Hardware requirements
Proxmox can be installed on just about any commodity hardware, but in order to have a stable platform, some attention is required when selecting nodes. A setup selected for Proxmox learning can be underpowered and less expansive. While this setup is acceptable for very small environments and home usage, it will not be adequate for production-level setups where stability and redundancy is the minimum requirement.
Minimum hardware
Here are the minimum requirements to install Proxmox on a hardware node:
- Processor: Intel or AMD 64-bit
- Motherboard: Intel VT or AMD-V capable (not required for OpenVZ)
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Network Interface Card (NIC): 1
Based on the minimum requirement of Proxmox, here are examples of Intel and AMD-based hardware configurations that are suitable for learning:
|
Processor → Requirement ↓ |
Intel |
AMD |
|---|---|---|
|
Processor/CPU |
i3-4160 3.0 GHz |
FX-4300 3.8 GHz |
|
Motherboard |
Asus B85M-D Plus 6 x SATA |
Asus M5A78L-M/USB3 6 x SATA |
|
Memory |
Corsair 1 x 4 GB DDR3 |
Corsair 1 x 4 GB DDR3 |
Recommended hardware
To have a stable performing Proxmox cluster, here are the hardware configurations that are recommended:
- An Intel or AMD 64-bit processor
- An Intel VT or AMD-V capable Dual or Quad CPU motherboard
- 16 GB RAM memory
- Two Network Interface Card (NIC)
- RAID controller with Battery Backup Unit (BBU)
- Solid State Drives (SSD) for operating system or SSD for shared storage node
- Fencing hardware only if HA is needed
Note
For more details on fencing and HA visit https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Fencing.
The following table lists the configurations of a server node that can be used in a production environment:
|
Requirement |
Hardware |
|---|---|
|
Processor/CPU |
Intel Xeon E5-2630 v3 2.4 GHz |
|
Motherboard |
Intel S2600CP2 Dual LGA2011 |
|
Memory |
Kingston 16 GB DDR3 Registered ECC |
|
Power supply |
Redundant |
Note that the example configurations are for reference only. Your requirement will vary depending on the work load and expected performance. Adjust the hardware requirements accordingly by keeping in mind that in a hypervisor more core counts will increase performance of virtual machines rather than higher clock counts of a processor that is used. With a higher core count, more threads can be distributed among processors.
Tip
It is worth mentioning here that it is better to select a CPU with a higher cache amount for a node with large amount of memory to minimize the main memory access and maximize the performance for each CPU cores.
Proxmox is a clustered hypervisor. In order to set up a cluster, a minimum of two nodes are required. For the purpose of following through this book, when selecting hardware, be sure to have enough components to set up two nodes.
Note
For more details on Proxmox, please visit http://www.proxmox.com/.
Although a Proxmox cluster can be set up with just two nodes, a minimum of three nodes are recommended for a production environment.
Note
In a cluster, a quorum is established with a minimum of three votes. Each node is counted as single vote. The cluster health depends on this democratic system where the majority vote wins. So, in a two node cluster, when one node fails the other node can only cast one vote, creating an unresolved situation. With a three node cluster, when one node fails, the total vote from the remaining nodes is two out of possible three votes. Thus, the cluster operation continues. By any means, a two node cluster is not recommended for a production cluster. However, it is still possible to create using instructions by visiting https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Two-Node_High_Availability_Cluster.
