No usigng RAID after install V8

cdsJerry

Renowned Member
Sep 12, 2011
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I did a new install of V8.0.3 and was getting ready to copy my VMs over to the server when I realized my 25TB Raid drive isn't correct. What do I need to do to allow Proxmox to use that space?
Screenshot 2023-08-02 105914.png
 
There are many possibilities, do you have any thoughts on what You want to do with the space?


Blockbridge : Ultra low latency all-NVME shared storage for Proxmox - https://www.blockbridge.com/proxmox
I'll be filling that space with VMs and backups. Mostly VMs. I'm not using NAS for my live VMs but I do store a backup taken a few times a day on the same drive as the VM. In the evening I'm storing backups on the NAS drives. So to answer your question, I want to use the 25GB for the live VMs.
 
I'll be filling that space with VMs and backups. Mostly VMs. I'm not using NAS for my live VMs but I do store a backup taken a few times a day on the same drive as the VM. In the evening I'm storing backups on the NAS drives. So to answer your question, I want to use the 25GB for the live VMs.
The list of supported storage options is located here https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Storage
You can use "shared=no" as a filter, as shared=yes are not suitable for you.
Keep in mind one of the more popular options - ZFS is strongly discouraged with any sort of RAID.

Take a look at the page, what each option allows or what the limitations are.


Blockbridge : Ultra low latency all-NVME shared storage for Proxmox - https://www.blockbridge.com/proxmox
 
I use QEMU so I don't think the ZFS is an issue for me (it's never been a problem on my old server). I'm running almost all Windows VMs and I understand they work better with QEMU 2cows anyway.

What I don't understand is why the 25TB drive only shows up as 264GB of space in Proxmox. The local-lvm-Thin reports only 264 GB in size. How can I access the rest of that drive space?

I'd love to run the VMs on a shared NAS so I could build a cluster but the budget just doesn't allow for a new NAS with enough capacity and speed. I know I lose the ability to migrate to this server without down time but I have to work with the budget and resources I have.
 
I use QEMU so I don't think the ZFS is an issue for me
there is a very loose, if any, relationship between the two technologies, so the conclusion is not valid.

my 25TB Raid drive
I don't think the ZFS is an issue
https://serverfault.com/questions/545252/zfs-best-practices-with-hardware-raid

What I don't understand is why the 25TB drive only shows up as 264GB of space in Proxmox. The local-lvm-Thin reports only 264 GB in size. How can I access the rest of that drive space?
You have a root disk, that root disk is SDA and is 380G. As you can see in the screenshot the helpful ASCII tree shows you the branches coming from SDA - those all belong to SDA. The 264G partition is part of SDA, ie a slice of 380G

Under SDA you can find SDB. It shows that SDB is 25TB and is unused.

How can I access the rest of that drive space?
You can use that space by : creating and LVM type storage, creating directory type storage which requires partitioning and formatting, or BTRFS.



Blockbridge : Ultra low latency all-NVME shared storage for Proxmox - https://www.blockbridge.com/proxmox
 
You can use that space by : creating and LVM type storage, creating directory type storage which requires partitioning and formatting, or BTRFS.



On the page you sent me to it says "We highly recommend to use a hardware RAID controller (with BBU) for such setups. This increases performance, provides redundancy, and make disk replacements easier (hot-pluggable)." so I'm not sure why you said earlier that it's discouraged. It looks like it's encouraged.

I followed the guide on "creating and LVM type storage" link above but I have a question. I'm not very good at Linux but in the section called "Creating an extra LV for /var/lib/vz" it says "be sure that /var/lib/vz is empty. On a default installation it’s not." So if it's not empty by default what am I supposed to do with the contents? Do I just delete anything in there? And it goes on to give a modification to make sure it's always accessible but if I have to empty it.. what's accessible?

