Install of proxmox with three drives

[blair.macdonald]

Hi ;

I have a desk top in addition to 2 laptops . I work from home doing support and I am sick of hyper v . That being said I want to use proxmox as ESXI doesn't have the right NIC of course .

I use my desktop for virtual machines .

Desktop profile :
==================================================
OS Name Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
Version 10.0.22000 Build 22000
Other OS Description Not Available
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name DESKTOP-PVUGQJ4
System Manufacturer Acer
System Model Veriton M4660G
System Type x64-based PC
System SKU 0000000000000000
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9700 CPU @ 3.00GHz, 3000 Mhz, 8 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date Acer R01-B3, 10/29/2019
SMBIOS Version 3.2
Embedded Controller Version 1.03
BIOS Mode UEFI
BaseBoard Manufacturer Acer
BaseBoard Product Veriton M4660G(DCH)
BaseBoard Version V:1.0
Platform Role Desktop
Secure Boot State Off
PCR7 Configuration Elevation Required to View
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume5
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "10.0.22000.1"
User Name Not Available
Time Zone Pacific Standard Time
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 32.0 GB
Total Physical Memory 31.9 GB
Available Physical Memory 27.5 GB
Total Virtual Memory 36.6 GB
Available Virtual Memory 32.5 GB
Page File Space 4.75 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys
Kernel DMA Protection Off
Virtualization-based security Running
Virtualization-based security Required Security Properties
Virtualization-based security Available Security Properties Base Virtualization Support, DMA Protection, UEFI Code Readonly, SMM Security Mitigations 1.0, Mode Based Execution Control
Virtualization-based security Services Configured
Virtualization-based security Services Running
Device Encryption Support Elevation Required to View
A hypervisor has been detected. Features required for Hyper-V will not be displayed.
========================================================================

That being said I have 3 drives on my desktop that I use for virtualization.

primary drive - NVME ( 500 gigs )

Western digital SSD drive - 500
Western digital SSD - 1 TB

I currently have windows 11 pro with all my VMs on hyper v and I am ready to vaporize them all . I have primary OS on primary drive - NVME ( 500 gigs ) with some important Vm's on it and less important vms spread across the other two

I have created the installer and found out I had to disable secure boot for it to work and I also found out that rufus doesn't work to make the promox install usb work . You need to use etcher. regardless the installer initiates and runs . I stopped though cause I am not sure about some things

1. Will the installer let me vaporize the partitions and format all the disks or just one ?
2. Do I have dedicate a whole disk to the primary OS despite having space left over ?
3. How can I copy in iso's to use ?
4. What are some good things to read and watch ?

the end result I am looking for is :

• Proxmox installed .
• All space across the 2 tb of combined space I have being completely maximized as I plan to have about 20-30 VMs made of mostly windows 10 pro and server and some linux .

I know these questions are juvenile. I appreciate your patience .

Regards
Blair

 

[Dunuin]

I also found out that rufus doesn't work to make the promox install usb work . You need to use etcher. regardless the installer initiates and runs . I stopped though cause I am not sure about some things

Rufus will work fine but you need to tell Rufus to use write the image in "dd mode".

1. Will the installer let me vaporize the partitions and format all the disks or just one ?

If I remember right it will only touch the disks you install PVE to. You can wipe/format the other disks later after instalaltion.

1. Do I have dedicate a whole disk to the primary OS despite having space left over ?

By default PVE will use 1/4 of your disk as the root file system and whats left will be used as a VM storage (where you really only can store VMs/LXCs and no normal data like ISOs/templates/backups or whatever). You might want to look at the "advanced LVM/ZFS configuration options" in the wiki.

1. How can I copy in iso's to use ?

After installation you got a ISO storage where you can upload ISOs using the WebUI (or just use SSH, WinSCP or whatever you like to copy them over to the folder of that ISO storage).

1. What are some good things to read and watch ?

Looks like you are not going to use any redundancy, so first I would make sure to have automated backups to a NAS or external disk. Or if you got another server it would be a good idea to install the proxmox backup server there.

• All space across the 2 tb of combined space I have being completely maximized as I plan to have about 20-30 VMs made of mostly windows 10 pro and server and some linux .

