any use for hard drive partitioning?

[vmbuff]

I'm learning Proxmox. I have 1 node/computer with 2 hard drives. I installed Proxmox on hard drive 1.

Now, my hard drive 1 is around 250GB. Proxmox doesn't take up that much space. So I had tried partitioning the drive so that I can create disks out of the separate partition. However, I can't seem to get this to work meaning Proxmox GUI would not recognize the partition. (maybe I'm doing something wrong).

It seems that in the Proxmox GUI doesn't allow me to create any types of disks (e.g.: LVM, directory, ZFS, etc.) unless I have a completely free physical drive (no partitions) installed in my node. So my hard drive 2 is cleaned out and I create a ZFS on hard drive 2. I am able to upload ISO and create VMs off of hard drive 2. It's my understanding that best practice, VMs should not be installed on the same drive as Proxmox.

Is it accurate that I can't create a disk out of a partitioned space? If so, is there any use for hard drive partitioning?

I'm trying to figure out how to best use my 250GB drive I have used to install Proxmox on since Proxmox doesn't use up all that space.

Thanks.

 

[0xd149e38e]

I use proxmox and vm storage on the same drive, but mine is a datacenter drive. Just imagine 10 VMs/OS use the drive at the same time.

To use your 1st drive e.g. for ISO storage, just create a directory to store the data: mkdir /mydata
datacenter -> storage -> Add -> Directory (click all the content you want)

 

[vmbuff]

Ok thanks good to know.

 

[ph0x]

For every other usage you have to go through the installer again and click on Options during the disk choice menu.
There you can define the maximum size for the root partition (maxroot) as well as lvm thin space for VM images (maxvz).
Partitions already residing on the disk are ignored by the installer, as you already found out.

 

[vmbuff]

ok yes that's what i saw. Thanks for confirming!

 

[guletz]

It's my understanding that best practice, VMs should not be installed on the same drive as Proxmox.

Hi,

It is possible to use the boot Proxmox drive, also for hosting other VM/CT. But is not so well, for example in the case of failure of the boot disk. In such a situation, you lose the Proxmox OS but also ALL of yours VM/CT.
Using separate disks for Proxmox OS, and for VM/CT is much better because you can replace the OS boot disk, reinstall Proxmox, and then you can restore from a backup only your VM/CT configs, and you are back to business in around 30 min .

Good luck / Bafta!

 

[ph0x]

While this is certainly true, you still have to configure the VMs and you're supposed to have backups of your VM images. Therefore there is no real "hard" reason why anyone shouldn't put VM images on the same disks as the system.

 

[guletz]

Therefore there is no real "hard" reason why anyone shouldn't put VM images on the same disks as the system.

The "hard" reason it the down-time! Imagine that you will need to restore maby many TB's of data! This could take many hours. If down-time is not a problem, then maybe "admin work time" is a problem(testing, restore grub/zfs boot let say 2 or 3 times/year)

Good luck / Bafta!

 

[ph0x]

Well in case of many many TB of VM images you're maybe indeed better off with a system disk.

 

[guletz]

 

[alexskysilk]

The "hard" reason it the down-time!

That is certainly true, but the performance and resource contention implications are probably more paramount in having predictable, dependable service. Consider that your path to disk becomes a single bridge between both your host and guests to their storage- if everyone is trying to get at the other side at the same time...

 

[0xd149e38e]

I currently use a NVME for both OS and VM. Backups are done automatically to my zfs HDD pool in the same box.
My use case is a homelab. One option would be to use raid1 with 2 NVMEs.

Splitting OS and VM would require twice the PCIe lanes. This might be worth it, depending on your use case.

Proxmox offers a lot of options, for all use cases from homelab to business clusters with HA.
We should mention our use cases more often, for others to be able make a good decision.