How to restore qcow2 on PVE 4.2?

[gkovacs]

I have just installed Proxmox VE 4.2 (on ZFS), and tried to restore a few VMs to it (from NFS). Regardless of the fact that all VMs used qcow2 disk format when they were backed up, Proxmox creates ZFS zvols for them, instead of qcow2 files.

Is there any way to restore VMs directly to qcow2 on Proxmox 4.2 ZFS?

Or do I not need qcow2 at all?

 

[wbumiller]

Regardless of the fact that all VMs used qcow2 disk format when they were backed up, Proxmox creates ZFS subvolumes for them, instead of qcow2 files.

When restoring backups you can select the storage to use, and it'll use a format suitable for that storage. For ZFS that's a zvolume.

Is there any way to restore VMs directly to qcow2 on Proxmox 4.2 ZFS?

Either by choosing a directory storage when restoring, or if you already have the VMs restored onto ZFS you can use the GUI's Move Disk button after selecting a disk in the VM's Hardware (or container's Resources) tab.

Or do I not need qcow2 at all?

You don't need it. It's a matter of choice, depending on what kind of features you need.

 

[gkovacs]

You don't need it. It's a matter of choice, depending on what kind of features you need.

Are there any features of qcow2 in a directory that are not supported by the zvol based raw virtual disk?

Also, can I create directory type storage on ZFS?

 

[LnxBil]

Yes, you cannot have a tree-like structure for snapshots and cannot jump from one to another. There are maybe other drawbacks, but this is the biggest one.

 

[LnxBil]

Yet, on the other hand, you also do not have the good parts from ZFS on QCOW2 like send/receive for incremental backups etc.