I wanted to shared my enthusiasm, which makes me feel like a little boy (despite me being 50+) fascinated by how such complex systems can be managed so easily by novices. I started using Proxmox recently. I had a machine running one VM with various docker images installed. But NVMe was tiny. So I setup another node and got it to share the same NFS share on the NAS, where I had saved full backups of the VM. Once added the NFS share to the new node (with a bigger ZFS local partition) I simply restored the VM from the NFS share that had been backed up from the original node. It seemlessly imported and started. Then I cloned on the new node so that I could get it on the new ZFS partition. Now the next task is to get a bigger NVMe on the original machine, install Proxmox from scratch, and add to cluster so that it shared the backup NFS share. I just then need to understand how to get HA up and running so that VMs are always synced flawlessly. Proxmox is super brilliant. I feel like I have a data center at home :-) I could not imagine this system was so flexible and relatively easy to use. The people that deliver and contribute to this stuf are super cool. A couple of proxmox nodes, a Truenas scale NAS and a good backup strategy and your data is really safe and rock solid … I hope :-)
@trilobite@lemmy.ml my man, I share your enthusiasm even at 71. I look back to the days I started with an Altair, which didn’t do a lot in regards to modern computers, but boy was I hooked. Today, I have a small OptiPlex MT coming in and I am going to set it up for a friend of mine’s son who has expressed a desire to get into selfhosting at the age of 10. I just checked the tracking on the shipment and it is out for delivery!!! I’m all giddy like a little schoolgirl at what the day has in store as I set up the server.
We’re going to start off small. A couple of Docker containers, and the boy wants to host a simple MineCraft server for himself and a couple of other school friends. I’ve got a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 low profile, to drop in it, and am going to max out the ram at 32 gb. The GTX 1650 isn’t the most banging GPU but it will be better than the onboard graphics and it won’t need additional power cables and will play well with the stock PSU.
I’m going to also install RustDesk so that any issues or questions he may have can be resolved remotely. I’m sure he will probably out grow the Optiplex in a few years (hopefully), but it’s simple enough to whet his appetite for now and could be converted into a simple NAS later on. The kid is just an impressive young man, gifted, but doesn’t lean back on his abilities and is always pushing himself academically or otherwise, to excel far beyond that of a normal 10 year old. Certainly head and shoulders above anything I was as a kid and I think it’s important to give kids all the opportunities to at least try something to see if they like it or not. He just received a fistful of academic awards recently. Most of the kids that were called up to the stage received a cert of achievement. They handed his in a folder there were so many.
I’M STOKED!!!