Configuring HDD

[YDS]

Hi. Brand new to Proxmox and to virtualization. So please go easy on me!

I have a box with three HDD - one 250GB, and two 2TB. I have installed PVE to the 250GB drive successfully, and have been able to add VM's and CT's. What I haven't been able to do is find a way to make the two 2TB drives accessible to any of the VM's or CT's. Gone through the forums, and done google searches, but haven't found anything to help me make these drives accessible. In the GUI Storage View, under the disks tab, I can see the two disks.

Are there instructions anywhere that can walk me step by step in setting up these drives so my VM's and CT's can access these drives?

 

[mbaldini]

Those 2 disk are used? They have datas on them that you want to use?

 

[YDS]

They were from a previous server setup when I was playing with RAID. I'm fine blowing away any data on them.

 

[Alwin]

I guess, first you also might want to look at our documentation to see what storage you can go with. You need to setup most of them yourself, on the command line. https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/chapter-pvesm.html

 

[YDS]

I guess, first you also might want to look at our documentation to see what storage you can go with. You need to setup most of them yourself, on the command line. https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/chapter-pvesm.html

Thanks Alwin. I had gone through that page, as well as this one, and admittedly it wasn't totally clear to me. I consider myself somewhat of a system novice (and have never used virtualization servers), though I do kind of know my way around linux (enough to get in trouble, anyway ).

Was hoping there might be a step by step guide somewhere - I learn a lot by following through instructions.

What I'm ultimately trying to achieve in my testing is to have these disks accessible as local storage for Openmediavault, which I would run as a VM. I'd eventually like to set them up in a RAID1 config, but I'll take it in baby steps and learn first how to make them visible to OMV (which is hopefully what I could use to set them up as RAID).

Thanks for the quick response!

 

[Alwin]

One way to do it would be through ZFS (ofc there are others too ). https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/pve-admin-guide.html#_zfs_on_linux
Then you can add it as a storage in the GUI -> Datacenter.

 

[jim.bond.9862]

I figured I drop in my 2 cents worth

#1. there is many way of doing things you want. but you might want. I do have a question though, what are you using OMV for?
if the only reason you use OMV is a file server than using ZFS + bind mount along side with a proxmox File server container from turnKey (it is available on the list of templates in Proxmox ) might be a better option.
OMV is good but it has it's issues when run as VM and disks passthrough is not as easy as I and maybe you would like. very possible but not too easy. if you ok with that. try and set it up. search for Proxmox hdd passthrough to VM you will find tons of info

 

[YDS]

One way to do it would be through ZFS (ofc there are others too ). https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/pve-admin-guide.html#_zfs_on_linux
Then you can add it as a storage in the GUI -> Datacenter.

Thanks Alwin. Currently running PVE on a machine with only 2GB memory (just trying to learn its functionality at this point), so not sure ZFS will work will it?

I figured I drop in my 2 cents worth

#1. there is many way of doing things you want. but you might want. I do have a question though, what are you using OMV for?
if the only reason you use OMV is a file server than using ZFS + bind mount along side with a proxmox File server container from turnKey (it is available on the list of templates in Proxmox ) might be a better option.
OMV is good but it has it's issues when run as VM and disks passthrough is not as easy as I and maybe you would like. very possible but not too easy. if you ok with that. try and set it up. search for Proxmox hdd passthrough to VM you will find tons of info

Again, just trying to learn it at this point. I have OMV setup on another box, and I am fairly familiar with its workings. That's the main reason I set up OMV as my first VM. In addition as acting as a fileserver, my OMV box is currently my Couchpotato/Sickbeard/Sabnzb setup. I know I could set these up on a linux distro VM on PVE, but then I woud have the same disk passthrough issue, no?

 

[jim.bond.9862]

I know I could set these up on a linux distro VM on PVE, but then I woud have the same disk passthrough issue, no?

not exactly, you see if you go with ZFS than you can simply run all of those in LXC container and bind mount the ZFS volume in. also you can connect NFS share and use that for all downloading needs as it would be VM to VM. I have played with PVE turnkey file server container, I like it very much, I also tried a media server container I found on turnkey , needs a little TLC but seams to be very usable.
you are right though, 1GB ram is not enough even for test system play with ZFS. you need at least 2GB and that will not be much if you plan to try run some VM or containers. but if you do want to test drive the setup you need a system that have some resources to it.

 

[YDS]

... you are right though, 1GB ram is not enough even for test system play with ZFS. you need at least 2GB and that will not be much if you plan to try run some VM or containers. but if you do want to test drive the setup you need a system that have some resources to it.

Thanks Jim. I've got a Ryzen 5 1600, AM4 motherboard, and 16GB of DDR4 ram on order. Until that lot shows up, I'll keep playing with PVE to try to learn more. And advice or link to how to get at least one of my 2TB disks provisioned so that a container or VM can see it and interact with it?

 

[jim.bond.9862]

well here are a few links you may want to look at:

https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/proxmox-and-hdd-passthrough.17856/


https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Physical_disk_to_kvm


https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/limit-on-number-of-pass-through-sata-drives.28979/


http://hyperscale.it/kvm-proxmox-add-phisycal-hdd-to-guest.html

all this explains how to pass a physical disk to VM.
it is also possible to pass the whole controller to VM, that is if you have a dedicated disk controller to which you connect the disks you want to manage in VM , you can pass it in to VM.
but it is a bit more involved.

 

[YDS]

Thanks Jim. I'll give those a read through.