Not sure if the PVE installer can do that. Sound like you want some kind of JBOD which doesn'T make much sense in my opinion. First you will loose all disks in case a single one of them dies. So you will tripple the chances of a complete failure. And then you would mix NVMe and SATA SSDs so you don't benefit of the fast NVMe. I would just use all 3 disks as individual LVM-thin storages and then spread the VMs across them. If then any of the two non-system SSDs will fail atleast the other VMs will keep running.

BTW: 20-30 Win VMs with just a 8 core CPU sounds a bit heavy.

 

[blair.macdonald]

Thank You for your prompt reply . I installed proxmox successfully on an old laptop that's on its way out before I do anything on my desktop . I have a 680 gb hdd on it and used 20 gb for installation and it created local ( proxmox install ) and a local -lvm ( where vms can be created and stored .)

How would I utilize the rest of the space ( 660 gb )

I believe I need a place to store iso's right ?

I appreciate the help !

PS ; I attached a couple of screen shots to give an idea of what the interface looks like . I think its cool I can launch a shell from the console . I am thinking there are commands I can use to rectify my issue .

 

[Dunuin]

20 GB for you PVE (local) would be fine but not if you plan to put alot of ISOs and so on there. Keep in mind that everything that is not a VM/LXC virtual disk (so for example your ISOs and templates) needs to be stored on that 20GB "local". In general you want to use all space that is left (except for some GB that should be kept free so LVM can use that for snapshotting) for your "local-lvm" to store VMs/LXCs there. But you only told it to use 9GB, so not much space for guests.

 

[blair.macdonald]

So how do I add the unpartitioned space to this scheme . I have 660 gb of it .

Here is what I want to know how to do .

know what partitions I have . (I have three it seems )
what are LVM's ? ( I am assuming storage containers for data . PVE is for the OS and local-LVm ( pve ) is to store vms

The end result I am looking for is :

Have the storage containers I need - I am assuming that is 3 ( PVE for the OS and local-LVm -pve for VMs to be run and stored and one more to store iso's )

And know how to start a VM install .

I did find out how to resize partitions . I used cfdisk and I utilized that to resize a lvm partition to 100 gb from 20 ( proxmox5.png) BUT I don't see that reflected any where else so there is some thing I obviously don't understand .

Thanks

Best Regards
Blair

 

[Dunuin]

know what partitions I have . (I have three it seems )

First one is for your GRUB bootloader in case you use a BIOS mainboard or UEFI with CSM enabled.
Second one is your ESP boot partition in case you got a UEFI mainboard.
Third one is used for your LVM.

what are LVM's ? ( I am assuming storage containers for data .

Wiki: "In Linux, Logical Volume Manager (LVM) is a device mapper framework that provides logical volume management for the Linux kernel."

PVE is for the OS

PVE = Proxmox VE
PBS = Proxmox Backup Server
PMG = Proxmox Mail Gateway

and local-LVm ( pve ) is to store vms

Yes its a logical volume that supports thin-provisioned logical child volumes. So if you create a virtual disk it looks like this:
HDD/SSD -> partition -> LVM -> PV -> VG -> LV-thin -> LV (thin-provisioned block device used as virtual disk) -> partitions and file systems or whatever you do inside your guest

You really should read about LVM first before starting to use it. Makes no sense to talk about LVs, PVs, VGs, LVM-thin and so on if you don't know the terminology and how LVM works.

In general you don't want unprovisioned space. If you know what you are doing thats fine and you can create a additinal LV, extend or shrink a already existing LV, partition and format them using the CLI and store your stuff there. If you don't know how to work with LVM then it would be the easiest to just install PVE again and then don't tell the PVE installer to keep so much space unused.

 

[blair.macdonald]

Fair enough !

I was kinda thinking the same thing . I found a website on LVM and it seems like real light reading (JK) for a sat night . So I am gonna install again and use all the space and try to get a foundation with proxmox .

But yeah that seems to be where my gap is . Linux file systems . How they are constructed , deconstructed and manipulated . This is the direction I need to read up on next .

Regards

Blair

update : Found a good tutorial online

https://linustechtips.com/topic/111...rst-virtual-machine-on-a-secondary-hard-disk/

Gives you the things you need to designate disks for VMs and the advice I was given to utilize all my disk space worked out well . I now have proxmox set up and a couple of vms set . Next is the desktop .