while moving to Proxmox) or switch them to Proxmox ?

    I assume you are talking about dockers? Proxmox doesn't support docker. It supports LXC. So, keep your dockers on OMV.

    Hello guys, no one has a small hint for me ?

    Your post is kinda long with the questions buried. That will make not as many people read it. Plus, you said you were asking the same question on the proxmox forum.

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  • thank you for your time ryecoaaron, i will try by setting up proxmox on a new system drive, to not touch my omv first, try to mount my data drive in mdadm raid 6 and see how it goes, we will see. Regarding the docker containers then i will keep them running in OMV, doesn't make sense to move them to Proxmox if it is LSX and i have to reconfigure things.

    I know it was a long post, i tried to be really specific on things i have and want to achieve, sorry.

    Will report how it goes, hopefully everything goes well :).

  • thank you for your time ryecoaaron, i will try by setting up proxmox on a new system drive, to not touch my omv first, try to mount my data drive in mdadm raid 6 and see how it goes, we will see.

    Sorry to use this quite old thread, but I think you have the same config Id want.
    I have on old installation of OMV 2 on a HP microserver Gen8 server with Xeon 1220L V2 and 8 GB RAM. System disk is on 128 Gb SSD and I have 3 Data Disk, 2x3TB WD Red in RAID 1 and one 1 TB disk.
    The Raid is a SW RAID inherited by an D'Link NAS with linux OS (it's a normal mdadm), i just plug the disk into server and it works fine.
    Now I want to upgrade the machine and I think to use Proxmox with OMV virtualized. Later I think I'll install other VM (maybe Home Assistant).
    I have some question:
    - Is the system enough to run Proxmox + OMV virtualized whith good performance? And another server OS (like ubuntu server) just with the idea to run docker or small app like transmission indepently?
    - Is it possible to mount my RAID1 data disk on OMV? I see that is possible to "pass" the disk to a VM, but the OMV VM will be capable to "see" the RAID without loss of data? Any other solution (without build a new array)?
    I prefer this solution instead of a classic OMV + docker because I see that most OMV major upgrade requires fresh installation and with VM will be easier to mantain (create a new, temp, VM with new OMV version, configure it) and service like transmission or HA could run in a separate env without OMV link.
    Thanks in advice


  • - Is the system enough to run Proxmox + OMV virtualized whith good performance? And another server OS (like ubuntu server) just with the idea to run docker or small app like transmission indepently?

    Yes it's enough. You can even create an LXC container with docker in it instead of a full VM.



    - Is it possible to mount my RAID1 data disk on OMV? I see that is possible to "pass" the disk to a VM, but the OMV VM will be capable to "see" the RAID without loss of data? Any other solution (without build a new array)?

    Proxmox can see your disks "as is" and you can pass-through them to your OMV VM . After that you need to remount the RAID , if you know how to do it. I think it can work but not sure, I don't use raid.

    You can also add an HBA card. Proxmox can pass-through the card and your disks will be directly managed by your VM and proxmox will not see them anymore. Pretty sure this solution will work.

  • I am using the setup i described above since 2 weeks now. I really struggle in moving from software raid in OMV to hardware RAID and Proxmox on top of the rest, but now my setup is working like a charm.

    I haven't notice any performance drop so far, but i am currently only in Gigabit. I bought 2 10GB NIC to make some tests, we will see how it goes. i still have some spare servers i would like to compare OMV native VS Proxmox and OMV VM. But so far, i am please that i only have one machine running 24/24

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