minisforum ms-02 ultra, ms-03 using proxmox ve for vms? Hi all, Been looking at next potential upgrade for my existing HPE Microserver and the new microserver is quiet expensive and also vmware now requires license as opposed to free...

[kev2021]

Hi all,

Been looking at next potential upgrade for my existing HPE Microserver and the new microserver is quiet expensive and also vmware now requires license as opposed to free version so looing at alternatives and came across the minisforum 02 ultra – looks pretty good, can have max 256GB ram so plenty for VMs and using proxmox is seems doesn’t need a hardware raid like esxi so that’s approx. £300 saved on a raid card if don’t go HPE microserver.  The MS-03 is also not to0 bad smaller and max memory is 128gb better than my current microserver gen 10 at max 32GB.

Just wondering if anyone has used one or has used proxmo ve and knows if any good? I’m hoping if I switch to this, it will mean the hardware last longer as with vmware previously, the microserver gen 8 which i got was ok but when vmware release new esxi, it didn’t work on gen 8 so hence got gen 10 so gets a bit costly whereas I’m hoping ms-02 ultra or ms-03 hardware will last and take any updates to proxmox ve ok and hence will get a good few years out of it as the spec seems pretty good, albeit can get expensive.  Biggest issue atm is getting the ram as thats very very costly but considering options, and hoping ram prices come down at some point :)

Have never used proxmox ve but it seems very popular with home labs etc so hoping I can easily migrate my existing VMs over to proxmox ve and the minisforum takes NVMe’s so although again bit pricey to buy, they will be much faster than the current 3.5″ SATA drives I have the VMS on, even though the OS is on a 2.5″ SSD.

Am also wondering if maybe they will produce a ms-03 ultra :)  The ms-02 ultra is only really in the running for the 256 max ram and NVME slots, the additional 10/2.5 nics are nice but I’d not really get much benefit I don’t think as even though my router has 1 2.5gb port, my switch is all 1gb max but as I’m using it for transferring large files around to it, its mainly a client connecting to a DB.  Hopefully deploying a OS/apps will be quicker too if I get that running again as it was pretty slow tbh so I gave up with it after a while, think mainly due to ram shortage and also nic speed seems slow for some reason.

Thanks

Kev

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[UK Sentinel]

I don’t have any of the Minisforum gear myself or experience, but I did a few quick checks online after seeing your post, and the MS‑02 Ultra and MS‑03 do seem to get a fair bit of positive attention in home‑lab circles. The big selling point appears to be the RAM capacity, the MS‑02 Ultra going up to 256 GB and the MS‑03 up to 128 GB is a massive step up from the Microserver Gen10’s 32 GB limit.

From what I’ve read, Proxmox VE is very popular and much more flexible than ESXi when it comes to hardware support. That should help avoid the usual VMware situation where older Microservers suddenly stop being supported after an ESXi update. Proxmox also doesn’t need a hardware RAID card, which could save a decent chunk of money if you’re moving away from the HPE setup.

The Minisforum boxes supporting NVMe storage looks like a nice upgrade too, definitely quicker than 3.5″ SATA drives for VM workloads. The extra 10 GbE / 2.5 GbE ports on the MS‑02 Ultra look good, but unless your switch is faster than 1 Gb, you probably wouldn’t notice much difference day‑to‑day.

RAM prices seem to be the biggest downside at the moment, but hopefully they’ll settle over time. Wouldn’t surprise me if Minisforum eventually release an MS‑03 Ultra as well.

Overall, based on the reviews I’ve seen online, Proxmox VE seems well‑liked and the Minisforum hardware looks like a solid option if you’re after something with more headroom than the Microserver/ESXi route.

FYI- Minisforum isn’t more popular in business than say VMware. VMware is still the standard in most companies. Minisforum is mainly popular in home labs and learning setups, which actually makes it a good option if looking to build new skills or try something more flexible like Proxmox.

 

In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom (J.G.Ballard).

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[kev2021]

Thanks, Yes, i believe VMWare is still popular in business but they have the advantange of more cash and can write some of the tax off etc.  HPE Microservers used to be a good relatively cheap way to get a home server setup with VMWare but now seeing the price of the servers has goe up significantly and now vmware stopped the free version, many people have looked at alternatives and I’m thinking this is the better way to go now than sticking with HPE Microserver as when a new version of vmware comes out, it will likely be unsupported on microserver gen 11 and so the circle begins whereas with proxmox VE, its free, and it seems to be more of a long term solution in terms up probably just updating proxmox ve to latest version on existing hardware to get support for a new windows version.  The gen 10 for example doesn’t have TMP2.0 and the version I have of esxi doesn’t support win11.  I believe proxmox doesn’t have these limitations.

The price isn’t overly cheap for the minisforum ms-02 ultra or the ms-03 but I believe I would get longer use out of it before I get constrained by limitations both in terms of ram and also in terms of VM OS I can created.  I believe my existing Esxi doesn’t support win 11 and also not the server 2025, i think 2022 is last server OS its supports. Whereas minisforum hardware wouldn’t restrict the use, if anything just software upgrade of proxmox and I’m good to go. Also like you said, no hardware raid needed.  Albeit it only supports I think 3 NVMe’s. I guess I’d have to setup the Proxom VE on 1 NVME and setup my VMs on the other NVMEs and have them mirrors to have some redundancy due to drive failure.

I also believe Proxe VE has a backup software but I’ve not looked into it fully to see if that is free or paid.  I think I read the free version just backs up whole VM whereas paid does incremental or maybe differential so its a smaller backup after first main backup. I have a NAS I could potentially back up to if it allows that and is compatible etc but that too has a space limit so I don’t want to do full backups every week etc as would take too long to backup multiple VMs and would use a high amount of space.

Definitely considering it but at the moment its too price as 256GB of ram I believe is over £1k, the ms-02 I think is just over £1k and then I got the NVMe’s of which I’d have to have min 2 x 2TB NVMe’s and prob 1TB NVMe for Proxmox VE to allow for upgrades, any addons I later find, maybe even storing ISO files so can deploy a VM from the IOS when creating new etc. so I’m prob looking at £3-4k all in as a guess?

They are selling the ms02-ultra with Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX (192GB ECC + 2TB SSD): £2,679 as an example so not even 256Gb ram.

Kev

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[UK Sentinel]

I’m not sure you’d necessarily need three NVMe drives though. If the main reason for the MS-02 Ultra is the extra RAM and faster NVMe storage for the VMs, I’d probably keep the storage setup as simple as possible initially.

You could run Proxmox and the VMs from the same NVMe storage, and then look at mirroring the VM storage if you want redundancy. That would save you having to buy a separate 1TB NVMe just for Proxmox, especially given how expensive the RAM and drives are already.

You could always add another drive later if you find you need the extra storage. I’d definitely have a look at the different Proxmox storage options before spending the extra money on a third NVMe.

 

In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom (J.G.Ballard).

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[kev2021]

Yes, I was thinking more keep the OS drive separate so if there was a issue such as a failed upgrade or something, I could wipe it, re-install then just add back the VMs from the other drives was my thinking.

Kev

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