This is a question probably better-suited for one of the Proxmox communities. But, I’ll give it a try.

Regarding your concerns about new SSDs and old VM configs: why not upgrade to PVE8 on the existing hardware? This would seem to mitigate your concerns about PVE8 restoring VMs from a PVE7 system. Still, I wouldn’t expect it to be a problem either way.

Not sure about your TrueNAS question. I wouldn’t expect any issues unless a PVE8 installs brings with it a kernel driver change that is relevant to hardware.

Finally, there are several config files that would be good to capture for backup. Proxmox itself doesn’t have a quick list, but this link has one that looks about right: https://www.hungred.com/how-to/list-of-proxmox-important-configuration-files-directory/

Love another iOS option.

Nextcloud Photos performs okay, but the interface is very ‘meh’. Plus, the mobile client’s sync is a little unstable. On iOS, there’s no background sync at all.

This seems the correct advice. If the container is on the same host as the data, there’s no need to access the data via Samba. In fact, it’s likely the container doesn’t contain the samba client needed for such connectivity.

Assuming TrueNAS allows the containers to see local data, a bind mount is the way to go.

This is good stuff. Has it been posted to the project’s GitHub (issue, discussion, etc.)?

Have you considered searching the GitHub issues?

I love how the ONE time they did, all the fears were validated.

IMO, this is a discussion that should be taking place on the project’s GitHub. I’m going to lock the comments so I don’t get any more reports about commenters’ behavior.