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Hi, I have a NUC 5i5ryh with 16gb ram and 250gb ssd.

I have some programs that need windows machine as their server (data files, sql etc). So I have to build a machine that will be on 24/7.
I was thinking if instead of a bare metal install, if I could install a virtual machine it would be far better and let me utilize the machine completely.

Few queries -
1) Is it a good idea to build a Proxmox based server?
2) Will this Windows VM be able to connect to network with a separate IP address? (one of these apps might need it, so if it does then i think it works like a 100% copy of bare metal machine and wont cause future issues.) . Plus I can take copies of the virtual machine and incase of any issue, just restore it, update apps to latest version, and restore data files.
3) How is the performance of Windows 10 on VM? Or should I go with windows 7 (I can easily as these softares work well currently on win 7machine too.)
4) What other stuff can I install? I know proxmox can do direct containers, but I was thinking perhaps I can have a Ubuntu VM with containers for different docker images.
5) I also want a local Nginx based VMs as local hosting for development. ( Ubuntu server running nginx based stack). Need disposable ones so I can try stuff and experiment. I dont mind moving to bigger ssd later for this.
6) I have a tomato based router so is there some config required on that end to give LAN ip address to VMs ? Will I need usb lan adapters? My whole network is 1Gbps.
7) Can i install high capacity USB drives for data storage if I decide to have a VM run some NAS software?

If anyone can help me get started and point me in the right direction, I'd be very thankful!
 
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I found the answers to most of these questions.

1) Proxmox bridges the network and the VM gets a unique IP on the network. (zero configuration)
2) I can share both cores (2 cores or 4 threads) and get full juice out of it even if same cores are shared by other VMs, as most idle all the time.
3) Windows performs well with GPU passthrough. Getting GPU passthrough is hard af.
4) I can also share full ram, but most OS will end up using it for caching, hence oversharing ram isnt a good idea unless you can somehow restrict ram caching in the VMs.
 
Im checking out some other interesting alternatives
1) Windows 10 LTSC (No extra windows crap, rare updates. under 1gb ram usage)
2) Server 2019 (No extra windows crap, rare updates, under 1gb ram usage, interesting new web interface to monitor it)
3) Server 2016 (Older, stable, just checking it out)
4) Windows 7 (Updated till 2020, with usb3 drivers etc under 500MB ram usage.)
 
Im back to getting this done, this time with a Quad core 8th gen NUC ( NUC8i5BEH). Anyone has experience with Proxmox 7 ?

@superczar - I saw a few threads where you posted about Proxmox.. Any suggestions..
 
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