Proxmox Host migration and cold fallback server

Computer Hardware & Server Infrastructure Builds
1

I have two NUCs and one is currently set up as my Proxmox server. It is currently only doing normal backups itself to my NAS, no PBS.

There is a need to do some physical maintenance on the current Proxmox server so I need to set up the 2nd NUC to cover for that down time. But also later to have one as a cold backup.

My thinking for the first part is if it is possible with the free version of Proxmox, install Proxmox on the 2nd NUC add it to the Cluster and move the nodes to that Host. Then I can take the primary NUC down.

I have a few questions:

  1. is this possible in the Free version and is my thinking right?
  2. How do I copy the configuration from my current NUC to the 2nd one, e.g. NIC, backup? They are identical devices.
  3. Once the physical maintenance has been completed how do I then setup a cold spare?

A side question, would it be worth investigating installing PBS on my QNAP NAS as a container to support this installation?

1 Like
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First, yes the free version will work. Second because it does not sound like you are keeping them as a cluster I would not join them. Instead load the second NUC with Proxmox, then load the Proxmox Datacenter manager and you can use that to migrate the VM’s from one to another.

Having a standalone Proxmox backup server is a good idea, if your QNAP can support it that would be a reasonable choice.

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“Cluster” may have been the wrong word, I would put them into the same “Datacenter”.

Where would I install that and is it free?

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you just install proxmox on the second nuc use the web ui to pull the vms over you dont need a full cluster just add the host to the same datacenter view it works in the free edition but you’ll need shared storage or export import the disks tbh it’s simpler than a cluster