What were the issues you had with Clover in particular? I’d be interested to hear since I’m trying to head down that path myself.

For your “remap” can you explain what you did/have an example? I think this might give me the knowledge I’m lacking since I think part of my problem is not understanding which partition/PARTUUID is the Proxmox boot/what I should point Clover at.

Prior to doing the Proxmox install, and prior to the PCIe bifurcation, I still was unable to see the drives directly in iDRAC/bios. What I’ve read online is Dell does this for “reasons” and they happen to sell an add-on card to let you directly access NVMe from PCIe.

While I’m not ruling out the ZFS mirror issue, I don’t think it’s the cause of my problem considering both Clover and the Proxmox install debug can see the drives/partitions. I just don’t understand partition/device/boot structures and processes enough to make sense of what I’m seeing in the blkid/preboot results.

Trying to find information about it online just gets me bad guides about making partitions. The Linux docs for blkid and fdisk also don’t seem to have the explanation of the results, just the arguments for the commands.

The server has 24x 2.5" bays. I have an old SSD drive that I figure I could use as a last resort to be the Proxmox boot drive and then just use the NVMe’s as storage.

I was just hoping to have the Proxmox install/configuration in the NVMe RAID1 just for some minor safety in case a drive dies. From what I’ve read, this should be possible. I’m just lacking the knowledge to know what I’ve done wrong. (Mostly my lack of understanding the blkid results.)

I don’t think the bifurcation is causing me issues. Before I enabled it, I wasn’t able to see the drives from iDRAC/Bios. From what I’ve been able to research, this is expected and Dell sells the “solution” to booting directly from them. (Add-in card that’s pretty pricey…)

I do have an old SATA SSD that I’m considering slotting into one of the bays and using to boot. But I see that as a “last resort” option. I was hoping to have a bit of redundancy with the Proxmox install/configuration itself.

I feel that there’s a solution to the current setup and I just lack the knowledge to fix it. Everything I’ve been able to find points to my current setup being able to work. I’m just being hindered by not understanding partition/device/boot structure.

From what I understand, and what I saw during the Proxmox installation, if I can get past whatever part of the POST/boot process is preventing seeing the drives directly, I can use Clover to bootload from there. I’ve been able to boot into Clover just fine, and it was able to “see” the drives and partitions. I just don’t know which one should hold the Proxmox boot and if I’ve configured the Clover config correct.

Thank you for posting this with the explanations and great visuals! I am wanting to upgrade to a setup almost identical to this and you’ve basically given me the bill of materials and task list.

Anything you wish you had done differently or suggest changing/upgrading before I think about putting something similar together?

Any way you could update/create your own drawing with what you mean? (Bad paint drawings are acceptable!)

I ask because I am curious if I am subject to the same problem. I’m not the most networking savvy so I need the extra help/explanation and maybe the drawing will help others.