Migration Plan

After finishing testing yesterday, I need a plan to migrate data to LXC on Proxmox. The plan is to migrate services gradually, moving them into their own LXCs.

I’ll migrate to LXC containers to make services more resilient. The question is which services belong in VMs versus LXCs—there isn’t a single right answer, and I like iterating on the homelab.

Moving Storage

Since I have an SSD pool on my TrueNAS server, I’ll use that as the main storage for bind mounts. The open question is whether to mount via Docker bind mounts directly, or mount storage inside the LXC and bind paths from there.

Most performance-sensitive I/O can be offloaded to the NAS over a 10 GbE link between the NAS and host. Since it’s all local, latency should be low; the remaining question is when to favor local NVMe versus the NAS.

In the end, I’ll likely split storage: some local, some on the NAS SSD pool. For instance, Immich pictures on the NAS, and Paperless documents on the NAS SSD pool.

CEPH Storage

If I purchase new hardware, I might add U.2 SSDs for Ceph storage to share data across servers and enable fast migrations.

4th Server

I’m considering a 4th node (a Raspberry Pi) to help maintain quorum. It would only exist to keep the cluster online when one node goes down. This may not be necessary if I go with three stronger servers.

Hardware

I’m also looking at preowned hardware from eBay, including EPYC CPUs from China. Folks on r/selfhosted report good results with some of this gear. I know I mentioned the Minisforum MS01 mini PCs; the real question is whether to keep the homelab smaller or go for more reliable, enterprise-grade hardware.

I like the idea of older enterprise gear, but power consumption is a big concern in an apartment.

Concerns

My main concern is storage reliability. Earlier, 4 of 8 SSDs locked up and I had to send them to Samsung for warranty replacement. Since getting them back, things have been stable, so this feels like a good time to migrate.

Power draw is another concern. I only have so much headroom in the apartment, so EPYC builds might be too much—especially if I buy three. The MS01s are far smaller and likely sip less power.

Decision

This post is mostly brainstorming how I’ll implement changes in the homelab. No concrete decisions here—future posts will cover what I choose and why.