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I run OMV baremetal for last few years. I really like it. I did try TrueNAS and found it too convoluted.
Nextcloud is a totally different beast that would run on top of either.
OMV allows you to use ZFS as well if you want (I do) but also the flexibility to use other raid systems.
I just wish they’d left in portainer as default. No point reinventing the docker wheel…
Yeah I liked how docker was before the compose update.
I've had a little OMV VM running on Proxmox for about 4 years with no issues at all.
What benefits to running it as an VM rather than on bare metal.
For me just the convenience of having everything in one box. Simplifies networking too. I run home assistant, openwrt, OMV, an ubuntu dtop VM and a wordpress LXC on a little m93 I jacked up with 32Gb RAM. Backups are dead simple and it's all on one little UPS.
Some might prefer metal for other reasons but simplicity and convenience are priorities for me, at least in my homelab.
The rules now are generally: bare metal if that's all the box will do, or it's main task, container if it's one of many services, vm if it's a larger application you might migrate and i/o isn't your limitation.
The line between container and vm is fuzzy, but bare metal means you're making a design choice for that machine and if that or another application breaks the machine you're screwed.
In a way freebsd is amazing for this, you put all applications in jails and don't use the main userspace much, but the virtualiztion story isn't quite there yet.
I verry much like OMV, simply because i could use it with knowledge i already have.
It is a Debian system -> I understand that
It uses normal RAID and ext4 -> I understand that (Plus, if things go wrong, I can just pop the drives back into any other computer and use it without much fuss)
It has a rSnapshot plug in -> I already used that in the past.
Sure I'm missing out on fancy stuff like BTRFS / ZFS, but i can live with that.
TrueNAS Scale is also Debian and uses standard ZFS for drive management. However I'm not a fan of the TrueNAS webUI, it feels overly complex and stuff can be hard to find.
OMV + MergerFS, SnapRAID, or just MDADM is nice and simple.
Lvm can get you 80% of the way to basic zfs. I'm a bit similar, old school Unix who likes debian because it makes sense, but storage is one of my dominating constraints so zfs is mandatory (even if I hate stuff like the way the arc works by default).
Having faced the same situation, here's my 2 cents:
In the end, OMV won it out for me, the 10TB motley crew of various HDD-s has served me well and I can expand cheaply when my needs grow.
OMV with SnapRaid+MergerFS in a Proxmox VM. I used an LSI card with PCI passthrough to the VM so it could see the drives. Nightly snapshots of the VMs are very convenient if you ever need to restore/migrate your install.
That's a lot to learn.
Things are easy or free. Rarely both. :) it’s well worth learning OMV. If you have any questions I’ll try to help!
I have tried few of them but I highly recommend you to try UNRAID. It will introduce you to world of docker containers
I run UnRAID myself as well. I don't need raw performance, just stupid amounts of storage for my data hoard, and being able to slap in whatever disk has the best $:gb whenever I need to expand has been such a nice change.
I do have a SSD pool to run my containers and separate one for drive caching as well.
Do you use SnapRaid?
Hadn't heard of it, seems like it's similar to Unraid, but parity has to be manually syncd whereas UnRAID syncs constantly?
Kinda, but it can accept JBOD and you can add new disks of any size whenever you want without the need to reconstruct everything (things that I think that's necessary with UnRAID, or am I wrong?)
When adding/removing disks you do have to rebuild parity, but it's not the end of the world and it handles it automatically. I run parity checks pretty often anyway (every other week) and it takes the same amount of time.
I just like the Unraid UI and Docker implementation tbh. I used to run everything off Portainer/Compose on my QNAP which was great, but these days I am lazy and having an Update All button is 🤌
Can you add disks of different sizes? With SnapRAID if I put a single disks in a different PC, the data is still readable, is this the same with UnRAID? Thanks for the info!
Yepp exact same as Unraid, I have 3x 18tbs one of which is Parity, and a couple old 4gbs I need to drop but am too lazy to do so 😅. Can add whatever size but the parity drive has to be at least the same size as the largest drive in the pool.
Thanks, I'll check it out!
I like OMV. It's simple and to the point. TrueNAS is far too complicated and robust for basic home use, IMO. It's like driving a tank to work. OMV does the job most people need. Nextcloud is cool but, again, a little to expansive for what I need. I'm not really going to use the included office tools or any of that. I just want remotely available storage. OMV + Tailscale + PiVPN means my backups and stored data are available anywhere, on any device including my phone. Nextcloud streamlines that availability but, again, just too much going on. TrueNAS is an enterprise product and feels like it. Not my cup of tea.