Also a novice question. The instructions say:
"This can be easily done by creating a new thin LV.
# lvcreate -n <Name> -V <Size[M,G,T]> <VG>/<LVThin_pool>"
How exact should the size be in the command? The lsblk command shows my nearly created sdb1 derive to be 25.5T, or should I round it down to 25T in size so would my command line be:
# lvcreate -n vz -v 25.5 TB pve/vmraid where vmraid is the name of the volume group?

Later in the instructions it also lists <size> as part of the command line. I assume I use the same size as in the command above. But later they list size 80G. Is that just an example size or does it need to be hard set to that size for a reason? Again... I'm a novice at Linux. I'm learning, but I have a long way to go.
 
here is a guide that provides the simplest way for you to move forward:
https://www.diytechguru.com/2020/12/12/create-lvm-storage-in-proxmox/


Blockbridge : Ultra low latency all-NVME shared storage for Proxmox - https://www.blockbridge.com/proxmox
Thanks. Working my way through that now having already done some of those steps from the earlier page reference.

Question: in step 4 it has me creating a volume group. Do I still need to do that step even if I'm just adding a single drive or do I just skip this step in this case?

And follow up question.. if I skip this stop and then look at the Disks menu under pve it shows the 28 TB partition as LVM, but nothing shows on the left with the other drives. Not sure if it's because I need to make that single disk "group" or not.

New Screenshot 2023-08-02 134938.png
 
On the page you sent me to it says "We highly recommend to use a hardware RAID controller (with BBU) for such setups. This increases performance, provides redundancy, and make disk replacements easier (hot-pluggable)." so I'm not sure why you said earlier that it's discouraged. It looks like it's encouraged.
No, the page you are referring to is about LVM. Your initial question that involved RAID was about ZFS.

So if it's not empty by default what am I supposed to do with the contents?
If you treasure it - move it aside, then move it back. If you dont care about it - trash it.

How exact should the size be in the command?
Its really up to you. Whatever you want.

But later they list size 80G. Is that just an example size or does it need to be hard set to that size for a reason
The article is discussing creating a thin LVM pool that you may use for VM image storage that is BLOCK based, as opposed to qcow FILE based.

Question: in step 4 it has me creating a volume group.
If you want to use LVM you need a physical volume with volume group with logical volumes.

My recommendation to you - read the guides carefully, try to understand them. Search internet for "lvm for beginners". Dont be afraid to experiment.

good luck


Blockbridge : Ultra low latency all-NVME shared storage for Proxmox - https://www.blockbridge.com/proxmox
 
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No, the page you are referring to is about LVM. Your initial question that involved RAID was about ZFS.


If you treasure it - move it aside, then move it back. If you dont care about it - trash it.


Its really up to you. Whatever you want.


The article is discussing creating a thin LVM pool that you may use for VM image storage that is BLOCK based, as opposed to qcow FILE based.


If you want to use LVM you need a physical volume with volume group with logical volumes.

My recommendation to you - read the guides carefully, try to understand them. Search internet for "lvm for beginners". Dont be afraid to experiment.

good luck


Blockbridge : Ultra low latency all-NVME shared storage for Proxmox - https://www.blockbridge.com/proxmox
Success! I I added the physical drive to the Datacenter Storage and set it as an LVM. It now shows up with the other drives.

Funny.. this is about the 15th time I've set up Proxmox on a machine and I've had more trouble this time than all the other times combined. I don't recall going through many of these steps in the past. And I have no idea why the server I've used for a long time won't run the graphical installation from the ISO, or why it shows up as "partially installed" when running it from the advanced option and then won't see any NFS drives no matter what I did. I love Proxmox but this install has been challenging.

And I just noticed I'm now getting an error in the task menu. Will it never end? <sigh>
TASK ERROR: command 'apt-get update' failed: exit code 100

It looks like it switched itself back to the enterprise repository instead of keeping the changes to the no-subscription. I have a license on my active machine but have been holding off on this one until I have some confidence that it's actually right. Rather annoying that it's changing itself.
 

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