Moving thin pool somewhere else

[tne]

Hello.
I'm testing Proxmox VE and I'm in a bit of a struggle with LVs.
I have a 512GB SSD which holds the system and the default pve VG with its LVs. I have another disk, a 2TB HDD that I'd like to use for VM data. As I understood the thin pool is what holds these data.

I created a partition on the HDD, created a PV on the disk and now I'm not sure of the best way to proceed.
Since it's an HDD and not an SSD, its performance are... lower than the SSD. At first I made a new VG with the intent of creating a specific LV inside. But I don't know if the web interface would allow me to put VM data in that LV.
Then I removed that VG and instead added the PV to the pve VG so that I could extend the thin pool over the new PV. But I stopped here because I worried that the rootfs and swap could overlap on the slower HDD and that is something I don't want (for now).

What would be the best strategy to implement here ?

Thank you in advance.

 

[ph0x]

Your first path was actually quite good. Create an LVM with thin provisioning and add it through the GUI (Datacenter -> Storage).
There you can choose "VM images" to be put there and afterwards you'll have all of Proxmox's possibilities like creating disks on it, moving disks there, etc.

 

[tne]

Thanks for your reply !
I suppose I do need to create a thin pool LV on he PV/VG for the new disk ?

 

[ph0x]

Exactly. When you add the storage, Proxmox will probably suggest the unused LV, or you have to define the path.

 

[tne]

Wonderful ! I'm very grateful. Thanks a lot.

 

[tne]

I must have done something wrong : the new LV isn't proposed for VM drives storage. Only local-lvm is selectable through the VM creation "hard drive" storage combo-box.
Here are the commands I used :

pvcreate --metadatasize 250k -y -ff /dev/sda1
vgcreate vmdata /dev/sda1
lvcreate -L 1.8T -T -c 256K -n vmstore vmdata

And the results :

# pvs
  PV             VG     Fmt  Attr PSize    PFree
  /dev/nvme0n1p3 pve    lvm2 a--  <476.44g <16.00g
  /dev/sda1      vmdata lvm2 a--    <1.82t  18.90g
# vgs
  VG     #PV #LV #SN Attr   VSize    VFree
  pve      1   3   0 wz--n- <476.44g <16.00g
  vmdata   1   1   0 wz--n-   <1.82t  18.90g
# lvs
  LV      VG     Attr       LSize    Pool Origin Data%  Meta%  Move Log Cpy%Sync Convert
  data    pve    twi-a-tz-- <349.31g             0.00   0.48
  root    pve    -wi-ao----   96.00g
  swap    pve    -wi-ao----    8.00g
  vmstore vmdata twi-a-tz--    1.80t             0.00   3.85
# pvdisplay /dev/sda1
  --- Physical volume ---
  PV Name               /dev/sda1
  VG Name               vmdata
  PV Size               <1.82 TiB / not usable <4.07 MiB
  Allocatable           yes
  PE Size               4.00 MiB
  Total PE              476931
  Free PE               4839
  Allocated PE          472092
  PV UUID               fIQZbp-LIpu-IDcF-clUj-LGKX-fWgc-TSOunx
# vgdisplay vmdata
  --- Volume group ---
  VG Name               vmdata
  System ID
  Format                lvm2
  Metadata Areas        1
  Metadata Sequence No  12
  VG Access             read/write
  VG Status             resizable
  MAX LV                0
  Cur LV                1
  Open LV               0
  Max PV                0
  Cur PV                1
  Act PV                1
  VG Size               <1.82 TiB
  PE Size               4.00 MiB
  Total PE              476931
  Alloc PE / Size       472092 / 1.80 TiB
  Free  PE / Size       4839 / 18.90 GiB
  VG UUID               Pkzg94-xAi2-Ovui-hnL3-eFty-LYR9-rvFMQb
# lvdisplay vmdata/vmstore
  --- Logical volume ---
  LV Name                vmstore
  VG Name                vmdata
  LV UUID                ev0HvJ-crjU-u1OI-gRfI-bDPS-ITMX-f4cYrh
  LV Write Access        read/write
  LV Creation host, time tne-pve, 2021-04-07 12:20:14 +0200
  LV Pool metadata       vmstore_tmeta
  LV Pool data           vmstore_tdata
  LV Status              available
  # open                 0
  LV Size                1.80 TiB
  Allocated pool data    0.00%
  Allocated metadata     3.85%
  Current LE             471860
  Segments               1
  Allocation             inherit
  Read ahead sectors     auto
  - currently set to     256
  Block device           253:7

 

[ph0x]

Did you add the LV under Datacenter->Storage? There you can also choose what to put on that storage (VM images in that case).

 

[tne]

Ooops.
My bad ! Sorry...