Proxmox VE 9.1 Homelab: ZFS, LXC vs VM, Docker Migration advice?

Proxmox VE 9.1 Homelab: ZFS, LXC vs VM, Docker Migration advice?

[Marco Malavolti]

Good evening to all Proxmox enthusiasts!

I’m a future new user of Proxmox VE 9.1 and Proxmox Backup Server, and I’m
looking for what you think is the most long‑lasting solution within the
Proxmox ecosystem for a simple homelab.

This is my hardware for Proxmox VE 9.1:

1) CWWK 12th Gen Intel Firewall Mini PC Alder Lake i3 N305 Fanless Soft
Router Proxmox DDR5 4800MHz 4xi226-V 2.5G (
https://cwwk.net/products/12th-gen-intel-firewall-mini-pc-alder-lake-i3-n305-8-core-n200-n100-fanless-soft-router-proxmox-ddr5-4800mhz-4xi226-v-2-5g?_pos=1&_sid=cc36e8016&_ss=r&variant=44613920162024
)

2) 32GB of Crucial DDR5 RAM (https://amzn.eu/d/00DxTBLh)

3) 2TB NVMe M.2: https://amzn.eu/d/0f2XIxHV

4) Legrand Keor Multiplug LG-310082 800VA/480W UPS (
https://amzn.eu/d/06coyhv5)

For Proxmox Backup Server I have a mini PC with an Intel i5-5250U 4‑core
CPU, 8GB RAM and a 1TB Samsung 870 SSD.

I also have another external 1TB hard drive for an additional backup to
support a 3‑2‑1 strategy.

At the moment, all my applications run directly on a mini PC with Debian 12
and Docker Compose: Immich, Nextcloud, Pi-hole, ProjectSend, Nginx Proxy
Manager.

In the future I would like to move everything to Proxmox VE and PBS, but
I’d like to do it wisely. I’d like to set up a system that is both
high‑performance and long‑lasting. I’ve heard about ZFS, but I’d like to
better understand what is the best choice in my situation. LXC or VMs? I
understand that with LXC I would have a better level of separation than
putting everything in a single VM with Docker. Maybe you’ve already
discussed these topics before, and if you can point me to those threads
I’ll be happy to read them with curiosity.

I came here to learn and move toward the best possible setup. Many thanks
for any help, for your experience, and for what you share!

Marco Malavolti

Re: Proxmox VE 9.1 Homelab: ZFS, LXC vs VM, Docker Migration advice?

[Andrei Boros]

Hi,

I have a 2 node setup with X79 motherboards, Xeon E5 CPU with 10 cores
and 32GB ram. My storage is a Synology, so via NFS.
I had 3 nodes and HA cluster, but I had to give away one of the boards.

You are wise to look into backup, as your setup had practically no
redundancy.

I looked into ZFS, understood (at least some of) it's advantages and
disadvantages. As I understand, ZFS requires RAM proportional to how
many TB of storage it handles, plus some more for active workloads.
Think about your setup. How much do you need for your VMs and containers
combined? Do you really need all the bells and whistles from ZFS?
Read the PVE docs on the supported storage types.

IMO Best separation is always VM. Containers effectively share the
running kernel. I also had the experience of better overall performance
with VM vs container when heavy CPU usage was involved (albeit
intermittent in my use case).
On the other hand, PVE comes with many options for containers pre-built,
such as those from Turnkey Linux, which are easy to set up.

For backup I would definitely look to have more storage on the backup
machine then on the production machine. Right now you have half.
First, you want to backup what you use. That takes at least the same
amount of space (plus metadata) - I am not counting compression at this
stage.
Then you might want to have several versions of backup. While
deduplication will greately decrease storage usage, it's not zero ...
Look for storage hardware (ie disks, ssd, nvme) which offer more TB/$,
you don't need the high performance.
For your offline storage prefer disk vs flash, as flash data degrades
over time if unused/unpowered.

Moving to PVE will give you more flexibility and a lot of options. Try
it. Play with it. See what works for you.
Nothing can replace hands-on :-)

Cheers.

On 2026-03-01 11:59 PM, Marco Malavolti wrote:
> Good evening to all Proxmox enthusiasts!
>
> I’m a future new user of Proxmox VE 9.1 and Proxmox Backup Server, and I’m
> looking for what you think is the most long‑lasting solution within the
> Proxmox ecosystem for a simple homelab.
>
> This is my hardware for Proxmox VE 9.1:
>
> 1) CWWK 12th Gen Intel Firewall Mini PC Alder Lake i3 N305 Fanless Soft
> Router Proxmox DDR5 4800MHz 4xi226-V 2.5G (
> https://cwwk.net/products/12th-gen-intel-firewall-mini-pc-alder-lake-i3-n305-8-core-n200-n100-fanless-soft-router-proxmox-ddr5-4800mhz-4xi226-v-2-5g?_pos=1&_sid=cc36e8016&_ss=r&variant=44613920162024
> )
>
> 2) 32GB of Crucial DDR5 RAM (https://amzn.eu/d/00DxTBLh)
>
> 3) 2TB NVMe M.2: https://amzn.eu/d/0f2XIxHV
>
> 4) Legrand Keor Multiplug LG-310082 800VA/480W UPS (
> https://amzn.eu/d/06coyhv5)
>
> For Proxmox Backup Server I have a mini PC with an Intel i5-5250U 4‑core
> CPU, 8GB RAM and a 1TB Samsung 870 SSD.
>
> I also have another external 1TB hard drive for an additional backup to
> support a 3‑2‑1 strategy.
>
> At the moment, all my applications run directly on a mini PC with Debian 12
> and Docker Compose: Immich, Nextcloud, Pi-hole, ProjectSend, Nginx Proxy
> Manager.
>
> In the future I would like to move everything to Proxmox VE and PBS, but
> I’d like to do it wisely. I’d like to set up a system that is both
> high‑performance and long‑lasting. I’ve heard about ZFS, but I’d like to
> better understand what is the best choice in my situation. LXC or VMs? I
> understand that with LXC I would have a better level of separation than
> putting everything in a single VM with Docker. Maybe you’ve already
> discussed these topics before, and if you can point me to those threads
> I’ll be happy to read them with curiosity.
>
> I came here to learn and move toward the best possible setup. Many thanks
> for any help, for your experience, and for what you share!
>
> Marco Malavolti

-- 

*ing. Andrei Boros*

Serviciul IT&C
*Radio Romania*
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