[SOLVED] Creating virtual disk times out

[EllyMae]

I am trying to use the GUI to create a qcow2 virtual disk for PBS. The disk light blinks like it's doing something. But it will time out after less than a minute:





Here is the task log:

update VM 101: -scsi1 usb-12tb:12288,format=qcow2,backup=0
Formatting '/mnt/pve/usb-12tb/images/101/vm-101-disk-0.qcow2', fmt=qcow2 cluster_size=65536 extended_l2=off preallocation=metadata compression_type=zlib size=13194139533312 lazy_refcounts=off refcount_bits=16
TASK ERROR: unable to create image: 'storage-usb-12tb'-locked command timed out - aborting

This storage device is completely idle -- no reason to be locked. How can I fix this?
Thanks

 

[leesteken]

I think your drive is to slow to make a 12TB disk image all as one. Is this SMR connected via USB or a flash memory stick? Try creating a 120GB image first?
Can you please remove your other post asking the same question?

EDIT: Or maybe disk passthrough is a better choice for your scenario?

 

[EllyMae]

I think your drive is to slow to make a 12TB disk image all as one. Is this SMR connected via USB or a flash memory stick? Try creating a 120GB image first?
Can you please remove your other post asking the same question?

EDIT: Or maybe disk passthrough is a better choice for your scenario?

I am sharing this device with other VMs, so pass-through won't work in this case.

It only runs about a minute before timing out. I've been able to do this before, even using the Discard option which takes a while to initialize. Is there any way that I can increase this timeout?

Also, this is all being done to increase the virtual disk size to the max. I have a lot of data that I want to store in it.

I've found it impossible to find definitive information about what recording technology is used. Amazon has this drive, and Q&As consensus is that it is PMR/CMR.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07X4V2M3B

 

[EllyMae]

I think your drive is to slow to make a 12TB disk image all as one. Is this SMR connected via USB or a flash memory stick? Try creating a 120GB image first?
Can you please remove your other post asking the same question?

EDIT: Or maybe disk passthrough is a better choice for your scenario?

I installed a copy of Debian with Cinnamon and a raw uncached virtual disk on this drive for testing. I ran the Disks utility to benchmark it.

With 1000 MiB samples, the read rate is 13 GB/s and the write rate is 19 GB/s. I don't know if that's good or bad. I certainly don't have any gripes about the performance that I experience, though.

 

[Dunuin]

Uncached that disk shouldn't be able to handle more than 200MB/s. Not many GBs per second.
I would alos check if a 12TiB file isn't actually bigger than the filesystem you want to store it on when that disk is only 12TB (not TiB).

 

[EllyMae]

Uncached that disk shouldn't be able to handle more than 200MB/s. Not many GBs per second.
I would alos check if a 12TiB file isn't actually bigger than the filesystem you want to store it on when that disk is only 12TB (not TiB).

Welp, I don't know what to say. It surprised me, too.


scsi0 is the OS, and scsi1 is the test disk.



Here's the hdparm output:



Here's the dd write test:



So I'm still wondering, why am I getting a timeout, and how can I increase the timeout?

 

[EllyMae]

Welp, I don't know what to say. It surprised me, too.

View attachment 42255
scsi0 is the OS, and scsi1 is the test disk.

View attachment 42260

Here's the hdparm output:

View attachment 42263

Here's the dd write test:

View attachment 42264

So I'm still wondering, why am I getting a timeout, and how can I increase the timeout?

I was doing some trial-and-error to see if I could gain any useful information. I do notice that it's only the qcow2 format that has this problem. Raw and vmdk do not. They allocate almost instantaneously.

 

[EllyMae]

Well, that USB drive had a head crash. No more problem.